''Babar's Museum of Art'' (or ''Babar's Gallery'') was the collaborative product of

Laurent de Brunhoff Laurent de Brunhoff (born 30 August 1925) is a French author and illustrator, known primarily for continuing the Babar the Elephant series of children's books that was created by his father, Jean de Brunhoff. Early life Brunhoff was born in Pari ...

(illustrations) and his wife Phyllis Rose de Brunhoff (text) for the

Babar the Elephant Babar the Elephant (, ; ) is an elephant character who first appeared in 1931 in the French children's book ''Histoire de Babar'' by Jean de Brunhoff. The book is based on a tale that Brunhoff's wife, Cécile, had invented for their children. ...

series. The aim was to introduce different notable works of art found in museums around the world, mostly paintings, but also including sculptures. The human subjects in these artworks were re-interpreted as elephants.

Plot summary

As the elephants in

Celesteville Created by Jean de Brunhoff between 1931 and 1937, Babar's Kingdom, also known in French as ''Le pays des Éléphants'' (Elephant Country), is a fictional country supposedly in West Africa with French characteristics that is composed of elephants ...

took to motoring, the city's

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing suc ...

lost its original purpose. Queen Celeste decided to convert the station into an

Art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

to showcase all the artworks she and Babar had collected over the years. When the museum was opened, the adult elephants patiently explained to the young elephants different perspectives on art appreciation.

Trivia

The conversion of the Celesteville's obsolete train station into a museum of art in the story is inspired by the conversion of

Gare d'Orsay Gare d'Orsay is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris–Orléans Railway). It was the fir ...

(Paris, France) to the now famous

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

. The design of the station in the story bears striking resemblance to the actual Gare d'Orsay, including the large clock at the facade of the station. In real life, the cause of obsolescence of Gare d'Orsay was its platforms became too short as longer trains came into service. Gare d'Orsay had been built in 1900 to serve as terminus for the

Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans Chemin or Le Chemin may refer to: Arts and media * ''Le chemin'' (Emmanuel Moire album), 2013 album by French singer Emmanuel Moire * ''Le chemin'' (Kyo album), 2003 album by French band Kyo ** "Le Chemin" (song), title song from same-titled Kyo ...

(Paris-Orléans Railway). It ceased to cater to long-distance rail traffic in 1939 and served only suburban rail services. The decision to convert it to a museum was announced in 1977. Listed as a historical monument in 1978, it re-opened as Musée d'Orsay in 1986. A number of artworks featured in the story were inspired by actual artworks found in Musée d'Orsay.

Annotations

The following is a list of the real artworks inspiring the illustrations in the book. The page numbers cited refer to the UK edition titled ''Babar's Gallery''. * page 14:

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

, ''Rubens, his wife Helena Fourment, and their son Peter Paul'' (c. 1639). * page 14:

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

, ''The Balcony'' (1868–1869). * page 14:

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

, ''

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known ...

'' (circa 1503-1507). * page 15: Raffaello "Raphael" Sanzio, ''

St. Michael (Raphael) ''St. Michael'' is an oil painting by Italian artist Raphael. Also called ''the Little St. Michael'' to distinguish it from a larger, later treatment of the same theme, '' St. Michael Vanquishing Satan'', it is now in the Louvre in Paris. The wor ...

'' (c. 1505). * page 15:

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...

, ''Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria with Charles, Prince of Wales and Princess Mary'' (1632). * page 17:

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...

, ''

Las Meninas ''Las Meninas'' (; ) is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting, due to the way its complex an ...

'' (1656). * page 18:

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

, '' Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga'' (1787–1788). * page 19:

Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genr ...

, '' The Harvesters'' (1565). * pages 20–21:

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

, ''

Liberty Leading the People ''Liberty Leading the People'' (french: La Liberté guidant le peuple ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the conc ...

'' (1830). * page 22:

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

, '' Concert Champêtre (The Pastoral Concert)'' (c. 1510). * page 23:

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally conside ...

, ''Aristotle with a Bust of Homer'' (1653). * pages 24–25:

Georges-Pierre Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough surf ...

, ''

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte ''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'' (french: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte) was painted from 1884 to 1886 and is Georges Seurat's most famous work. A leading example of pointillist technique, executed ...

'' (1884–1886). * page 26: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, ''

The Creation of Adam '' Creation of Adam'' () is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, painted c. 1508–1512. It illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives li ...

'' (1511). * page 27:

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

, ''The Cardplayers'' (1892). * page 28:

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

, ''Self-portrait'' (1889, smoking a pipe). * page 29:

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...

, ''

Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It fo ...

'' (1434). * pages 30–31:

Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...

, ''

The Birth of Venus (Botticelli) ''The Birth of Venus'' ( it, Nascita di Venere ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid 1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea ...

'' (1486). * page 32: Henri Julien Félix Rousseau, '' The Dream'' (1910). * page 33:

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

, ''Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach'' (c. 1938) * page 34:

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

, ''

The Scream ''The Scream'' is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images of art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including ...

'' (Skrik 1893). * page 34:

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, ''

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' (''The Young Ladies of Avignon'', originally titled ''The Brothel of Avignon'') is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work, part of the permanent collection of the Museum o ...

'' (1907). * page 35:

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...

, ''The Human Condition'' (1935). * page 36: Unknown, ''

Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...

''. * page 36:

Joel Shapiro Joel Shapiro (born September 27, 1941 New York City, New York) is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly d ...

, ''Untitled''. * page 37:

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

, ''

La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans ''The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer'' (French: ') is a sculpture begun c. 1880 by Edgar Degas of a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, a Belgian named Marie van Goethem. Description The sculpture is one-third life size and ...

'' (''Little Dancer of Fourteen Years'', c. 1881) * page 36-37:

Aristide Maillol Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University P ...

, ''female figure''. * page 37: Unknown, ''Ganesh (Hindu)''. * page 37:

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

, ''Monument to Balzac'' (1891–1898). * page 38:

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

, '' Portrait of Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of Pierre Gautreau.)'' (1884). * page 38: Mary Stevenson Cassatt, ''Mother and Child'' (c. 1905). * page 38:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

, '' Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother (Whistler's Mother)'' (1871). * page 39:

, '' Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass)'' (1862–1863). * pages 40–41: Unknown, ''(Nubian)

Temple of Dendur The Temple of Dendur (Dendoor in the 19th century) is a Roman Egyptian religious structure originally located in Tuzis (later Dendur), Nubia about south of modern Aswan. Around 23 BCE, Emperor Augustus commissioned the temple dedicated to the E ...

'' (c. 15 BC). * pages 42–43:

Hans Namuth Hans Namuth (March 17, 1915 – October 13, 1990) was a German-born photographer. Namuth specialized in portraiture, photographing many artists, including abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. His photos of Pollock at work in his studio increa ...

, ''Jackson Pollock at work'' (1950). * pages 42–43:

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

, ''One: Number 31, 1950''. * page 44:

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , #Pronunciation of name, see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period Painting, painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class, middle-class life. ...

, ''Girl with a Red Hat'' (1668).

Footnotes

* Babar's Gallery, 2003 {{DEFAULTSORT:Babar's Museum Of Art French children's books Babar the Elephant Books about elephants Abrams Books books