The Louvre. Art Guide E-Book

Carlos Javier Taranilla

• Herausgeber: ArgoNowta
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: Amazing museums
• Sprache: Spanisch

Seitenzahl: 384

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Discover the immense art collection of the Louvre Museum, from Oriental, Egyptian, Greco-Roman and medieval antiquities to the great works of the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Painting, sculpture and decorative arts from all periods and civilizations. Works by great French masters such as Poussin and David, Flemish painters such as Rubens and Van Dyck, Dutch artists such as Rembrandt, Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian and Tintoretto, and Spanish artists such as El Greco, Zurbarán, Velázquez and Goya. An essential book to delve into the structure of the Louvre palace and its dependencies, learning in detail about 120 essential masterpieces among the more than 400,000 pieces contained in the most important museum in the world.

Leseprobe

The Louvre Museum

The Louvre Museum

Carlos Javier Taranilla de la Varga

Idea, business project and coordination: Santos Rodríguez

Direction and management: Eva Huici

Corporate advice: Sunny Bates

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Book Series: Amazing Museums - www.amazingmuseums.com

Title: The Louvre Museum. Art guide

Author: © 2023 Carlos Javier Taranilla de la Varga

Translation: Clara Peláez Barrallo

Cover design and realization: RodilHerraiz.com

Content design and layout: RodilHerraiz.com

Copyright of this edition: © 2023 Argonowta Digital SLL, Madrid, Spain. All rights reserved.

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ISBN ebook: 978-84-1894-347-8

Edition date: July 2023

Photo Credits

Wikimedia Commons public domain except pgs: 23 (Arnaud Gaillard, arnaud, amarys.com, Greatpatton - CCA 2.5), 101 (Marie-Lan Nguyen. CCA 2.5), 113 (Sirena Com. CCBY-SA 3.0.), 130 (Creative Commons 4.0. Jean Paul Gradmont).

The total or partial reproduction of this work is not permitted, nor its incorporation into a computer system, nor its transmission in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or others) without the prior written authorization of copyright holders. The infringement of said rights may constitute a crime against intellectual property. Any form of reproduction, distribution, public communication or transformation of this work can only be carried out with the authorization of its owners, except as provided by law. Contact CEDRO (Spanish Center for Reprographic Rights) if you need to photocopy or scan any part of this work (www.conlicencia.com; 91 702 19 70 / 93 272 04 47).

To my fatherin memoriam, with whom I visited the Louvre Museum for thefirst time during the summer of 1971.

Summary

Table ofcontentsand List ofMasterpieces

Table of Contents

Synoptic Chart of Masterpieces

Introduction. The Louvre Complex

Chapter 1.Brief history of the Louvre Museum

The old Louvre

The new Louvre

Le grand Louvre

Other sites of the Louvre Museum

Chapter 2.Collections of the Louvre Museum

Oriental Antiquities Department

Egyptian Antiquities Department

Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities Department

Islamic Arts Department

Decorative Arts and Sculpture from the Middle AgesDepartment, the Renaissance and the Modern Age

Decorative Arts. Sumptuary objects

Renaissance sculpture

Baroque and Rococo sculpture

Neoclassical sculpture

Romanticism sculpture

Graphic Arts Department

Paintings Department

Chapter 3.French school painting

French renaissance in the 16thcentury

French painting during Baroque period

The Tenebrists

The Naturalists

The Academicists

The Classicists

The Rococo style

Neoclassical style painting

French painting during the Romanticism

Naturalism-Realism

Chapter 4.Italian school painting

The Proto-Renaissance

Duocento painting

Trecento painting

The first Renaissance orQuattrocento

TheCincuecento, the Full Renaissance or High Renaissance

The Venetian School of theCincuecento

The Parmesan painters and Mannerism

Baroque painting

Caravaggesque Tenebrism

Eclectic Academicism

Vedutist genre

Chapter 5.Flemish and Dutch school painting

Flemish school

‘Flemish Primitives’

Baroque painting

Dutch school

Baroque painting in the Netherlands

Chapter 6.Spanish school painting

Gothic painting

Mannerism

Baroque painting

Painting during Neoclassicism-Romanticism period

Chapter 7.German and English school painting

German school

English school

Bibliography

Glossary

120 Essential Masterpieces

Nº

WORKS

ARTISTS AND SCHOOLS

STYLES

IMAGE

P.

1

Venus from Chupicuaro (c. 300-200 B. C.)

Anonymous-Mesoamerica

Archaic

51

2

Relief of Ur Nanshe, King of Lagash (2494-2465 B. C.)

Anonymous-Sumerian

Archaic

54

3

Stele of the Vultures (c. 2450 B. C.)

Anonymous-Sumerian

Archaic

57

4

Statue of Ebih-Il (c. 2400 B. C.)

Anonymous-Sumerian

Archaic

59

5

Victory Stele of Naram Sin (c. 2250 B. C.)

Anonymous-Acadia

Archaic

61

6

Gudea, prince of Lagash (c. 2141-2122 B. C.)

Anonymous-Sumerian

Archaic

63

7

The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1792-1750 B. C.)

Anonymous-Babylonian

Archaic

65

8

Assyrian Lamassu (c.715 B. C.)

Anonymous-Assyria

Archaic

68

9

Immortals (c. 510 B. C.)

