AXA offers the Louvre a new masterpiece

Portrait of the Duke of Orleans. Photographer H.Bréjat. Copyright musée du Louvre.

As part of the AXA Group's policy of cultural heritage philanthropy, AXA has acquired the Portrait of the Duke of Orleans by Ingre for the Louvre Museum in Paris. The painting was presented to the Louvre on January 31, 2006, in the presence of Henri de Castries.

With this new donation, AXA continues to implement its policy of cultural heritage philanthropy, a logical part of its core Financial Protection business, which involves not only protecting the assets of individuals and businesses, but also developing and passing on their accumulated wealth.

AXA has already helped to enrich public collections by offering to the Louvre two red chalk Rosso Fiorentino drawings in 2003 - Saint Roch giving away his worldly goods, 1530, and the Visitation, circa 1540 - and, in 2004, a magnificent sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon, La Vestale, dated 1787. Also in 2004, an exceptional 10th or 11th century Dogon statue acquired as part of the AXA's cultural philanthropy program joined the collections of the Quai Branly Museum, where it will be exhibited as of the museum's opening in June 2006.