The latest exhibit at the Louvre Museum is a show of comedy and satire from the early 17th century

The Louvre Museum – or Musée du Louvre – in Paris, France, is home to genius, methodical and one of a kind works of art from various centuries. 

Around the world and through history, painters, sculptors, architects and other artists have been celebrated for their breakthrough techniques in the famous Louvre Museum in “The City of Love.”

Visitors from all over the globe gather at the Louvre, the largest and most popular museum in the world, to appreciate masterpieces from internationally reputed, largely unknown and anonymous artists. In 2022 alone, 7.73 million visitors visited the Louvre, according to Statista.

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The Mona Lisa by Leonardo de Vinci is the most well-known piece of art gracing the walls of the Louvre, but there is no shortage of masterpieces in the museum.

The newest addition to the palace of art is Claude Gillot, draughtsman and satirical artist in the last years of the Grand Siècle. Gillot was born in 1673 and died in 1722 in Paris. The exhibit “Claude Gillot – Comedies, fables & arabesques” will be on display until the end of February 2024.

“Gillot is known for the inventiveness and originality of his works, heralding the freedom of expression and mores of the Régence period (1715–1723),” reads the Louvre website.

Ticket holders can appreciate illustrations, engravings and drawings by Gillot. The artist often used pen, red, black and brown ink and watercolor for his pieces. Some are etched atop graphite and most of them appear on laid paper.

Gillot was a French artist, etcher and costume and set designer for the Paris Opera and his art reflected his muse, the theater. It is widely known that he devoted himself to satire. One of his well-known pieces is the etching titled “Witches’ Sabbath,” which depicts nude dancers, human-like figures with animal heads, including pigs, and a horse with a beast’s head.

The figures drawn throughout his artwork are covered in performance-wear, including long stockings, elaborate costumes and funky headdresses atop 17th-century hairstyles.

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The Louvre site says of the artist, “At the core of his work, a rich corpus of drawings illustrates his penchant for the comedy of the Comédie Italienne (Italian companies performing in France), with its pantomimes, acrobatics and cross-dressing figures.”

Though not presently on display, other museums around the globe have featured Gillot’s artwork, too. 

The National Gallery of Art, Morgan Library & Museum, the Royal Library of Belgium, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) have included various Gillot pieces such as “Figures in Theatrical Costumes,” “Harlequin Espirit Follet: The Comedian’s Repast,” “Scene from ‘The Tomb of Master André” and more.

The Louvre connects art enthusiasts with historical and culturally relevant artwork. The museum has carried ageless artwork, including such creators as Leonardo da Vinci, Eugène Delacroix, Michelango, Jacques-Louis David and more.