More than thirty large canvases where a contemporary painter repaints Dürer's engravings, facing the altarpiece in the church of Louviers that first copied them in the 16th century. Until December 31, 2026, free admission.

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It all started with an altarpiece. In the 16th century, the sculptors of the Notre-Dame church in Louviers carved their scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary based on the engravings of Albrecht Dürer, which circulated throughout Europe as models. Five centuries later, the painter Philippe Guesdon retraces the steps in the other direction: he takes Dürer's plates and recreates them in paint, on a large scale, in color, without betraying them.

The Louviers Museum has assembled over thirty large-format canvases, painted between 2019 and 2025, and placed them in dialogue with the original engravings and a fragment of the altarpiece. The exhibition opens with the influence of engraving on the decorative arts, then follows Guesdon through his interpretations, from the "Games of Hands" to the Apocalypse, before presenting three major series: The Great Passion of 2020, based on Dürer's woodcuts; Highlights, twelve canvases from 2021 derived from individual plates; and the Polychromy of the Marian Altar of 2025, six paintings and twenty-four small-format works that restore to the altarpiece the colors it has lost. "I interpret his works without betraying Dürer," the painter summarizes.

The result is a blend of admiration and inquiry: one learns to read Dürer by seeing him enlarged, and one understands what Louviers has always owed him.

See also our regional exhibitions and the top new regional exhibitions.

LOUVIERS MUSEUM
From September 19 to December 31, 2026
Place Ernest-Thorel, 27400 Louviers
Tue. to Sat. 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and the first Sunday of the month
Free admission