Standing in the High Museum foyer that leads to the last Louvre Atlanta exhibition, Henri Loyrette summarizes the partnership after two years and talks about museums as drivers for economic development and social integration. CLICK FOR VIDEO

The theme of the exhibition is the masterpiece: how contemporary opinions affected the way certain art works were received in their day and the curator's job in deciphering the exquisite from the mundane. The marble sculpture pictured is a Roman depiction of the Greek god of love, Eros, from the first or second century A.D. The work is known as "The Winged Genius." Photos by Trevor Williams.

When Henri Loyrette became director of the Musee du Louvre in 2001, he wanted to make a change in the way the Paris museum engaged with institutions on the global stage.    

The Louvre museum's extensive collection was meant to be shared, and Mr. Loyrette wanted to “open it to the world,” he told GlobalAtlanta in a video interview. 

For the past two years, Atlanta has been central to Mr. Loyrette’s ongoing strategy.  Through an unprecedented three-year partnership with the High Museum of Art, the Louvre has raised its international profile while nudging along Atlanta’s developing arts and culture scene.

“The Louvre was created as a universal museum, that means a museum open to everybody and sharing its collection, its knowledge, with all the institutions in the world.  That’s exactly what we’re trying to do here,” he said.

The Louvre Atlanta partnership enters its final yearlong phase on Oct. 12 with an exhibition that uses works from the Louvre’s collection to explore the definition of “masterpiece.”

To hear them tell it, leaders from both sides consider their work together a masterpiece in its own right, ushering in a new kind of collaboration that pairs an emerging regional museum like the High with the sprawling collection of the historic Louvre.

The innovative partnership has brought hundreds of works across the Atlantic, many leaving Paris for the first time, to create a wide-ranging program that was “only possible in Atlanta,” Mr. Loyrette said.

“Because (the High)’s a new museum, there was this appetite for doing something different, for having a partnership of three years which is not something obvious, and to deal not only with exchanges but also with what makes a museum today,” he said. “That means education, research, scientific projects and so on.”

Atlanta has reaped substantial benefit.  Since Mr. Loyrette and High Museum Director Michael Shapiro launched the initiative in October 2006, 800,000 visitors have viewed the exhibitions, and officials hope to hit the 1 million mark this year.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said the pluses for the city go beyond the direct impact of museum visitors.  Working with the Louvre gives the High and the city a partner of the highest caliber in constructing a thriving cultural scene that enriches life in the Georgia capital.

“(The Louvre) is known worldwide and as Atlanta builds its reputation as an arts and cultural center, this really pairs us with a master,” she told GlobalAtlanta after presenting Mr. Loyrette with a “Phoenix Award” to recognize the partnership’s impact on the city.

Ms. Franklin said Atlanta has come a long way since she worked her “favorite job” 20 years ago as the city’s commissioner for cultural affairs, managing its activities with the arts communities.

She told GlobalAtlanta that creating a favorable environment for cultural activities feeds into the city’s economic development scheme and helps promote name recognition abroad.

A day trip in Morocco for a meeting with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research showed Ms. Franklin the importance of the arts in making global connections.

When Ms. Franklin sat down for tea at the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, the capital city, the ambassador’s wife spoke of meeting “a really great guy from Atlanta.”  It was Mr. Shapiro, who was working on a joint exhibition with a museum in Morocco.

This tiny gold alloy statuette is about five inches tall and portrays a worshipper bringing an offering to a god in the ancient city of Susa, in modern-day Iran. It is estimated to be more than 3,000 years old.

At a media preview on Oct. 7, Mr. Shapiro said the upcoming Louvre Atlanta masterpiece exhibition includes works spanning from 4,000 B.C. to the 19th century from eight curatorial departments of the Louvre.

The first two segments gave a chronological look at developments in the Louvre’s history.  This one deals with what Mr. Loyrette calls the main problem for the museum today: making art accessible and engaging to the public.

The exhibition employs a variety of methods to reach that goal.  For example, attendees can ponder the subtle artistic differences in two Roman copies of a sculpture depicting the Greek goddess Aphrodite. 

They can also play the computerized “Find the Forgery” game to highlight the difficulties curators face in determining authenticity of works.

The curators also showed pride in their ability to use technology to enhance the educational aspect of the exhibition.

Accenture Ltd., a technology services and consulting firm, created a 7-by-10-foot interactive touch screen wall that lets visitors vote for their favorite masterpiece and see where it ranks with other visitors.

It also provides recommendations in the High’s permanent collection and information about the artifacts as well as the curators’ favorite items. 

With Accenture’s help the High and Louvre staffs worked together to develop these initiatives as part of MuseumLab, an international alliance initiated by the Louvre, for which the High serves as the only U.S. partner.

Some highlights of the exhibition are Vermeer’s “The Astronomer,” a 700-year-old hammered copper basin from Egypt known as the “Baptistery of St. Louis,” and the work that greets visitors at the exhibition’s entrance: a massive bronze sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye called “Lion Crushing a Serpent.”