Place de la Concorde (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Place de la Concorde seen from Jardin des Tuileries

The 7.6-hectare (18.8-acre) Place de la Concorde, situated along the right bank of the Seine River in the eighth arrondissement, separates the Tuileries Gardens from the beginning of the Boulevard Champs-Elysées. (see map). At the bottom of the Champs Elysées, set in the center, stands an ancient Egyptian obelisk from the Luxor Temple.

Here is the historical timeline of the Place de la Concorde and its sumptuous obelisk:

In 1754, construction of the royal square began. First called Place Louis XV, it was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, Louis XV’s architect, for the purpose of showcasing an equestrian statue of the King (commissioned in 1748 by the city of Paris, mostly sculpted by Edmé Bouchardon.and completed by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle after the death of Bouchardon)
In 1763, the square was completed.
During the French Revolution, the square was renamed as Place de la Révolution and the statue of the king was replaced by the guillotine.
With the restoration of the Bourbons, the square was renamed Place Louis XVI and an equestrian statue of King Louis XVI, designed by Jean-Pierre Cortot, was installed.
During the July Revolution in 1830, the equestrian statue of King Louis XVI was destroyed.
In 1829, Muhammad Ali Pasha (also known as Mehmet Ali Pesha), the self-declared Khedive of Ottoman Egypt, deciding to dramatically reform the military, cultural and economic aspects of Egypt, offered to France the two obelisks of the first pylon at the front of Luxor Temple (the temple of the god Amon), that Ramesses II had raised in the 13th century BC.
In August 1832 (they had to wait for the flood of the river to leave), the French steam paddle ship Sphinx sailed to Alexandria to rendezvous there with the Louqsor. The French seamen then lowered the obelisk with an array of blocks and tackles, yardarms and capstans.
On April 1, 1833, the Sphinx and Louqsor depart Alexandria
On May 10, 1833, both ships reached Toulon.
On August 12, 1833, the ships arrived at Cherbourg port within the Basse Normandie region.
On December 21, 1833, the Parisian obelisk arrived in Paris. Sphinx then towed Louqsor back to France.
On October 25, 1836, the obelisk was moved to the center of Place de la Concorde and re-erected during a carefully planned ceremony watched and applauded by King Louis-Philippe I and his family, gathered on the balcony of the Hotel de la Marine, and an eager crowd of 200,000 people. The lifting of the obelisk began at 11:30 AM.
In 1936, the Luxor Obelisk was officially classified as a Monument Historique.
On the morning of December 1, 1993, to mark World AIDS Day, the anti-AIDS Charity Act Up Paris covered the Parisian obelisk with a giant pink condom.
In May 1998, as part of the celebrations to mark Franco-Egyptian relations, a 3 m. high pyramid, made of bronze and gold leaf, was added to the top of the monolith by the government of France under then French President Jacques Chirac, to cap the top of the obelisk (its original pyramidion was believed stolen in the 6th century BC).
In 1998 and 2000, French urban climber Alain Robert scaled the Parisian obelisk without the use of any ropes or other climbing equipment or safety devices.

The square marks an intersection of two axes. The Voie Triomphale (Triumphal Way), the major axis, extends east-to-west, in a perfectly straight line, from the former royal palace (now the Louvre Museum), past the Arc du Carrousel and through the Tuileries Gardens, up the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe, and beyond — now culminating at the Grande Arche in the Paris suburb of La Défense. The second (minor) axis, formed by the line between Place de la Madeleine, down rue Royale through the square and across the Pont de la Concorde, culminates at the Palais Bourbon.

Check out “Arc de Triomphe” and “Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel“

Statues, at each corner of the octagon (at one time, the pedestals under these statues were inhabited by citizens of Paris), were initiated by architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorff. They represent the French cities of Brest and Rouen by Jean-Pierre Cortot, Lyon and Marseille by Pierre Petitot, Bordeaux and Nantes by Louis-Denis Caillouette, and Lille and Strasbourg by James Pradier.

Horses of Marly. These are copies of Costeau’s horses, masterpieces of French sculpture, that were moved to the Louvre in 1984 to be conserved.

