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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Philip Oltermann European culture editor

Delacroix’s Liberty shows her true colours after Louvre restoration

Employees of the Louvre Museum hang the restored painting of Liberty Leading the People
Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People had been under restoration for six months. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

For almost 200 years, she has been the definitive symbol of the French republic. Now, after a much-needed facelift, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People will rise above the fray of revolutionary anarchy in her true colours once more.

The 19th-century painter’s world-famous and widely copied Liberty Leading the People, depicting a bare-chested woman brandishing the French flag and leading armed men into battle, will be hung again at the Louvre art museum on Thursday, after a six-month effort to remove decades of varnish and grime.

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