Commons talk:Louvre/structure

Categorization by room

About categorization by room. Take for example Category:French paintings in the Louvre and Category:French paintings in the Louvre - Room 1. Am I right in thinking that you want to change this last category into Category:Musée du Louvre - French paintings - Room 1? Vincent Steenberg (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is clearer since there may be French paintings in other rooms. And in this case, if would look really strange to have it in, say, Greek Antiquities in the Louvre - Room 3. I would find it a bit less strange in Musée du Loure - Greek Antiquities - Room 3. Granted, it is still a bit weird, but I cannot think of anything better ("Louvre - Greek Antiquity rooms - 3" ?)

The name that should be given to sets of rooms is tricky (French paintings are the trickiest of all). Rooms are not numbered by architectural unit (there are a two rooms 18 in Richelieu 2d floor, one with French paintings and one with Dutch paintings). There is a set of mostly contiguous rooms numbered from 1 to 77 and that contains French paintings, but among these rooms some are for a private donation that contain a few non French paintings, some for (mostly or only French) drawings and yet another temporary exhibitions of paintings from France or anywhere else. So no name is really fitting. The Louvre apparently does not even give a name to this set of rooms and maybe we should not try either. Actually I have just seen Category:French_paintings_in_the_Louvre. It is rather nice. I find it strange to have a set of rooms sharing the same numbering system but not the same category but I dont know what should be done.--Zolo (talk) 20:01, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

My comments

Thanks Zolo for looking on the categorisation problems of the Louvre. Here are my thougs about it :

First maybe you must have a look, if you do not know it yet, on the past re-categorisation attempt before anything else. if possible, add a sort of history paragraph on the draft. In the past, there was a discussion on this subject by Jastrow. See here.

The main cats names needs a consistent scheme. For example, it's strange to have Category:Paintings from Italy in the Louvre‎ when all other painting categories have names like "XXXX paintings in the Louvre‎". If someone find time to list and/or rename this inconsistent names first it would be helpful.

I do not really agree with the proposal for "Foreign paintings" cat. I don't think we need it. But, we may create a unique cat for Belgian + Dutch + Netherland + Flemish + German paintings (and maybe even russian, swiss, and scandinavian). This north school paintings share the same room numbering system, and the "Belgian" and "Early Netherlandish" are strangest categories in them. In any way, i think than Italians paintings must stay apart.

The Louvre room numbering system is a very weird as there may be rooms who share the same numbers. We can't even follow a location shame only based on wing + floor. For example Category:Dutch paintings in the Louvre - Room 11‎ and Category:French paintings in the Louvre - Room 11‎ Are both in Richelieu wing, 2nd floor. The numbering is mostly based on the "collections", and it's better to follow this system to name room categories. One numbering serie -> one category name for rooms. For example North School paintings - room 1 ; Objets d'arts - room 8 and Oriental Antiquities - room 12e.

Personally i think it would be better to follow the name given by the official English map of the Louvre when possible :

• French Sculptures
• Italian Sculptures
• Art of Islam
• History of the Louvre (and the Medieval Louvre)
• Oriental Antiquities
• Egyptian Antiquities
• Greek, Etruscan an Roman Antiquities
• Arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas
• Objets d'art
• French paintings
• Italian Paintings
• Spanish Paintings
• Print and French Drawings
• German, Flemish and Dutch Paintings
• German, Flemish and Dutch Drawings
• German, Flemish, Dutch, Belgian, Russian, Swiss and Scandinavian Paintings (18-19th paintings)

Obviously our main problems here are limited mainly to :

• Arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas -> Actually we use Category:Pavillon des Sessions (Palais du Louvre) witch is not so bad as all this collection is in one little place. There are italians paintings in the 1st floor but never-mind.
• Greek, Etruscan an Roman Antiquities -> This is actually separated in three cats. I think than we can keep this three but rename the rooms names to something like Greek, Etruscan an Roman Antiquities - room 4. Like this we can share rooms who have different antiquities in them between the three cats. The problem is than it's a long name. maybe Occidental antiquities ?
• German, Flemish, Dutch, etc... Paintings <- We must find a trick for this ones to keep them in a big cat. maybe North school. Well switzerland is no so North ....