The Horses of Marly (Chevaux de Marly), monumental statues of French sculptor Guillaume Coustou the Elder located at the beginning of the Champs Elysées, are copies of the originals which are now exhibited at the Louvre Museum.

The Pont de la Concorde, at the south end of the square, was built between 1787-1790 by Jean-Rodolphe Perronnet and widened between 1930-1932. It crosses the Seine, leading to the Palais Bourbon, home of the French National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale).

Cheska and Kyle at the rain-swept Place de la Concorde

Bordering the Place de la Concorde are the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume (originally Napoleon III’s indoor tennis court) and Musée de l’Orangerie, both in the Tuileries Gardens; and the Embassy of the United States, located in the corner of the square at the intersection of Avenue Gabriel and Rue Boissy d’Anglas.

Here are some interesting trivia regarding the Place de la Concorde.

Measuring 359 m. (1,178 ft.) long by 212 m. (696 ft.) wide, Place de la Concorde is the largest public and, possibly, the most infamous square in Paris and is one of the most well known traffic circles in the world.
The square is actually in the shape of an octagon (because of its cut-off corners) and was once bordered by large moats which no longer exist (filled in during the reign of Napoleon III) .
Between 1793 and 1795, during the French Revolution, Louis XVI (January 21, 1793), Princess Élisabeth of France, Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Antoine Lavoisier, Madame du Barry, Maximilien Robespierre Louis de Saint-Just , and Olympe de Gouges and nearly 1,300 others were executed there. It is said that the scent of blood was so strong in the square that a herd of cattle once refused to cross the grounds.
Following the Revolution, the square underwent a series of name changes – Place de la Concorde (as a gesture of reconciliation after the turmoil of the revolution), Place Louis XV (again), Place Louis XVI, Place de la Chartre and, once again, Place de la Concorde.
Its obelisk, and twin that still stands in front temple in Luxor (formerly the city of Thebes, the second largest city in Egypt at the time), were the largest obelisks to have been erected by Ramses II (others were set up at temples in Heliopolis and Tanis).
Obelisks were popular among the Roman emperors so much so that 13 of them were taken to Rome. Today, in addition to that in Paris and the Cleopatra’s Needles in London and New York, historic Egyptian examples are also found in Florence in Italy.
Mediating between the Egypt and France was Jean-Francois Champollion, first decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and curator of Egyptian collections at the Louvre Museum. Dying in 1832, he never had the chance to see the completion of his work.
Through the efforts of Jean Baptiste Apollinaire Lebas, the two ancient obelisks were presented as a gift to King Charles X. However, King Charles X had already abdicated from the throne, even before the first of the two obelisks was even destined to arrive in Paris, and King Louis Philippe took over.
Only the right-hand obelisk in Luxor Temple was transported and erected. The left-hand obelisk remained in its location in Egypt as President Francois Mitterand, on September 26, 1981, renounced the French claim to second Luxor obelisk as a symbolic gesture and one of peace between nations.
The original sculpted Egyptian pedestal (both obelisks had identical pedestals), which included the statues of 16 fully sexed carved baboons raising their legs, revealing their sexes (at dawn, ancient Egyptians observed baboons in nature making such a gesture and interpreted this as the animals ‘adoring’ the sun), was deemed too obscene for public exhibition. It is now displayed in the Egyptian section of the Musée du Louvre. A block of granite for the new pedestal was ordered in Brest.
To transport the monolith, the 49 m. long, specially designed, purpose-built, flat bottomed and 3-masted barge Louqsor (the first naval steamer), a seagoing freighter, was built by the Toulon naval yard to be able to navigate the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, sail up the Seine and the Nile, and pass under the bridges of Paris.
In Luxor, 300 workmen dug a canal to allow the Louqsor to come close to the obelisk. After packing and felling the monolith, it had to be dragged for 400 m. to join the Nile.
To lift the obelisk at the Place de Concorde, a counterweight system was developed by engineer Apollinaire Lebas, with 350 gunners operating the lift, with the strength of their arms, while the engineer remains voluntarily under the obelisk.
The successful French transport operation of the obelisk (a 9,000-km. journey that lasted seven long years), not an easy engineering feat as the effort, manpower and expertise was tremendous. It predates, by more than 30 years, the eventful transport of Cleopatra’s Needle by the British.
The large mechanical clock, offered in 1845 by King Louis Philippe in exchange for the obelisk, was discovered to be faulty, having probably been damaged during transport. The still not working clock exists in a clock-tower in a mosque at the top of the Cairo Citadel.
Compared to the rest of this old monument, the new and shiny pyramidion makes it now known as the most cheerful obelisk in the world for what it represents.
In the Star Trek novels, the Place de la Concorde is the location of the offices of the President and the Council of the United Federation of Planets.

