Modern antiques at the Louvre

Today, with 15 alumni members of the University I visited the Salle du Manège.
One could think the post title refers to the group I lead to the museum this morning and not the topic of the visit, but no...
As a matter of fact, one retired research engineer is still volunteering at the University analyzing marble samples for the Louvre. He arranged a private tour where I learned (along with 165 alumni) about how collectors of the modern era (read : renaissance) used to arrange, redo, restore Greek, Roman or Egyptian statues...The pieces we saw had "original" bodies with "recently" made heads (or legs, arms, feet, decor...), or "original" heads (or legs, arms, feet, decor...) but coming from totally different pieces of art... Analyzing the marble enables the art historian to prove that a piece is not what it used to be. This way one can also tell the story of how a former minister used to buy antiques from a dealer who had them made recently.
Yet, those are not fakes, they represent history and the vision one era had of a former time and ancient civilizations.
One of the statues was bought from a foreign old empire for Versailles. It is antique, but pieces were missing and the official sculptor at Louis the XIV's court "finished" it. The country where the former empire used to be wants it back. The guide argued that such pieces represent as much a historical time for the foreign country as it does for what Versailles used to be... The same way he argued that the Venus de Milo is important because of what it represented when France acquired it rather than being important for its artistic value (it is beautiful indeed, but if you look closely in the museum you can find better)...
It was a different view of the collections in the Louvre ; It was fascinating.

and now for some pictures... because it was also fun to play with the camera and the statues.