Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/248

210 emperors reside in this palace no longer. But the Louvre fulfils a higher and nobler destiny, and contains the richest and most magnificent collection of art treasures in the world. The picture galleries are on the upper floor, and I walked for hours and hours through the ornamental galleries, the walls of which were hung with the finest productions of the greatest painters that the world has produced. There is a profusion of pictures by Rubens, while Van Dyke and the other Flemish and Dutch masters are not unrepresented. Further on are the productions of Murillo and the Spanish masters and then come Leonardi di Vinci and Titien and Raphael and the other immortal painters of Italy. The world renowned painting of Leonardi,—the last supper of Christ—is here. But the Salon Carrè is the most important room in the Louvre. Raphael's celebrated Holy Family and the Belle Jardiniere and St. Michael overcoming the enemy distinguish these walls. Murillo's Immaculate Conception which every lover of painting has admired in copy or photograph, was purchased for the Louvre for £24,000, and is here. Paul Veronese is represented in large canvas,—his marriage at Cana is the largest picture in the Louvre, Corregio's Jupiter and Antiope, Titien's Entombment and La Maitresse and several productions of Leonardi Da Vinci adorn the walls of the Salon Carrè.

Then comes the fine gallery of Apollo beautifully ornamented and decorated, and then a succession of other rooms where the French school is represented.