The 3,000 year-old, so-called Luxor Obelisk (French: Obélisque de Louxor), of yellow granite and inscribed with hieroglyphs in honor of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, is one of a pair of ancient Egyptian obelisks carved to stand either side of the portal of the Luxor Temple.

The Luxor Obelisk

Flanked on both sides by fountains (Fontaine des Mers and Fontaine des Fleuves) constructed at the time of its erection, the Paris obelisk rises 22.83 m. (74.9 ft,) high, including the base, and weighs over 250 metric tons (280 short tons). Its hieroglyphics depict the rule of Ramses II and Ramses III.

The obelisk’s pedestal

Its present-day pedestal , originally intended for the equestrian statue of King Louis XVI, is now with drawn gilded diagrams explaining the procedures and the complex machinery and different devices that were used for the transportation and erection on the square (just as the pedestal of the Obelisk of Theodosius has relief carvings showing that ancient Egyptian obelisk’s re-erection in Constantinople).

Check out “Louvre Museum” and “Louvre Museum – Egyptian Antiquities Department”

Hôtel Crillon, north of the obelisk, was where Marie Antoinette, in happier times, took piano lessons and where, in 1778, France signed a treaty (first in the world) recognizing a free and independent United States of America.

The new pyramidion of the obelisk

Place de la Concorde: 75008 Paris, France.

How to Get There:

Concorde, the nearest Métro station, is located beneath the Place de la Concorde, at the beginning of the Rue de Rivoli, next to the Jardin des Tuileries. It serves Lines 1, 8 and 12. Walking in a northerly direction gets you to the Madeleine stop that serves lines 8, 12 and 14 while walking in a westerly direction, up the famous Avenue des Champs Elysees, you have the Champs-Elysees – Clemenceau stop serving Lines 1 and 13.
Several Bus Lines that gets you close by to this historical monument including 24, 42, 72, 73, 84, 94 along with the Noctilien Night Bus Service via lines N11 and N24. However, the nearest RER train station is the Invalides stop on the left bank of the River Seine, which serves the RER C Line.24, 42, 52, 72, 73, 84, 94.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

After our all morning tour of the Louvre and lunch at an outdoor café, we made our way, by foot, to the Bateaux Parisiens boat docking station, near the Eiffel Tower, where we were to embark on a Seine River Cruise. We passed a number of Paris landmarks along the way. The first was the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, a triumphal arch derivative of the triumphal arches of the Roman Empire; in particular that of Septimius Severus in Rome.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Located in the Place du Carrousel, it was designed by Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine and was built between 1806 and 1808, on the model of the Arch of Constantine (312 AD) in Rome, by Emperor Napoleon I as an entrance of honor of the Tuileries Palace, the Imperial residence, and to commemorate his diplomatic and military victories of the previous year. The more famous Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, across from the Champs Élysées and designed in the same year, is about twice as massive but was not completed until 1836.

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel is located at the eastern end of Paris Axe historique (“historic axis”), a 9-km. long linear route which dominates much of the northwestern quadrant of the city. It is, in effect, the backbone of the Right Bank. Looking west, the arch is perfectly aligned with the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, the centerline of the grand boulevard Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe at the Place de l’Étoile, and, although it is not directly visible from the Place du Carrousel, the Grande Arche de la Défense. Thus, the axis begins and ends with an arch.

Bas-relief of The Battle of Austerlitz

When the Arc du Carrousel was built, however, an observer in the Place du Carrousel was impeded from any view westward as the central part of the Palais des Tuileries intervened to block the line of sight to the west. When the Tuileries was burned down during the Paris Commune in 1871, and its ruins were swept away, the great axis, as it presently exists, an unobstructed view west was opened all the way to the Place du Carrousel, the Louvre and the more famous Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile. Also, with the disappearance of the palace, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel also became the dominant feature of the Place du Carrousel.

