Kleve (dpa / lnw) – Just in time for carnival, one thing is certain: a foolish work of art from the collection of the Museum Kurhaus Kleve will be loaned to the Louvre. Sculptor Arnt van Tricht’s 16th-century ‘Towel Rack with Lovers’, a frivolous work of art featuring a jester and a married woman, will be on display at Paris’ world-class museum from October 2024 to February 2025. This was announced by the Museum Kurhaus Kleve. Several media had previously reported.
The Louvre is therefore planning an exhibition entitled “Foolish Figures. Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance”. According to the Klever Museum, the “towel holder with lovers”, which is dated around 1535, is to become a central exhibit. The work is to be brought to Paris in the weeks leading up to the exhibition.
The artwork shows a fool ensnaring a married woman “under the hood”. The two are about to kiss. A museum spokeswoman explained: The woman, with open-hearted décolleté, surrenders completely to the embrace of the man, who, disguised as a fool, embodies carnal love. He grabs her waist with one hand and the side of her chest with the other. The woman’s hands, on the other hand, are stretched out in the direction of the viewer, she is holding a staff horizontally – the work is designed as a towel holder and thus as a commodity. Whether it was actually used in this way can no longer be determined today, said the museum spokeswoman. In the late Middle Ages, there was an important wood carving workshop in Kleve.
For the general public, the art of the Middle Ages is essentially religious and dedicated to the glorification of God and his saints, said the Museum Kurhaus Kleve. Nevertheless, it is the Middle Ages that gave shape to the subversive figure of the madman. The exhibition in the Louvre gives the public a new, unconventional look at the art of the time.
