ATLANTA, GA.- In October 2006, the High Museum of Art will launch an unprecedented, three-year partnership with the Musée du Louvre that will bring hundreds of works of art from Paris to Atlanta. Through the “Louvre Atlanta” partnership, the High will present a series of long-term, thematic exhibitions featuring masterworks from the Louvre’s collections, many of which have never been seen before in the United States. Lead patronage for the project has been provided by longtime High Museum Board Member Anne Cox Chambers, who is joined by Accenture as Presenting Partner, and UPS, Turner Broadcasting Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Airlines and AXA Art Insurance as Lead Corporate Partners.

The central exhibition of the first year, “Kings as Collectors,” will feature 3works assembled during the reigns of Kings Louis XIV and Louis XVI, including two very special masterpieces from the Louvre’s collection—Raphael’s “Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione” and Nicolas Poussin’s “Et in Arcadia Ego.” The exhibition will be on view from October 14, 2006 through September 2, 2007 in the High’s new Anne Cox Chambers Wing, which will be devoted exclusively to “Louvre Atlanta” for the entire three-year partnership.

Two shorter focus exhibitions featuring drawings and decorative items from the royal collections will complement “Kings as Collectors” with consecutive presentations throughout the year. On view concurrently with “Kings as Collectors” through January 28, 2007, “The King’s Drawings” will bring together approximately 60 works from the Louvre’s extensive holdings to become one of the most significant exhibitions of old master drawings ever mounted in the Southeastern United States. More than two thirds of these works have never been exhibited in the United States. From March 3, 2007 through September 2, 2007, “Decorative Arts of the Kings” will showcase luxury items manufactured for the Royal Families and their court—none of which, according to the Louvre’s records, have traveled to the United States since they entered the Louvre’s collection.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity to share many remarkable masterpieces from the Louvre with audiences from throughout the Southeast,” said Michael E. Shapiro, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director of the High Museum of Art. “The ‘Louvre Atlanta’ collaboration continues the High’s longstanding strategy of partnering with international institutions to bring the world’s great art to Atlanta. The project will allow both the Louvre and the High to grow educational initiatives both inside and beyond museum walls, to deepen the visitor experience, and to advance scholarship and professional development.”

In addition to long-term thematic exhibitions, a significant component of “Louvre Atlanta” will be educational, curatorial and strategic exchanges. The collaboration will encompass the joint development of educational programs, publications, symposia and films exploring exhibitions and related themes. The first educational exchange occurred in January 2006, when a group of students from North Atlanta High School traveled to Paris to visit the Louvre and live with French families. French students will travel to Atlanta to learn about the High’s collection when the “Louvre Atlanta” opens in October 2006.

“This is a great opportunity for the Louvre to develop international collaborations with art institutions in new cities like Atlanta,” said Henri Loyrette, President/Director of the Musée du Louvre. “The High Museum brings a level of national stature and experience to this partnership that will benefit the Louvre. We have much to learn from one another and look forward to a mutually beneficial exchange of art and ideas.”

The “Louvre Atlanta” partnership grew out of a longstanding friendship and history of exchange between Michael Shapiro and Henri Loyrette. The two had collaborated previously on the High’s presentations of “Impressionism: Paintings Collected by European Museums” in 1999, and “Paris in the Age of Impressionism: Masterworks from the Musée d’Orsay” in 2002.

“Louvre Atlanta” Year One Exhibitions - Over the course of the three-year partnership, “Louvre Atlanta” will trace the history and development of the Louvre from the 17th century through the present. The three exhibitions in year one will focus on the genesis of the royal collection of the pre-Revolutionary Régime—the works collected by the Kings before the Louvre was converted from a palace to a museum during the late 18th century and that make up the heart of the Louvre’s collections. The central exhibition, “Kings as Collectors,” will be composed primarily of paintings, sculptures and antiquities from the collections of Kings Louis XIV and Louis XVI—the two most important collectors of the 17th and 18th centuries. “Kings as Collectors” will feature paintings by Raphael, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Murillo and Poussin, among others, as well as a group of sculptures that allow for a better understanding of Louis XIV’s dual role as collector and patron.

At the center of the exhibition will be a special presentation of Raphael’s “Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione,” one of the top treasures from the Louvre’s permanent collection. On view October 14, 2006 through January 28, 2007, the portrait has never left Paris to travel to the United States according to the Louvre’s records. Admired over the years by art historians and artists alike—including Rembrandt and Rubens who produced their own studies of the painting—Raphael’s portrait of the famous humanist embodies the same ideals of casual grace, or sprezzatura, that Castiglione himself advocated in his famous work, “The Book of the Courtier.” Only one undisputed portrait by Raphael can be found in the United States, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. On October 7, 2006, the High will host “Raphael, Castiglione and European Court Culture,” a day-long interdisciplinary symposium that will include discussion by internationally recognized scholars on Italian Renaissance art and the art of Raphael.

Raphael’s portrait will be replaced by another Louvre treasure, Nicolas Poussin’s “Et in Arcadia Ego.” Recalling the works of Raphael and the Renaissance masters in subject matter and style, Poussin’s masterpiece is considered to be the defining example of French classicism.

Opening concurrently with “Kings as Collectors” on October 14, 2006, is the first focus exhibition of year one, “The King’s Drawings,” which will provide an overview of the formation of the royal drawing collection assembled during the reigns of Kings Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI. On view through January 28, 2007, the exhibition will showcase masterworks from major early private collections, such as Eberhard Jabach and Pierre-Jean Mariette, which entered the royal collections in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as works by major French artists who served the crown, such as Le Brun, Boel, Mignard and Coypel. Other featured artists will include Grünwald, Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens and Watteau. A highlight of the exhibition is Raphael’s “Head of an Angel,” which was a study for the famous Vatican fresco “The Expulsion of Heliodorus.”

The second focus exhibition of the first year is “Decorative Arts of the Kings,” on view March 3, 2007 through September 2, 2007. The exhibition will feature decorative arts commissioned for the courts of Kings Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI, and will explore works that convey the royal and