Paris (AFP)
The exhibition dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci at the Louvre museum gathered nearly 1.1 million visitors, the Paris museum announced on Tuesday.
"At its closing Monday, February 24, 2020 in the evening, the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition welcomed 1,071,840 visitors. This is an absolute record for the Louvre, the last being that of the retrospective devoted to Delacroix in 2018, which had attracted 540,000 visitors, "the museum welcomes in a press release.
"It is wonderful that 500 years after his death, an artist of the Italian Renaissance continues to fascinate the general public so much. Today, I have two reasons for pride: to have succeeded in bringing together the greatest number of works by Leonardo and to welcome so many and so different audiences. It is the scientific excellence and the quality of the reception of the Louvre which were so acclaimed ", affirms Jean-Luc Martinez, president and director of the Louvre museum, cited in the press release.
In total, the exhibition brought together, in addition to these paintings, some 150 works (drawings, manuscripts, sculptures, works of art) by Florentine and his relatives or students.
Over the 104 days of opening to the public, average daily attendance stood at 9,783 visitors, said the Louvre.
"This exceptional figure, for an exhibition open for four months, can be explained by the setting up of 46 additional nocturnes (175,000 visitors) as well as by the last addition of the last three free nights - a first in the history of museum - which made it possible to extend the hours so that the widest audience could visit the exhibition. Among these visitors, 386,000 people benefited from free admission, or 36% of them, "said the museum.
To extend the event, the Louvre and Pathé Live have planned to broadcast a film of a private tour of the exhibition to the cinema in September.
Last year, the Tutankhamun exhibition at La Villette gathered 1.42 million visitors.
© 2020 AFP