Anonymous-Persia

Archaic

71

10

The Seated Scribe (2650-2500 B.C.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Archaic (Naturalist)

75

11

Great Sphinx of Tanis (2650-2500 B.C.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Archaic

76

12

Paintings of the Tomb of Unsu (c. 1450 B. C.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Archaic

78

13

Paintings of the Tomb of Unsu (c. 1450 B. C.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Archaic

79

14

Akhenaton and Nefertiti Statue (c.1345 B.C.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Archaic

80

15

The Triad of Osorkon II (c. 945–715 B.C.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Archaic

82

16

The European Fayoum (II century A.D.)

Anonymous-Egypt

Naturalist

84

17

Fragment of a krater (c. 750 B. C.)

The Dipylon Master-Hellas

Archaic (Geometric)

87

18

Heracles and Antaeus krater (c. 515-510 B.C.)

Euphronios-Hellas

Classic

88

19

The Rampin Rider (c. 560-540 B.C.)

Anonymous-Greece

Archaic

90

20

Plaque of the Ergastines (447-432 B. C.)

Pheidias’ workshop-Greece

Classic

92

21

The Venus de Milo (c. 150-125 B.C.)

Anonymous-Hellas

Hellenistic

95

22

The Winged Victory of Samothrace (c. 190 B. C.)

Anonymous-Rhodes

Hellenistic

97

23

Sarcophagus of the Spouses(520-510 B. C.)

Anonymous-Etruscan

Etruscan

100

24

Imperial group as Mars and Venus (c. 140 y 175)

Anonymous-Roman

Classic

102

25

Pyxis of al-Mughira (967-968)

Anonymous-Islamic

Arabic

105

26

Lion de Monzon (967-968)

Anonymous-Islamic

Arabic

107

27

The Barberini ivory (c. 525-550)

Anonymous-Byzantine

Classic

110

28

Harbaville Triptych (940-960)

Anonymous-Byzantine

Expresionist

112

29

Scepter of Charles V (previous to 1380)

Martin-Guillaume Biennais-French

Gothic

114

30

Canopy from the throne of Charles VII (1425-1450)

J. Littemont? French

Gothic

116

31

Madonna and Child(1445-1455)

Donatello-Italian

Renaissance-Quattrocento

118

32

Rebel Slave (1513-1515)

Michelangelo-Italian

Manierist

120

33

Milo of Crotona (1682)

Pierre Puget-French

Baroque

123

34

Marly Horses (1739-1743)

Guillaume Coustou the Old-French

Rococo

125

35

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (1787-1793)

Canova-Italian

Neoclassic

129

36

Lion and serpent (1832)

Barye-French

Romanticism

130

37

The Marquise de Pompadour(1752-1755)

Maurice Quentin de La Tour-French

Rococo

133

38

Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (c. 1450-1475)

Enguerrand Quarton- French

International gothic

139

39

Gabrielle d’Estrées and one of her sisters (c.1594)

Anonymous-French

Renaissance

142

40

Saint Joseph the carpenter (c. 1640)

Georges de La Tour-French

Baroque

145

41

Peasant Family in an Interior (c.1642)

Louis Le Nain-French

Baroque

148

42

Exvoto of 1662 (1662)

Philippe de Champaigne-French

Baroque

150

43

Chancellor Séguier (1661)

Charles Le Brun-French

Baroque

152

44

Luis XIV of France (1701)

Hyacinthe Rigaud-French

Baroque

154

45

The Arcadian Shepherds (c.1638)

Nicolás Poussin-French

Baroque

157

46

Sunset in a port (1639)

Claude le Lorraine-French

Baroque

160

47

The Embarkation for Cythera(1717)

Jean-Antoine Watteau-French

Rococo

163

48

Diana leaving her Bath (1742)

François Boucher-French

Rococo

165

49

The Music Lesson (1772)

Jean-Honoré Fragonard-French

Rococo

166

50

The Bathers (1770)

Jean-Honoré Fragonard-French

Rococo

168

51

The Prayer before Meal (c.1740)

Jean-Baptiste-Chardin-French

Rococo (Naturalist)

169

52

Oath of the Horatii (1784)

Jacques-Louis David-French

Neoclassic

172

53

The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)

Jacques-Louis David-French

Neoclassic

175

54

Portrait of Madame Récamier(1800)

Jacques-Louis David-French

Neoclassic

176

55

The Coronation of Napoleon(1807)

Jacques-Louis David-French

Neoclassic

178

56

MadameVigée-Le Brun and her daughter (1789)

Élizabeth- Louise Vigée-LeBrun-French

Neoclassic

181

57

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa (1804)

Antoine-Jean Gros-French

Romanticism

184

58

Portrait of Empress Josephine(1805)

Pierre-Paul Prud’hon-French

Romanticism

186

59

Grande Odalisque(1814)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres-French

Romanticism

188

60

The Turkish Bath (1862)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres-French

Romanticism

190

61

The Charging Chasseur(1812)

Théodore Géricault-French

Romanticism

193

62

The Raft of the Meduse (1819)

Théodore Géricault-French

Romanticism

196

63

The Massacre at Chios (1824)

Eugène Delacroix-French

Romanticism

198

64

The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)

Eugène Delacroix-French

Romanticism

200

65

Liberty Leading the People(1830)

Eugène Delacroix-French

Romanticism

202

66

The woman with a pearl (c.1868)

Jean-Baptiste Corot-French

Naturalist-Realist

204

67

Santa Trinitá Maestà (c.1280)

Cimabue-Italian

Proto-Renaissance (Ducento)

210

68

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (1325)

Giotto di Bondone-Italian

Pre-Renaissance(Trecento)

213

69

Coronation of the Virgin (c.1435)

Fray Angélico-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

217

70

The Battle of San Romano (c.1440)