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel seen from the Louvre

This monument is 19 m. (63 ft.) high, 23 m. (75 ft.) wide and 7.5 m. (24 ft.) deep. Its 6.4 m. (21 ft.) high central arch is flanked by two smaller ones, 4.3 m. (14 ft.) high, and 2.7 m. (9 ft.) wide. An example of Corinthian style of architecture, around its exterior are 8 marble Corinthian columns topped by an entablature whose upper frieze has sculptures of 8 soldiers of the Empire: Auguste Marie Taunay‘s cuirassier, Charles-Louis Corbet‘s dragoon, Joseph Chinard‘s horse grenadier and Jacques-Edme Dumont‘s sapper.

Statue of a dragoon

On the pediment, between the soldiers, are bas-reliefs, executed in rose marble, whose subjects are devoted to the battles of Napoleon and were selected by Vivant Denon, the director of the Napoleon Museum (located at the time in the Louvre), and designed by Charles Meynier. They depict:

the Arms of the Kingdom of Italy with figures representing History and the Arts
the Arms of the French Empire with Victory, Fame, History, and Abundance
Wisdom and Strength holding the arms of the Kingdom of Italy, accompanied by Prudence and Victory.
the Peace of Pressburg
Napoleon entering Munich
Napoleon entering Vienna (sculptor: Louis-Pierre Deseine)
the Battle of Austerlitz (sculptor: Jean-Joseph Espercieux)
the Tilsit Conference
the surrender of Ulm (sculptor: Pierre Cartellier)

It was originally surmounted by the so-called Horses of Saint Mark that adorned the top of the main door of the St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, which had been captured in 1798 by Napoleon. In 1815, following the Battle of Waterloo and the Bourbon restoration, France ceded the quadriga to the Austrian empire which had annexed Venice under the terms of the Congress of Vienna. The Austrians immediately returned the statuary to Venice.

Quadriga of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

The horses of Saint Mark were replaced in 1828 by a quadriga, atop the entablature, sculpted by Baron François Joseph Bosio, depicting Peace riding in a triumphal chariot led by gilded Victories on both sides. The composition commemorates the Restoration of the Bourbons following Napoleon’s downfall. The Arc du Carrousel inspired the design of Marble Arch, constructed in London between 1826 and 1833.

Tuileries Garden (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Tuileries Garden

The Tuileries Garden (French: Jardin des Tuileries), a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, a place where ordinary Parisians celebrated, met, strolled, relaxed, enjoyed the fresh air and greenery and be entertained.

Check out “Louvre Museum” and “Place de la Concorde“

The name of the garden, as well the Tuileries Palace (burned in 1870 during the uprising of the Paris Commune), was derived from the tile-making factories called tuileries (from the French tuile, meaning “tile”) which once occupied the area since the 13th century.

View of Eiffel Tower from the gardens

Here is the historical timeline of the garden:

