The story of the Louvre Museum: Part 1
17th May 2023 Art & Theatre
The Louvre museum contains a wealth of art treasures of astonishing quality, accumulated over hundreds of years of assiduous collecting, largely on the part of French royalty. Open to the general public since 1793, read on for part one of how the former royal palace survived a revolution and became the world's most famous art gallery
French painting was the driving force of Western art for at least 250 years, from the days of Nicolas Poussin at the court of Louis XIII to the Cubists in the early 20th century. Paris, with its vast cultural and political history, has always been at the centre of the artistic movement.
Fiirst built as a royal palace for King Francis I, an avid art enthusiast, in 1546, the Louvre has accumulated an extroardinarily rich and varied collection of works around which the history of Western art has been constructed.
The museum currently presents an astounding 35,000 works of art and artifacts, earning its reputation as a bastion of French national pride.
The museum contains outstanding sculptures and other artifacts from the ancient world, including archaeological trophies from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and world-famous pieces of Greek and Roman sculpture, such as the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
A pyramid scandal
Credit: bennymarty
The Louvre is set around a long courtyard, the Cour Napoléon, in a vast U-shaped group of neoclassical buildings located nearby the iconic Arc de Triomphe on the right side of the Seine. Surrounded by so much enchanting Parisian architecture, by the 1970s the Louvre was beginning to look tired.
"Surrounded by so much enchanting Parisian architecture, by the 1970s the Louvre was beginning to look tired"
Spread out over miles of rambling galleries, it was diffcult to see the Royal Palace's wonderful art collection. The museum's entrance area was always crowded with visitors trying to find the sections of the museum that they wanted to see and much of the collection was in storage, out of sight.
Much of the northern wing, along the Rue de Rivoli, was occupied by government ministries. So, when the socialist leader François Mitterrand was elected president in 1981, he made the renovation of the Louvre a priority among his grand projects.
What followed was almost a decade of controversy and debate; observers looked on outraged as Chinese-American architect I M Pei dropped an alien spaceship: a glass pyramid comprised of 673 triangular and diamond shaped panes of glass, thick set into aluminum frames, into the very heart of this treasured national institution.
Critics decried the conspicuous structure as yet another example of modernism corroding the fabric of tradition. I M Pei’s design was, to many Parisians, a scandal. To others however, it was a stroke of genius.
Since its completion in 1988 as the main entrance to the Louvre, the glass Pyramid has become almost as much an icon of France's capital as the Eiffel Tower. Its uncompromising triangles have breathed new life into an old institution.
Royal palace
Henri IV Receiving the Portrait of Marie de' Medici by Peter Paul Rubens. Credit: The Louvre
The history of the Louvre is closely entwined with the history of Paris itself and with the French royal family. The first building on the site was a fortress built in 1190 by King Philippe II (known as Philippe Auguste, who reigned 1180–1223). Remains of this early structure can still be seen beneath the Cour Carrée.
"The first building on the site was a fortress built in 1190 by King Philippe II"
Under Charles V (reigned 1364–80) the Louvre became a royal residence a palais, and so it remained until the 19th century, gradually expanding and developing in the styles of each successive era.
The oldest surviving room is the Salle des Caryatides, built in 1550 for King Henri II (reigned 1547–59), and named after the Greek-style female figures that support the upper gallery; it is in the Lescot Wing, overlooking the Cour Carrée.
After Henri’s death, his widow Catherine de’ Medici built the Palais des Tuileries, which formed the western wing of the Louvre complex. Destroyed by a fire in 1871 during the Paris Commune and demolished in 1883, the Palais survives only in the name of the gardens, the Jardin des Tuileries.
Royal collectors
Ma Chemise brûle by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Credit: The Louvre
With the royal family came patronage of the arts. King François I (reigned 1515–47), who turned the Louvre into a Renaissance palace, was a collector of contemporary Italian art. He was also a patron of Leonardo da Vinci, who arrived from Italy as an old man brought with him an unfinished portrait: the Mona Lisa.
Under King Henri IV (reigned 1589–1610), the Louvre became home to artists attached to the French court; they lived here with their families and were provided with studios. Musicians and poets were also housed here.
In 1682, Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, moved his court to his new and spectacular Palace of Versailles, to the west of Paris, and the Louvre became increasingly devoted to the arts. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Boucher and Jacques-Louis David were among the many famous painters who took up residence here.
Star of the show: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is the world's most famous smile and the Louvre's most famous possession. Thought to be based on Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a nobleman, da Vinci's painting attracts large crowds to the Louvre every single day.
Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death
Credit: Milky
Around this time French royalty had almost total control over the internal affairs of the church and Louis XIV was leading a voracious colonial mission to expand France's borders into Strasbourg in Germany and the Alsace province. With royal attention focussed elsewhere, the palace began to fall into disrepair.
"With royal attention focussed elsewhere, the palace began to fall into disrepair"
During the French Revolution, the fortunes of the royal artists became precarious when Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette, were brought to Paris from Versailles and placed under house arrest in the Palais des Tuileries.
The revolutionaries set up a guillotine right outside in the Place du Carrousel. Here, in April 1792, Nicolas Jacques Pelletier, a thief, became the first-ever Frenchman to be executed by guillotine – a machine then considered a symbol of equality because everyone was killed quickly and in the same way, regardless of their status or rank.
The following year the guillotine was moved to the Place dela Concorde. The royal art collection, meanwhile, was sequestrated by the new republican state, and increased immensely as the estates and possessions of the aristocracy were confiscated.
In 1793, the Louvre was opened as a public art gallery under the name of the Musée Central des Arts.
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