Louis Vuitton is set to host a dinner at the Louvre Museum on Tuesday to unveil its collaboration with artist Jeff Koons on a series of bags featuring works by great masters, including the world’s most famous painting: Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”
Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton parent company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is to co-host the affair with Jean-Luc Martinez, president of the Louvre Museum, which is home to the da Vinci painting and countless other masterpieces.
Koons is expected to attend alongside a host of celebrities, including Louis Vuitton friends and brand ambassadors Jennifer Connelly, Michelle Williams, Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Catherine Deneuve.
The Masters collection of bags and small leather goods follows in the footsteps of Vuitton’s previous collaborations with art-world stars including Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince.
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In addition to the “Mona Lisa,” the collection will feature works by Peter Paul Rubens, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Titian and Vincent van Gogh transposed on Vuitton bags such as the Speedy, the Keepall and the Neverfull.
Koons has copied masterpieces in his own work — namely in his “Gazing Ball” paintings shown at the Gagosian Gallery in New York in 2015 — and owns original works by the likes of Fragonard, Nicolas Poussin, Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet.
It is the second time in two months that Vuitton is staging an event inside the museum, one of the French capital’s top tourist attractions. In March, Vuitton creative director Nicolas Ghesquière showcased his fall collection amid the majestic sculptures of the Cour Marly in front of guests including Jaden Smith and Justin Theroux.