Paolo Uccello-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

219

71

Old man with his grandson(1490)

Ghirlandaio-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

222

72

St Sebastian (c. 1480)

Andrea Mantegna-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

224

73

Crucifixion (1456-1459)

Andrea Mantegna-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

227

74

Portrait of a Man, called condottiere(1475)

Antonello da Messina-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

229

75

La Virgen de las Rocas (c.1483-1486)

Leonardo da Vinci-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

233

76

La Belle Ferronnière(1490-1497)

Leonardo da Vinci-Italian

Renaissance (Quattrocento)

235

77

The Virgin, the Child Jesus and Saint Anne(c. 1503)

Leonardo da Vinci-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

238

78

The Gioconda (1503-1510)

Leonardo da Vinci-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

241

79

The Beautiful Gardener (1507)

Rafael Sanzio-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

245

80

Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione(1515)

Rafael Sanzio-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

247

81

Pastoral Concert (c.1510)

Tiziano-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

250

82

Woman with a Mirror (c. 1515)

Tiziano-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

252

83

Jupiter and Antiope(1535-1540)

Tiziano-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

254

84

The Wedding at Cana (1562-1563)

Veronés-Italian

Renaissance (Cincuecento)

258

85

Paradise (1564)

Tintoretto-Italian

Manierist

261

86

Venus and Cupid with a Satyr (1525)

Correggio-Italian

Manierist

263

87

Spring (1573)

Arcimboldo-Italian

Manierist

264

88

Summer (1573)

Arcimboldo-Italian

Manierist

265

89

The Fortune Teller (1595-1600)

Caravaggio-Italian

Baroque

268

90

Death of the Virgin (1601-1606)

Caravaggio-Italian

Baroque

270

91

Hunting (c. 1585)

Annibale Carracci-Italian

Baroque

272

92

Fishing (c. 1585)

Annibale Carracci-Italian

Baroque

273

93

The Rape of Helen (1631)

Guido Reni-Italian

Baroque

275

94

Raising of Lazarus (c. 1620)

El Guercino-Italian

Baroque

277

95

The Molo from the basin of San Marco,Venice (c. 1730)

Canaletto-Italian

Vedutism

279

96

The Departure of the Bucentaur for the Lido of Venice on Ascension Day (1775)

Guardi-Italian

Vedutism

280

97

The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (c. 1435)

Jan van Eyck-Flemish

Baroque

285

98

Ship of Fools (c. 1500)

*El Bosco-Flemish

Baroque

288

99

The Beggars (1568)

Brueghel the Old- Flemish

Baroque

290

100

The Money Changer and His Wife (1514)

Quintin Metsys-Flemish

Baroque

292

101

The Arrival of Marie de Medici at Marseilles (1625)

Rubens-Flemish

Baroque

295

102

Helena Fourment with children (1636)

Rubens-Flemish

Baroque

297

103

The Equestrian Portrait of Charles I of England (1635)

Van Dyck-Flemish

Baroque

299

104

The King Drinks (1640)

Jordaens-Flemish

Baroque

301

105

The Seven Corporal Works of Mercy (1640)

Teniers the Young-Flemish

Baroque

303

106

The Gypsy Girl (1626)

Frans Hals-Dutch

Baroque

305

107

The Lacemaker (1670)

Vermeer de Delft-Dutch

Baroque

307

108

Bathsheba at the Bath Holding King’s David Letter (1654)

Rembrandt-Dutch

Baroque

309

109

Flayed Ox (1655)

Rembrandt-Dutch

Baroque

311

110

The Decapitation of St George (c.1432)

Bernat Martorell-Catalan

Baroque

317

111

The Flagellation of Christ (1455-1460)

Jaume Huguet-Catalan

Baroque

319

112

Christ on the Cross Adored by two donors (c.1590)

El Greco-Spanish

Baroque

321

113

Displaying the Body of Saint Bonaventure (1629)

Zurbarán-Spanish(Sevillian)

Baroque

324

114

The Clubfoot (1642)

José de Ribera-Spanish(Levantine)

Baroque

326

115

The young beggar (1648)

Murillo-Spanish (Andalusian)

Baroque

329

116

Portrait of the Infanta Margarita Teresa (c. 1654)

Velázquez-Spanish (from Madrid)

Baroque

331

117

The Countess del Carpio, Marchioness of La Solana (1795)

Francisco de Goya-Spanish

Romanticism

333

118

Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1523)

Holbein the Young-German

Renaissance

339

119

Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle Flower (1493)

Albercht Dürer-German

Renaissance

340

120

Portrait of Francis George Hare (1789)

Reynolds-English

Neoclassic

342

Introduction

The Louvre complex

The Louvre complex, counts with a surface area of more than 210,000 square metres, of which some 65,000 square metres are devoted to galleries. It has an almost rectangular plant, consisting of two main quadrilaterals which include two large courtyards: theCour Carrée(‘Square Courtyard’) or ‘Old Louvre’ (Sully Wing) and theCour Napoléon, enclosed by two wings on the north side (Richelieu Wing) and south side (Denon Wing), which constitute the ‘New Louvre’, with theCour du Carrouselon the left of it. TheCour Napoléon, and theCour du Carrouselare separated by thePlace du Carrousel.

Their rooms host more than 480,000 works of art installed in the following rooms.

Sully Wing:

• Crypt of the Sphinx, where more than 6,000 pieces from millenary Egypt are on display. It is one of the most important collections of Egyptian art in the world.

