Art-seeking tourists can cancel their tickets to Paris now that The Louvre and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have struck a deal to allow for open sharing and collaborative exhibitions between their two collections.
The agreement, which they're calling an "accord" because it sounds fancier, came about during negotiations for the "Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette" exhibition that opens at the Legion of Honor this weekend and runs until March. According to the New York Times, the partnership deal lasts for five years and allows the Paris of the West to get some of the works of art normally kept locked up in the Paris of France. Likewise, works from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco — which includes the the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park — will be made available for exhibitions at the Louvre.
The actual items that will be loaned between the two will be decided by a committee of representatives from both the Louvre and FAMSF and could include "antiquities, paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, drawings and textiles." So, we don't know exactly which famous works from the Louvre will be coming stateside just yet, but who wouldn't want to queue up in Golden Gate Park to see the Mona Lisa?
