Nicolas de Largillierre’s ‘La Belle Strasbourgeoise’, a major work in the collections of Strasbourg’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, will be lent to the Musée du Louvre-Lens for the exhibition ‘Trop mignon ! L’art du bonheur’. The portrait will be on view in Lens from 23 September 2026 through 18 January 2027, before the exhibition project moves to Strasbourg for a second chapter.
The loan temporarily removes the painting from the Palais Rohan, where Strasbourg’s Musée des Beaux-Arts is located. The work is described by the Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg as an emblematic example of 18th-century French painting. At Louvre-Lens, it will be presented among works examining the relationship between art, emotion and representations of happiness.
‘Trop mignon ! L’art du bonheur’ brings together nearly 300 works, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, objects, films, books and installations. The exhibition traces responses to the idea of the “mignon”—the cute or adorable—across the history of art, from antiquity to the present. Its themes include the emotional power of animals, the history of the colour pink, glitter in art, and the contemporary notions of cute and kawaii.
The Louvre-Lens presentation also considers why artworks can produce feelings of pleasure, comfort and joy. Its selection ranges from Egyptian cats and ancient sculptures of babies to portraits by Théodore Géricault and Auguste Renoir, as well as works by Jeff Koons, Philippe Katerine, Rosa Bonheur, Agnès Varda, William Wegman, Cindy Sherman and Annette Messager. Participatory elements will invite visitors of different ages to engage directly with the feelings prompted by the works.
The exhibition’s approach treats cuteness as more than a superficial aesthetic. According to the Louvre-Lens presentation, soft and childlike forms can operate within consumer culture or propaganda, while contemporary artists may also redirect the codes of cute to address social violence, gender identities and the vulnerabilities of the present. The exhibition places tenderness and critical or political readings alongside one another.
The Lens exhibition is the first chapter of a collaboration between the Musée du Louvre-Lens and the Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg. It is curated by Annabelle Ténèze, director of the Louvre-Lens, and Émilie Girard, director of the Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg, with scenography by Mathis Boucher. The second chapter, ‘Trop mignon ! La revanche du cute’, will be held at Strasbourg’s Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain from 19 February through 29 August 2027. ‘La Belle Strasbourgeoise’ is scheduled to return to the Palais Rohan after its presentation in Lens.