• Campana Gallery, which hosts a valuable collection of Greek ceramics. It takes its name from the Marquis Campana, a prominent collector of these pieces.

• Gallery of Antiquities, with its walls are decorated in red marble. It hosts works of Greek art, including the

Venus de Milo

.

• Hall of the Caryatids, built in the 16

th

by Pierre Lescot and called this way because of the four supporting columns in the shape of women inside (inspired in the Caryatids of the Erecteion of Athens) sculpted by Jean Goujon in 1550 to hold the tribune of the musicians when it was the dance room. It hosts a Greek statuary, among it stands out

Diana the Huntress

or

Diana of Versailles

, a Roman copy in marble from the 2

nd

B.C. in a bigger size in natural (2 metres high) above an original Greek in brass of the 4

th

B.C., attributed to Leocares.

• Charles X Museum, where the Egyptian Museum was first installed by Charles X in 1827.

• Furniture and decorative objects from the 18

th

century, which exhibits the customary belongings of kings and queens, as well as other decorative objects.

• Rotonde Sully, which hosts the Department of Graphic Arts, with more than 250,000 works on paper: pastels, drawings, engravings and miniatures from the 11

th

to the 19

th

centuries.

Richelieu Wing:

• Cour Khorsabad

, which contains the remains of the Assyrian city of the same name.

• Galerie d’Angoulême,

which hosts the collection of Near Eastern Antiquities.

• Cour Puget

and

Cour Marly

, named respectively after French sculptor of the 17

th

century and the château where one of the emblematic

works on display was located. These are glazed courtyards where sculptures which had been designed for display in public gardens such as the Tuileries and those surrounding the Palace of Versailles are displayed.

Diana of Versailles or Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, a copyright from the

2ndcentury BC from a Greek original from the 4thcentury BC assignedto Leocares.

• Galerie Médicis, called this way because it contains

Marie de Medici cycle

, a total of twenty-one paintings about the life of the Queen of France (hung in chronological order) and three portraits of her and her relatives painted by Rubens.

• Napoleon III Apartments, where the luxurious objects that surrounded the Emperor’s life are kept: vases, chandeliers, portraits, etc.

Denon Wing:

• Daru staircase (Napoleon I’s minister), was built by Hector Lefuel. On its landing is the

Nike of Samothrace

.

• Hall of the States, is the largest room in the museum, was built between 1855 and 1857 to a design by the architect Lefuel. It houses the Louvre’s most emblematic work:

La Gioconda

or

Mona Lisa

, as well as other large paintings such as

The wedding at Cana

by Veronese.

• The Great Gallery, was built in the 16

th

century to link the Louvre Palace with the Tuileries Palace. It contains the highlights of Italian school painting.

• Apollo Gallery, commissioned by Louis XIV in his monomania to identify himself with the Sun God. It hosts, among other royal objects, the crown jewels.

• The Red Rooms, dates from the Second Empire. The main works of French painters of the 17

th

, 18

th

and 19

th

centuries are on display, with the great history paintings being particularly noteworthy.

• Michelangelo

Gallery, named after the great Italian sculptor of the

Cinquecento

. In addition to the

Dying Slave

and the

Rebellious Slave

, sculpted by him, it contains other remarkable works of sculpture from the 16

th

to the 19

th

centuries such as

Psyche Revived

by

Cupid’s Kiss

by Canova.

• Cour Visconti

, dedicated to Islamic art, more than 3,000 pieces from the 7

th

to the 19

th

centuries, from the emirates and caliphates of al-Andalus (Spain), India, North Africa and Egypt.

• Anne of Austria’s summer flats, where the mother of Louis XIV lived. The original decoration of the ceilings has been preserved.

• The Pavillon des Sessions, designed by Hector Lefuel. It was inaugurated in 2000 to display a selection of 120 works of non-Western art: America, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Chapter /1

Brief historyof the LouvreMuseum

The Old Louvre

The first building to stand on the site now occupied by the Louvre Museum was the castle of the same name, which was built in 1190 by King Philip Augustus (1165-1223) before his departure for the Third Crusade, with the aim to reinforce the walled line which protected the right bank of the River Seine, around Paris.

The fortress was almost square in its plant (78 m x 72 m), with ten defensive towers along its perimeter and protected by a moat about 10 m wide, which was flooded by the waters of the river. The main gate to the south and a secondary gate on the opposite side were framed by twin towers with drawbridges. In the centre of the parade courtyard was the donjon or defensive bastion, a circular plant tower with a diameter of approximately 15 metres, a thickness of more than 4 metres and a height of 30 metres, covered with a conical slate structure overhanging the machicolations, and protected by a paved moat of 9 metres wide and 6 metres deep, which could be crossed by a drawbridge.

The term Louvre came into use in 1204 and there are three different theories as to its origin; one of them, the simplest, derives the word from the Latinlupara, meaning wolf, alluding to the presence of herds of these animals on the site. However, according to the French historian Henri Sauval, the term Louvre is a deformation of the expressionsleovarorleower, which in the French language mean ‘fortified place’ or ‘watchtower’, referring to the defensive fortifications that were being built to protect against invasions by the Vikings or Normans. A third hypothesis derives the expression Louvre fromroboretum(‘oak wood’), a term from which the wordsrouvreorrouvrayetymologically derive.

