“I wonder how seriously she takes us?” Amanda Seyfried – whispers, referring to the big-name celebrity quietly smirking from across the room. This woman strikes me as someone who is silently judging, but Seyfried is more open-minded. “This is condemnation,” says the actor, “or just innocent curiosity.” After all, it’s not every day that Lisa Gherardini, better known as the selfie magnet Mona Lisa, is getting an almost private audience with the Oscar-nominated, striking beauty who has been known to appear on Lancôme billboards and magazine covers. “How big is this?” Seyfried wonders about a 16th-century Da Vinci painting encased in bulletproof glass. A nearby voice estimates the size to be 36 by 24 inches, which sounds like the beginning of a chest, waist, and hip measurement. “36, 25, 34” – it was from Nellie song?” Seyfried asks, before giving his own melodic answer with a line from rapper Y2K’s anthem: “If you wanna come and ride with me…” One can imagine Lisa, the wallflower who saw and heard it all, humming softly. The hit has its sweetness, but also its flaws: “It was supposed to depict the ideal female form,” says Seyfried, “which is obviously bullshit.”
The question of idealized beauty – how to define it and, more importantly, redefine it – was a recurring theme at the Louvre on a warm Tuesday evening, as a crowd of hundreds gathered under I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid to celebrate the museum’s partnership with Lanc. Spindle-shaped stands showcase a limited-edition eye palette, its embossed shadows inspired by an 1836 bust of the ancient Greek poet Corinna. Nearby, bottles of Advanced Génifique serum (a conservator’s approach to conservation) stand on black pedestals; in faux marble cases sit on gold lipsticks. Meanwhile, four representatives of the cosmetics brand – Seyfried and Zendaya, Chinese model He’s Kong and Malian-French musician Aya Nakamura— took their place on the walls in mural-sized campaign images that pair each woman with a symbolic work of art. Some statues are unmistakable, e.g. Winged victory of Samothrace, which Zendaya reflects with her arm outstretched. Seyfried, whose Catskills farm has been a retreat for the past decade, finds his muse in Diana Gabiyskaya, Greek tribute to the goddess of the hunt. The enormous figure, which was once the crown jewel of the Borghese and then Napoleon collections, has long been a popular woman. So does Seyfried, whose hot pink Prada dress serves as a beacon for almost every fan and friend.
At first glance, a joint collection may seem like an unusual meeting place for two heritage institutions. “It’s not! It’s so sophisticated, so specific, so well organized,” Seyfried counters, sneaking out of cocktail hour for a private tour. “The thing about museums is that you go there to get lost, and you go there to get lost.” found to find themselves,” she says – and beauty with its tools of transformation can also use this. The actor stops in the spacious hall where Ingres’s painting “1814” is located. Great Odalisque holds court cunningly. “I love people, I love these mythical photographs, but landscapes,” she sighs in front of an 1838 painting by Paul Flandrin. Montagne de la Sabina, a lush, modest painting with only a hint of human intervention, namely a cluster of figures below and a pillared temple hidden among the trees. Beyond the aesthetic experience, these galleries provide an opportunity for connection, as Seyfried sees it, a chance to build a bridge between generations. (There’s also one in the film where the actor alludes to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, a consequence of artists being “taken for granted and in some ways almost disrespected because of financial problems.”)
But we strive for classical sculpture. Majestic Winged Victory, occupying a lonely room on the landing, was completely frozen in strength. “You feel the space, you feel the possibility,” Seyfried says of that potential waiting to be unleashed. A short walk Venus de Milo receives a large-scale gallery at its disposal. Suddenly, a bestial roar comes from the actor’s evening bag. “This is my donkey!” Seyfried chirps, rushing to his phone. (Technically speaking, the recording doesn’t feature her real donkey, but a ringtone replacement to simplify logistics.) She takes a FaceTime call, striking a casual pose with Venus. “Tommy? Oh, it’s okay. We’re literally walking through the Louvre right now,” she tells her husband. Thomas Sadoski. A thin voice is heard, belonging to their three-year-old son. “I don’t have your toy, Bubba,” Seyfried coaxes, making one last attempt at a grand gesture: “It’s art!” This is history!” Someone in the group offers a child’s Venus de Milo as a souvenir. “I’ve already given him an alien and a car,” she says. “Much better than this.”
Seyfried knows what she wants, as evidenced by the life she’s built around family (her daughter is 6) and nature. Two new horses have taken up residence at the farm this week, bringing the menagerie’s total (she pauses to do a mental count) to “16 large animals, not including chickens and ducks.” They are mainly crossbred horses, including donkeys, ponies and miniature horses, as well as goats. It makes sense that a local woman would feel a kinship with this marble Diana, caught in a moment of self-sufficiency as she buttons up her cloak. In press notes for the Lancôme x Louvre collection, Seyfried calls her a “wild goddess,” despite her outwardly delicate appearance. “Declaring her independence: that’s where her beauty comes from.”