In 1564, Queen Catherine de Medici commissioned Bernard de Carnesse, a landscape architect from Florence, to create an Italian Renaissance garden (the largest and most beautiful garden in Paris at the time) in an enclosed space 500 m. long and 300 m. wide, separated from the new Tuileries Palace by a lane. It was to have fountains, a labyrinth, a grotto and was decorated with faience images of plants and animals, made by Bernard Palissy, whom Catherine had tasked to discover the secret of Chinese porcelain. Six alleys divided it into rectangular compartments which were planted with lawns, flower beds, and small clusters of five trees (called quinconces) and, more practically, with kitchen gardens and vineyards. Catherine used this garden for lavish royal festivities honoring ambassadors from Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the marriage of her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, to Henri III of Navarre (better known as Henry IV, King of France and of Navarre).
In 1588, after King Henry III was forced to flee Paris, the gardens fell into disrepair.
Henry IV (1589–1610), his successor, and his gardener, Claude Mollet, restored the gardens. They built a covered promenade the length of the garden, and a parallel alley planted with mulberry trees (where he hoped to cultivate silkworms and start a silk industry in France). He also built a rectangular, 65 m. by 45 m. ornamental lake of with a fountain supplied with water by the new pump called La Samaritaine (built in 1608 on the Pont Neuf). The area between the palace and the former moat of Charles V was turned into the “New Garden” (Jardin Neuf) with a large fountain in the center. Henry IV used the gardens for relaxation and exercise.
In 1610, at the death of his father, the Tuileries Gardens became the enormous playground of 9 year old Louis XIII who used it for hunting and where he kept a menagerie of animals. On the north side of the gardens, Marie de’ Medici established a riding school, stables and a covered manege for exercising horses. The gardens were turned into a pleasure spot for the nobility when the king and court were absent from Paris.
In 1630, a former rabbit warren and kennel, at the west rampart of the garden, was made into a flower-lined promenade and cabaret (where the daughter of Gaston d’Orléans and the niece of Louis XIII, known as La Grande Mademoiselle, held a sort of court). The “New Garden” of Henry IV (the present-day Carousel) became known as the “Parterre de Mademoiselle.”
In 1652, “La Grande Mademoiselle” was expelled from the chateau and garden for having supported the Fronde, an uprising against her cousin, the young Louis XIV.
In 1662, to celebrate the birth of his first child, Louis XIV held a vast pageant of mounted courtiers in the New Garden (enlarged by filling in Charles V’s moat and had been turned into a parade ground). Thereafter, the square was known as the Place du Carrousel.
In 1664, Colbert, the king’s superintendent of buildings, commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre (the grandson of Pierre Le Nôtre, one of Catherine de’ Medici’s gardeners, and his father Jean had also been a gardener at the Tuileries), to redesign the entire garden. Le Nôtre immediately began transforming the Tuileries into a formal jardin à la française (a style he had first developed at Vaux-le-Vicomte and perfected at Versailles), based on symmetry, order and long perspectives.
In 1667, at the request of Charles Perrault (the famous author of Sleeping Beautyand other fairy tales), the Tuileries Garden was eventually opened to the public (with the exception of beggars, “lackeys” and soldiers). It was the first royal garden to be open to the public.
In 1682, furious with the Parisians for resisting his authority, the king abandoned Paris and moved to Versailles. The garden was abandoned for nearly forty years.
In 1719, La Renommée and Mercure, two large equestrian statuary groups by the sculptor Antoine Coysevox, were brought from the king’s residence at Marly and placed at the west entrance of the garden. Along the Grande Allée, other statues by Nicolas Coustou and Guillaume Coustou the Elder, Corneille Van Clève, Sebastien Slodz, Thomas Regnaudin and Antoine Coysevox were placed. To make access to the garden easier, a swing bridge was placed at the west end over the moat. A grand vestibule to the garden was created with the place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde). Certain holidays, such as August 25, the feast day of Saint Louis, were celebrated with concerts and fireworks in the park.
On October 6, 1789, as the French Revolution began, King Louis XVI was brought against his will to the Tuileries Palace and the garden was closed to the public except in the afternoon. A part of the garden, first at the west end of the Promenade Bord d’eaux, then at the edge of the Place Louis XV, was given for the private use of Queen Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin.
On the evening of September 18, 1791, after the king’s failed attempt to escape France and during the festival organized to celebrate the new French Constitution, when the alleys of the park were illuminated with pyramids and rows of lanterns, the royal family was allowed to walk in the park.
On August 10, 1792, a mob stormed the Tuileries Palace and the king’s Swiss guards were chased through the gardens and massacred.
After the king’s removal from power and execution, the Tuileries became the National Garden (Jardin National) of the new French Republic.