The castle was enlarged during the reigns of Louis IX the Saint (1226-1270) and Charles V the Wise (1364-1380), who ordered to widen the defensive walls around Paris as a result of the city’s rapid growth, as a consequence the castle lost its original military function. This monarch, through his architect Raymond du Temple, owed the construction in 1358 of theLibrairie Tower, the first royal library, which contained more than 900 manuscripts and was the origin of the National Library of France. We know what the fortress looked like in the 15thcentury thanks to the miniatures in the book of hours entitledThe Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry, which was begun by the Limbourg brothers around 1410, although they were unable to complete it because they died during the bubonic plague epidemic that struck Europe in successive waves from 1348 onwards.

After the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), during which the English occupied and stayed in the castle from 1420 to 1436, in the following century, king Francis I (1494-1547), the great driver behind the building and restoration of the castles in the Loire Valley, in particular Chambord, in a surprise coup against the Levantistic nobility and the urban institutions, who had taken advantage of the monarch’s captivity in Madrid after the defeat of Pavia in 1525 against the troops of Charles I of Spain and V of Germany to declare their autonomy, decided to transform the old castle into a modern palace in the Italian Renaissance style, consisting of four wings with an interior courtyard, according to the design of the architect Pierre Lescot in conjunction with the work of the sculptor Jean Goujon, after the donjon had been demolished in 1527. The monarch was one of the main protectors of artisticcreations and collecting, bringing to his palace at Fontainebleau, where he established his own school for various Italian masters, including Leonardo da Vinci in the last years of his life.

The works continued with his son Henry II (1547-1559) and, after his death, during the regency of the queen consort Catherine de’ Medici. The walls on the west and south sides were demolished to build the ballroom and the royal pavilion respectively. During the reign of Charles IX (1560-1574) the Petite Galerie was begun in 1566, according to an initial design by Pierre Lescot, but works were stopped around 1570 because of the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots) that shook the country between 1562 and 1598.

With Henry III (1574-1589) and Henry IV (1589-1610) on the throne, the palace became the real centre of monarchical power. A second floor (piano nobile)was added to the Petite Galerie, the Hall of Paintings or Gallery of Kings (dedicated to the former kings and queens of France), but a dreadful fire largely destroyed the upper floor on 6 February 1661. In the previous decade, Queen Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, had commissioned the architect Le Vau, the painter Giovanni Francesco Romanelli and the sculptor Michel Anguier to transform and decorate the ground floor into her summer flat, which was not affected by the fire. In 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte transformed this space into the Gallery of Antiquities, without modifying the lavish decoration that adorned the ceilings, composed of mythological themes, allegories of the seasons, the stars and the virtues, as well as biblical characters, all aimed at extolling the figure of Louis XIV’s queen mother, Marie de’ Medici.

In 1567, Catherine de’ Medici had commissioned the architect Philibert Delorme, who was succeeded on the site by Jean Bullant, to build the Tuileries Palace, a residence of pleasure (“whim”), named after the old tile factories (tuiles, in French) that existed on the site. To link the new building to the palace, some 500 metres away, Henry IV commissioned the architects Louis Métezeau and Jacques Androuët du Cerceau to build theGalerie du Bord de l’Eau(now the Grand Galerie), oriented as its name suggests towards the banks of the river Seine, to hosts the royal collection of paintings and a workshop for artists, thus beginning the artistic vocation of the Louvre.

The Louvre, the Tuileries Palace and the Grand Gallery in 1615, according to the Merianmap, drawn in 1615 by the Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder.

Likewise, works also began on theCour Carrée(Square Courtyard) in the Lescot Wing, which was built in 1546-1551 on the site of the donjon. During the reign of Louis XIII (1610-1643) it was extended by the demolition of the old ramparts on the north side, where the Lemercier Wing was built in 1639, an extension of the former wing named after the architect with the same name. This is the site of the Clock Pavilion, now the Sully Pavilion. Works on theCour Carréecontinued under the direction of the architect Louis Le Vau.

During the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), a competition was held to build a large façade on the eastern side to dignify the old building. Several architects competed, including Le Vau, Lemercier and Mansart, but their projects were successively rejected. Then, the superintendent of the King’s Buildings, Jean-Baptiste Colbert called in the well-known Italian architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, but his designs - up to three in succession, submitted between June 1664 and June 1665 - were not accepted because they seemed to the king to be unrepresentative of monarchical absolutism.

Perrault’s Colonnade on the eastern façade of the Louvre Palace. A large triangularpediment crowning a triumphal arch presides over the entrance.

The chosen architect was Claude Perrault (1613-1688), who cultivated a grandiloquent style typical of France at the time. Between 1667 and 1670 he built a façade presided over by a large paired colonnade with Corinthian capitals, crowning the entrance with a large triangular pediment over a triumphal arch, all very academic, in the style of the prevailing French classicism, which was not fully completed until Napoleon’s time due to the transfer of the court to Versailles by the Sun King’s unappealable decision.

The interiors were decorated in a classicist style full of baroque, with the most frequent themes from Greco-Roman mythology as ornamental motifs.

Louis XIV commissioned the architect Le Vau and the painter Le Brun to rebuild and decorate the Hall of Paintings or Gallery of Kings, the second floor of thePetite Galerie, to transform it into the Gallery of Apollo, the god of the Sun, with whose emblem he identified his power.

A lavish decoration, combining painting, sculpture and gilding, enveloped theGallery of Apollo.

In a display of architectural decoration, combining painting, sculpture and gilding, which would serve as a model for the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, the vault represents the daily journey of Apollo’s chariot across the sky, from dawn to dusk. Not only the different times of the day, but also the months and seasons of the year, as well as the different signs of the zodiac and the continents, appear under the power of the Sun, similar to the power of the monarch himself, thus exalting the glory of the Sun King.

