French ambassador tours TMA

Delattre praises relationship between Louvre, Toledo Museum of Art

Toledo Museum of Art Director Brian Kennedy shows French Ambassador Francois Delattre The Art of the Louvre's Tuileries Garden Exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art.

In Toledo, French Ambassador Francois Delattre was given a personal tour of the Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden at the Toledo Museum of Art. He also met with a group of French high school students who are staying in Toledo for two weeks to tour the area and attend classes at the University of Toledo and St. Francis de Sales High School.

He praised the museum exhibit as an authentic French experience.

“This exhibition is an absolute delight and it’s an understatement. This is well-conceived, well realized, and - here I speak as a Parisian - you feel like you’re in Paris in two seconds,” Mr. Delattre said. He promised to praise it to the new director of the Louvre Museum who he expects to meet in two days in Washington.

“The first thing I will speak to him about and the crowd will be this partnership between the Louvre and the Toledo Museum of Art,” Mr. Delattre said.

Museum Director Brian Kennedy said the museum gave the ambassador a book of photographs of French works in the museum’s collection, along with works that were loaned to and by French museums over the years, and exhibitions of French art.

Also given was a set of clippings from The Blade of previous French ambassadors' visits to Toledo, the last being in 1971.

Afterward, Mr. Delattre attended a private dinner given for him at the home of Allan and Susan Block in Sylvania Township, and was expected to return to Washington through Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Mr. Block is the chairman of Block Communications Inc., parent company of The Blade.