In 1794, the painter Jacques-Louis David, and to his brother in law, the architect August Cheval de Saint-Hubert were assigned the renewal of the gardens by the new government, conceiving a garden decorated with Roman porticos, monumental porches, columns, and other classical decoration. The project was never completed and all that remains today are the two exedres, semicircular low walls crowned with statues by the two ponds in the center of the garden. While David’s project was not finished, large numbers of statues from royal residences were brought to the gardens for display. The garden was also used for revolutionary holidays and festivals.
On June 8, 1794, Robespierre organized a ceremony in the Tuileries in honor of the Cult of the Supreme Being, with sets and costumes designed by Jacques-Louis David. After a hymn written for the occasion, Robespierre set fire to mannequins representing Atheism, Ambition, Egoism and False Simplicity, revealing a statue of Wisdom.
In 1780, public toilets were added.
On December 1, 1783, a famous early balloon ascent, by Jacques Alexandre César Charlesand Nicolas Louis Robert, was made from the garden. Small food stands were placed in the park, and chairs could be rented for a small fee.
On April 2, 1810, Napoleon Bonaparte used the garden as passage of his own wedding procession when he married the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria.
After the fall of Napoleon, the garden briefly became the encampment of the occupying Austrian and Russian soldiers.
After the restoration of the monarchy, and the new King Charles X renewed an old tradition and celebrated the feast day of Saint Charles in the garden.
In 1830, after a brief revolution, the new king Louis-Philippe, wanting a private garden within the Tuileries, separated a section of the garden in front of the palace with a fence, decorating the new private garden with a small moat, flower beds and eight new statues by sculptors of the period.
In 1852, following another revolution and the short-lived Second Republic, the new Emperor Louis Napoleon enlarged his private reserve within the garden further to the west as far as the north–south alley that crossed the large round basin, so that included the two small round basins. His new garden was decorated with beds of exotic plants and flowers and new statues.
In 1859, Louis Napoleon made the Terrasse du bord-de-l’eau into a playground for his son, the Prince Imperial. He also constructed the Jeu de paume and the Orangerie, twin pavilions at the west end of the garden and built, at the west entrance, a new stone balustrade. From May to November, when The Emperor was not in Paris, the entire garden, including his private garden and the playground, were usually open to the public.
In 1883, the ruins of the burnt out palace were torn and the empty site, between the two pavilions of the Louvre, became part of the garden.
At the 1900 Summer Olympics, the Gardens hosted the fencing
In the years between the two World Wars, the Jeu de paume tennis court was turned into a gallery, its western part was used to display the Water Lilies series of paintings by Claude Monet. The Orangerie became an art gallery for contemporary western art.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Tuilieries Garden was filled with entertainments for the public (acrobats, puppet theaters, lemonade stands, small boats on the lakes, donkey rides, and stands selling toys).
In 1914, during the First World War, the statues in the garden were surrounded by sandbags.
In 1918, two German long-range artillery shells landed in the garden.
During the German Occupation of World War II (1940 to 1944), the Jeu de paume was used by the Germans as a depot for storing art they stole or expropriated from Jewish families.
In 1927, the Jeu de Paume became an annex of the Luxembourg Palace Museum for the display of contemporary art from outside France.
In 1944, the liberation of Paris saw considerable fighting in the garden and, during the battle, Monet’s paintings Water Lilies were seriously damaged.
From 1947 until 1986, the Jeu de Paume served as the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which held many important Impressionist works now housed in the Musée d’Orsay.
In 1964–65, André Malraux (the Minister of Culture for President Charles de Gaulle) removed the 19th century statues which surrounded the Place du Carrousel and replaced them with contemporary sculptures by Aristide Maillol.
In 1994, as part of the Grand Louvre project launched by President François Mitterrand, the Belgian landscape architect Jacques Wirtz remade the garden of the Carrousel, adding labyrinths and a fan of low hedges radiating from the triumphal arch in the square.
In 1995, the Jardin du Carrousel was remade to showcase a collection of 21 statues by Aristide Maillol, which had been put in the Tuileries in 1964.
In 1998, under President Jacques Chirac, works of modern sculpture by Jean Dubuffet, Henri Laurens, Étienne Martin, Henry Moore, Germaine Richier, Auguste Rodin and David Smith were placed in the garden.
In 2000, the works of living artists (Magdalena Abakanowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg, Roy Lichtenstein, François Morrellet, Giuseppe Penone, Anne Rochette and Lawrence Weiner) were added. At the same time, another ensemble of three works by Daniel Dezeuze, Erik Dietman and Eugène Dodeigne, called Prière Toucher (Eng: Please Touch), was added.
At the beginning of the 21st century, French landscape architects Pascal Cribier and Louis Benech have been working to restore some of the early features of the André Le Nôtre garden.