Actually, a map of the Louvre is a necessity for sorting well the collections, is why for i have began to draw one for the french paintings. I am planing to continue this job one day for other departments.

Some of our problems are due to a very few fact. Maybe we can begin a list of them. For example :

• French paintings are not really problematic, except for Category:Painted decoration of the Louvre.
• North school painting sorting is a mess
• The Louvre has a lot of antics sculptures and they are not listed in Category:Sculptures in the Louvre except for a few roman ones.
• We need to think about the object, from the Louvre not (actually) displayed in it because they are in reserves or in other museums (i have see recently some Louvre paintings exposed in the Category:Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice). In the same way, who have to think about w:Louvre-Lens.

I am lazy to continue this list now, but, maybe it will be useful to add one in the draft. If we know the problems is more easy to solve them.

I am fee-up for today sorry, i will re-read and correct this laterMiniwark (talk) 19:35, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. My mistake about "Foreign paintings", I thought that they were numbered as one unit, but actually, we have Northern paintings on the one hand and Italian, Spanish, English + Russian icons on the other. My hope was also to make one flat category for each series of rooms sharing the same numbering system -so that a room 20 is always in the same category as the neigbouring rooms 19 and 21. But some of them lack unity, and it may be weird to have a "Category:Italian, English and Russian paintings" (or alternatively 'Italians paintings - Room 74 - Russian icons."

So we could try to follow the system used by the Louvr on Atlas than on this map, because this map has no "Italian paintings" subsection, only one for 16-17th century Italian paintings, wich seems overly precise. If I understand correctly, this means, categorize by curatorial department and subcategorize using "this system. This means for instance that the "Egyptian Antiquities" category would be broken up into "pParaonic" "Coptic" and "Roman" (with only one room for Roman which will not look very good). But with a help page, if you provide new maps, it will already become clearer:).

It could help to have a thematic classification system entirely indepedent of the room scheme. Sculptures could more easily include Ancient sculptures that are not part of the department of sculptures, works in the reserves and wall decoration would fit easily. Should it also include long term loans to other museums ? I think it would be confusing, as these works would have to be categorized in two museums at the same time. However, they certainly could have be some category for loans from the Louvre. Beside, these works are still apparently still attached to a department, so they could be automatically added to large flat categories by department.

About the Pavillon des Session, I would vote for separating entirely from the Louvre, since it is officially part of the Musée du Quai Branly (I think they have their own staff and entry ticket, havent they ? At least they are on the Quai Branly's not the Louvre website--Zolo (talk) 22:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I also support a two-classification system, one following according to curatorial departments and rooms, the other thematic.

The Pavillon des Sessions should be linked both to the Musée du Quai Branly and the Louvre. The status of the collections is a bit weird. I think they're a permanent deposit from the MQB. You can access the Pavillon from within the Louvre as well as from a separate entrance; the ticket is the same as the Louvre's. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 18:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes actually I have been to the Pavillon des Sessions a few days ago. Inside the museum and with every "Musée du Quai Branly" on exhibit labels. Currently Category:Sculptures in the Louvre is a subcategory of Category:Collections of the Louvre but there is a difference between "of" and "in". Should the new system be for objects in the Louvre ? It seems to be the standard on commons but in the meantime the parent category is standardly called Collections of. This may need to be rethought as well.... --Zolo (talk) 09:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

What about specific categories for objects in permanent deposit both in the Louvre (from other collections) and from the Louvre (in deposit elsewhere)? For instance Category:Objects from the Department of Egyptian antiquities of the Louvre in permanent deposit elsewhere would be the child of Category:Department of Egyptian antiquities of the Louvre and of Category:Objects from the collections of the Louvre in permanent deposit elsewhere. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes I think this is the best solution, but which one should be included in the thematic categories ? (I would say: exclude deposits from the Louvre in other museums and include all works currently in the Louvre except those that are just there for a short term exhibit)--Zolo (talk) 07:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)