Certain American museums, like the Met or the MFA in Boston, have great collections of art on gay themes. There are also of course museums like this in Europe, and the greatest of all is the Louvre. Its excellent Greek, Roman, and Italian Renaissance collections are full of works that refer to the gay side of their cultural moments, such as the museum’s *four* statues or busts of the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s lover Antinous and the most rapturously languorous of Michelangelo’s captives. The museum also contains great collections of French historical pieces and patriotic works of the Napoleonic period, and both of these also contain fascinating gay themed works. A gay tour of the museum turns up many surprises and speaks to us of many centuries of gay history.
 
Image: Michelangelo Buonarroti. Captive (The Rebellious Slave). Marble. After 1513. H. 2.09 m. Louvre