The Museum of Fine Arts is in the centre of Rennes, alongside the River Vilaine, and a wonderful way of spending a few hours in the City.
The building and the exhibits are all of a very high quality but a few things in particular caught my eye.
The department of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman artifacts is beautiful, and wonderfully displayed – there is space and time to linger and inspect just enough high quality items. I had forgotten just how fine hieroglyphics are. There are mummified bodies, and animals, and a beautiful lid from a canopic jar – used to store internal organs from mummified bodies. The Etruscan artifacts, particularly an urn, were elegant.
The fine paintings include an extraordinary Georges de la Tour, The New Born, dating from the 1640s. The catch light in the eye of the woman on the left is amazing – his entire depiction of light is extraordinary. And just look at the hands.
I loved this portrait of a woman by Adriaen Thomasz Key (c.1544-c.90). I thought it was wonderfully realistic – she could be alive today – and came from a time when not all portraits set out to depict the truth.
Pictures of Breton life and landscape were numerous, and interesting.
And as we left I loved this light display.