The transfer of the court to Versailles halted the completion of the lavish work, which was taken up in 1850 under the direction of the architect Félix Duban and with the collaboration of the painter Eugène Delacroix, who decorated the ceiling with the themeApollo killing the Python snake. On the walls, twenty-eight tapestries depict the effigies of kings and artists who have been involved in the construction and ornamentation of the building over the years.

Today, the Gallery of Apollo houses the royal collection of gems and diamonds of the Crown, pieces made with settings, of which Louis XIV was very fond, bringing together a luxurious collection of more than eight hundred works.

Among the most valuable is theCôte-de-Bretagnespinel, dating from 1750, carved in the shape of a dragon to be part of one of the two jewelsdestined to adorn the Order of the Golden Fleece. It now weighs 107.88 carats (21.6 grams).

The treasure also holds the three diamonds that adorned the monarchs’ finery and crowns:the Regent(carved in 1704-6 in England from a 426-carat precious stone discovered in India in 1698),the Sancy(made in the shape of a pear around 1600-1700, weighing 53 carats) andthe Hortensia, a five-sided pink diamond weighing 20 carats, named after the Queen of Holland, Hortense de Beauharnais, who wore it; carved in 1678, it was acquired by Louis XIV to wear in his buttonhole.

They are also preserved the emerald and diamond jewels made for the Empress Marie-Louise of Austria, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, the crown of Louis XV, the upper crown of the Empress Eugénie de Montijo, Napoleon III’s wife, the jewels of Queen Marie Amélie, wife of Louis Philippe d’Orléans, and other luxury items such as the insignia of the Order of the Elephant of Denmark, goblets, vases and navettes of agate, jade and lapis lazuli, vases of rock crystal and other sumptuary objects of extraordinary value.

TheCour Carréeof the ‹Old Louvre› to the west. From left to right: Lescot Wing,Sully Pavilion (former Clock Pavilion) and Lemercier Wing.

This construction completed the part of the palace known as the Old Louvre, theCour Carrée, a quadrangle of about 160 metres on each side, made up of eight wings articulated in as many pavilions: Beauvais Pavilion, Marengo Pavilion, North-East Pavilion, Central Pavilion, South-East Pavilion, Pavilion of the Arts, King’s Pavilion and Sully Pavilion, (formerly Pavillon de l’Horloge: ‘Clock Pavilion’), to the sides of which extend the Lescot and Lemercier Wings. The centre is occupied by a fountain. The reliefs and statues which are adorning the exteriors are mostly allegorical in nature or refer to certain religious (Moses with the Tablets of the Law), mythological (the Egyptian goddess Isis with sistrum) and historical figures (the Inca emperor Manco Capac with the Sun and Numa Pompilius, the second monarch of Rome). The monograms of the kings appear on the parts built under their reign: Henry II, Charles IX, Henry IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The Republic placed a cockerel, the national symbol, on the pediment of the central pavilion of the East Wing.

Collecting had experienced a golden age during the regencies of Cardinals Mazarin and Richelieu, the latter amassed a large number of works from the collections of Vicenzo Gonzaga and the Duke of Mantua, while the former from the collection of Charles I of England. These collections were supplemented by gifts and donations from people seeking royal favor, which necessitated the creation of the post ofGarde des tableaux et dessins du roi, it is said, curator of the palace, an appointment which fell to the official painter Charles Le Brun.

The construction and transfer of the court of the Sun King to the Palace of Versailles meant that the Louvre Palace was abandoned as a royal residence and converted into an art gallery and exhibition space.

The royal collections were expanded by the acquisitions of Louis XV and Louis XVI. The first of these monarchs, who had been fond of tapestry cartoons (commissioned, among others, from Fragonard, Boucher and Van Loo for his royal apartments), had the idea of opening the Luxembourg Palace to the public two days a week from 1750 for the exhibition of more than a hundred works, in what can be considered the first gestation of the museum.

Louis XVI fitted out the Grande Galerie for the exhibition of paintings and emphasised the spirit of collecting and the policy of restoration which, at that time, was pervading the enlightened monarchsof much of Europe. In 1784, the painter Hubert Robert was appointed director with the task of restoring the collections, but the Revolution put an end to that work five years later.

In May 1791 the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre and the Tuileries Palace, in addition to being the royal residence, should be used for the collection of works of art, and paintings from the royal sites and religious deposits began to be brought in.

On 8 November 1793, after the nationalisation of royal and ecclesiastical property with the suppression of the religious orders, the gathering of the art treasures of Saint Denis and the collections of the nobility who had been forced into exile, and the official creation of theMuséum Central des Arts de la République(Central Museum of the Arts of the Republic) by decree of 27 July 1793, was opened to the public although without chronological and stylistic classification, the Great Gallery of the Louvre, which had been inaugurated on 10 August of the same year in the palace that had housed the headquarters of the French Academy and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture throughout the century.

After the building was closed between 1796 and 1801 due to structural deficiencies, in 1803, when Napoleon was consul for life, the museum, at the behest of its first director, Dominique-Vivant Denon, took the name of the future emperor (Napoleon Museum), who became the great despoiler of works during his military campaigns, several of which, after the defeat (1814) and restoration (1815), were not and have not been returned to this day for various reasons.

Charles X (1757-1836) ordered a new gallery to be built along the Rue Rivoli, parallel to the Galerie du Bord de l’Eau which had been built on the initiative of Henry IV. The Departments of Greek and Egyptian Antiquities were created in this space under the nameMusée Charles X(Charles X Museum), inaugurated on 5 December 1827. Jean-François Champollion, who had become famous in 1822 for deciphering the Rosetta Stone, a fragment of an ancient Egyptian stele in black diorite found by a French military detachment on 15 July 1799 on the site from which it takes its name, was appointed head of the museum. On its surface there is a decree published in the city of Memphis in 196 BC, written in three languages: hieroglyphic, demotic and ancient Greek. Champollion’s decipherment in the first of these languages of the phonetic charactersKleopatraandPtolemy,the pharaoh to whom divine worship was ordered on the occasion of his coronation, made it possible to read the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, which led to the birth of the science of Egyptology.

The New Louvre

The westward extensions carried out during the 19thcentury by Napoleon I (1804-1815) and Louis Napoleon III (1852-1870), extended the palace by 500 metres on the north and south sides of theCour Napoléonand theCour du Carrousel, are known as the New Louvre.

The north side is formed, from east to west, by three large pavilions along the Rue Rivoli on the right bank of the Seine: Pavillon de la Bibliothèque, Pavillon de Rohan and Pavillon de Marsan. Inside the first there are three other pavilions: Pavillon Colbert, Pavillon Richelieu and Pavillon Turgot, opening onto three secondary courtyards, from east to west:Cour Khorsabad,Cour PugetandCour Marly.

The ‘New Louvre’. From left to right: Pavillon Turgot, Pavillon Richelieu andPavillon Colbert, on the north side of the palace.

The south side of the New Louvre consists, from east to west, of five large pavilions along the Quai François Mitterrand (formerly Quai du Louvre): Pavillon de Lesdiguières, Pavillon des Sessions, Pavillon de La Tremoille, Pavillon of the States and Pavillon de Flore. As on the northern side, three inner pavilions (Pavillon Daru, Pavillon Denon and Pavillon Mollien) open onto three courtyards: Cour du Sphinx, Cour Visconti and Cour Lefuel.

During Bonaparte’s reign, the architects Charles Percier and Pierre-François Fontaine, who restructured and decorated the Grande Galerie du Louvre and completed the façade on the Rue Rivoli, were also commissioned to build the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1806-1808) to commemorate the Emperor’s battlefield victories, inside a new courtyard created by the union of the Tuileries and the Louvre parallel to the Grand Gallery. The chariot that crowned it came from the looting of the four bronze horses (copies of Greek originals from the 4thcentury BC), which were in St Mark’s Square in Venice, where they had been plundered by the Venetians from the Byzantines when Constantinople was conquered by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The charioteer who led them originally represented the emperor, but after the military disasters he ordered the statue to be removed. Today, after the horses were returned to Venice following the defeat at Waterloo (1815), there is a replica of the chariot, driven since 1828 by the allegory of the monarchical Restoration carrying a copy of the Magna Carta in his right hand. The original gold figures flanking it on either side symbolise Victory and Peace.

During the Second Empire, as part of the work Napoleon III undertook to renovate and enlarge the Louvre, the architect Hector Lefuel opened the Great Gallery to zenithal lighting by piercing the vault with skylights to allow natural light to penetrate, so that, properly combined with artificial lighting, it would prevent reflections on the paintings.

One of the most significant works carried out during this period was the Red Rooms, so called because of the splendid decoration of its walls in red and gold, by the painter and decorator Alexandre Dominique Denuelle in 1863. Alongside the works of the French masters of the 17th and 18thcenturies, they now contain the large paintings of 19thcenturyhistory painting: Jacques-Louis David, Antoine-Jean Gros, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix... In 1969, the abstract painter Pierre Soulages was involved in restoring the color of the walls, inspired by the style of the Pompeian paintings with red as a background.

The architect Louis Visconti was commissioned by Napoleon III to complete the Grand Dessein (Grand Project) conceived by Henry IV in the 16thcentury, it is said, the combination of the Tuileries and the Louvre in a single palace with the construction of two new wings: Richelieu to the north and Denon to the south, and the opening of a new square named after the emperor: Cour Napoléon, begun in 1852 and completed in 1857.

Flora Pavilion seen from the Tuileries gardens.

After the Tuileries were burned during the riots of the Paris Commune of 1871, and the palace was finally demolished during the Third Republic to build a public garden in 1883, framed by the Marsan and Flora pavilions, which formed an extensive panoramic view as far as the Place de l’Etoile, where the triumphal arch of the same name rises, the Louvre was detached from political activity to be used for artistic and cultural activities.

During the I World War (1914-1918), the most significant pieces were moved to the Jacobins church in Toulouse for safekeeping.

In 1926, the director, Henri Verne, launched a major project to open new rooms to exhibit as many of the works as possible to the public.

During the II World War (1939-1945), the most important pieces were taken to the Château de Chambord, and those that could not be evacuated were protected.

At the end of the war, a new reorganisation of the museum moved the Asian collections to the Musée Guimet and the Impressionist paintings to thePavilion Jeu de Pomme(Ball Game), which had been built during the reign of Napoleon III at the northwest end of the Tuileries gardens to house the Jeu de Pomme court, the forerunner of the modern sport of tennis.

Le Grand Louvre

The star project in the penultimate decade of the 20thcentury was theGrand Louvre, originally designed in 1981 by President François Mitterrand and completed in 1986, to make theCour Napoléonthe meeting point between the different wings and the center of entry for visitors, whose numbers were growing exponentially.

Cour Napoléonwith the pyramids.

In 1986 the works made after 1848 - with a few exceptions - had been transferred to the new Musée d’Orsay and the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Georges Pompidou National Centre for Art and Culture, which opened in 1977 and was refurbished twenty years later, reopening its doors to the public in 2000.

In the center of theCour Napoléon, above the visitors’ entrance, is the controversial Louvre Pyramid, surrounded by water features. It was inaugurated for the first time by President François Mitterrand in 1988, and reopened the following year on the occasion of its opening to the public to coincide with the bicentenary of the French Revolution. It is a geometric pyramid-shaped structure with a square base, made of steel and aluminium, designed by the American-born Chinese architect Ieoh Ming Pei (1917-2019).

The metal structure, which weighs 180 tonnes, has a base area of 1,254 square metres, a side length of 35.42 metres and a height at the top of 21.64 metres, with an inclination of 51 degrees (the same as the pyramids of Egypt). Six hundred and seventy-three parallelograms, which optically resemble rhombuses, and seventy triangles of laminated glass with a thickness of 21 mm cover its surface: a mesh of 2,100 nodes and 6,000 rods. The proposed models, Rodin’sThe Thinkerand Brancusi’sThe Cockerel, were discarded, essentially because of their unsightly appearance, especially the former when viewed from the inside.

Three smaller pyramids, built as skylights, surround it, and a fifth, inverted pyramid lies beneath the nearby Carrousel du Louvre shopping centre.

A vast underground complex of offices, shops, temporary exhibition spaces and the history of the Louvre, libraries, storage and parking areas, as well as an auditorium, a tour bus terminal and a café, were built beneath theCour Napoléonand theCour du Carrousel.

In 1993, the Richelieu Wing, which had housed the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance since its construction in 1871, was opened to the public and moved to Rue Bercy.

Other sites of the Louvre museum

The sheer number of works of art housed in the Louvre - about 445,000 - makes it impossible, for lack of physical space, to exhibit them to the public, which is reduced to about 35,000 pieces. For this reason, on 4 December 2012, a second site was opened in the town of Lens: theMusée Louvre-Lens, which houses about 600 works.

Nearby, in Liévin, the Louvre Conservation Centre was opened in 2019 to protect and improve the conditions for the maintenance and study of the works, of which it will house about 250,000 until 2024, making it the main center of this kind in Europe.

Due to the same lack of space, on 8 November 2017 a new subsidiary building was officially opened in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, under the name ofLouvre Abu Dhabi.

The brand-new construction, in the shape of an upside-down sieve deposited on the sea floating off the coast of the sandy island of Saddiyat (an island for art and culture with an exorbitant budget of over $18 billion), consists of a large hemispherical dome made of steel and aluminium with star-shaped lattices, covering fifty-five small pavilions built in white concrete on reflective sheets of water that cool the air and expand the light wave in space.

Distributed in small streets and squares, in the style of a desert village, ‘conceived - in the words of its architect Jean Nouvel - as a mixture of Arabian medina and Greek agora’, inside, works of contemporary art (Van Gogh, Matisse, Rotkho, Pollock) hang alongside Greek antiquities (a sphinx from the 6thcentury BC) or aPortrait of an unknown womanby Leonardo da Vinci.

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Collectionsof the LouvreMuseum

Collections of the Louvre Museum

The Louvre Museum houses one of the most important art collections in the world, if not the most important due to the quality, quantity and variety of its holdings, which are divided into different departments: Oriental Antiquities, Egyptian Antiquities, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Islamic Arts, Works of Art from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Modern Age, Sculptures from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Modern Age, Graphic Arts, Paintings and History of the Louvre.

This last section, located in the Clock Pavilion, allows visitors to discover the architectural development of the building throughout its construction stages, as well as the evolution of the various collections. The foundations of the original donjon and the crypt of Saint Louis -named after the remains from the reign of Louis IX - are on display. Objects found during the archaeological excavations carried out between 1983 and 1993 during the implementation of the Grand Louvre project are exhibited. In the room of the former chapel (1655-1669) of Louis XIV, the museum’s collections are presented through a selection of works. This room offers a great view of the pyramid, the gardens and, in the distance, the Champs Elysées and, at the end, the Arc de l’Etoile.

In the gardens of the Carrousel - around the triumphal arch of the same name - and the Tuileries, renovated after a public competition in 1990 won by the landscape architects Pascal Cribier and Louis Benech, garden sculptures in their parterres are displayed. It is a veritable open-air museum with works from the 17thcentury to the present day by great sculptors such as Antoine Coysevox, Auguste Rodin, Jean Dubuffet and others.

Since 2004, the Musée National Eugène Delacroix, located in the house-workshop where the painter spent the last years of his life, has been administratively attached to the Louvre. It contains more than a thousand pieces, both works by the master and objects that belonged to him, as well as those created in his honor by various artists.

Since the inauguration on 20 June 2006 by the then president, Jacques Chirac, of theMusée du Quai Branly,also renamed after him since 2016 to mark a decade since its opening to the public, the works of art from Africa, Asia, America and Oceania, which first entered the Louvre in 1827 with the creation of the Marine and Ethnographic Museum by King Charles X, are exhibited in these rooms, except for a selection of 120 masterpieces which are displayed in the Pavillon des Sessions du Louvre. Built during the Second Empire by Hector Lefuel to house parliamentary sessions - hence the name - it was inaugurated as an exhibition hall in 2000.

Among its pieces is theVenus from Chupicuaro, pottery belonging to this pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture.

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Venus from Chupicuaro(300-200 B.C. Late Formative)Anonymous

Hollow terracotta with polychrome slip. Height: 31 cm

TheVenus from Chupicuaro