Check out “Musee d’Orsay“

The Grand Carré (Large Square), the eastern, open part of the Tuilieries Garden, still follows the formal plan of the Garden à la française created in the 17th century by André Le Nôtre. The eastern part, surrounding the round pond, was the private garden, separated from the rest of the Tuileries by a fence, of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. Most of its statues were put in place in the 19th century.

Statue of Diane Chasseresse (Louis-Auguste Levesque)

Nymphe (1866) and Diane Chasseresse (Diana the Huntress) (1869), both done by Louis Auguste Lévêque, marks the beginning of the central allée which runs east-west through the park.

Statue of Nymphe (Louis-Auguste Levesque)

Tigre terrassant un crocodile (Tiger overwhelming a crocodile, 1873) and Tigresse portant un paon à ses petits (Tigress bringing a peacock to her young, 1873), both by Auguste Cain, are located by the two small round ponds.

The large round pond is surrounded by statues on themes from antiquity, allegory, and ancient mythology and in violent poses alternating with those in serene poses. On the south side, starting from the east entrance of the large round pond, they are:

La Misère (Misery) by Jean-Baptiste Hugues (1905)
Périclès distribuant les couronnes aux artistes (Pericles Giving Crowns to Artists) by Jean-Baptiste Debay Pėre (1835)
Le Bon Samaritain (The Good Samaritan) by François Sicard (1896)
Alexandre Combattant (Alexander Fighting) by Charles Nanteuil (1836)
Cincinnatus by Denis Foyatier (1834)
Médée by Paul Jean Baptiste Gasq (1896)

The Good Samaritan (François Sicard)

On the north side, starting at the west entrance to the pond, they are:

Le Serment de Spartacus (The Oath of Spartacus) by Louis Ernest Barrias (1869)
La Comédie by Julien Toussaint Roux (1874)
Le Centaur Nessus enlevant Dėjanire (The Centaur Nessus Carrying Off Dejanire) by Laurent Honoré Marqueste (1892)
Thésée combattant le Minotaure (Theseus Fighting the Minotaur) by Étienne-Jules Ramey (1821)
Cassandre se met sous la protection de Pallas by Aimé Miller (1877)
Caïn venant de tuer son frère Abel (Cain After Killing His Brother Abel) by Henri Vidal (1896)

The Centaur Nessus Carrying Off Dejanire (Laurent Honoré Marqueste)

Le Grand Couvert, the part of the garden covered with trees, has two cafes named after two famous cafes once located in the garden – the Café Very (which had been on the Terrace des Feuiillants in the 18th–19th century) and the Café Renard (which in the 18th century had been a popular meeting place on the western terrace).

The Oath of Spartacus (Louis Ernest Barrias)

It also contains the two exedras (low curving walls built to display statues which survived from the French Revolution), built in 1799 by Jean Charles Moreau (as part of a larger unfinished project designed by painter Jacques-Louis David in 1794), now decorated with plaster casts of moldings on mythological themes from the park of Louis XIV at Marly.

Pericles Giving Crowns to Artists (Jean-Baptiste Debay Pėre)

The Grand Couvert also contains a number of important works of the 20th century and contemporary sculpture, including:

Apollon, (about 1933) by Paul Belmondo
Jeanette (about 1933) by Paul Belmondo
La Grande Musicienne (1937) by Henri Laurens
L’Échiquier, Grand (1959) by Germaine Richier
Primo Piano II (1962) by David Smith
Personnages III (1967) by Étienne Martin
Brushstroke Nude(1993) by Roy Lichtenstein
Force et Tendresse (1996) by Eugène Dodeigne
Manus Ultimus, (1997) by Magdalena Abakanowicz
L’Ami de personne, (1999) by Erik Dietman
Confidence(2000) by Daniel Dezeuze
Arbre des voyelles, (2000) by Giuseppe Penone
Un, deux, tros, nous(2000) by Anne Rochette

The Standing Woman (Gaston Lachaise)

The Orangerie (Musée de l’Orangerie), built in 1852 by the architect Firmin Bourgeois, is located at the west end of the garden, close to the Seine River. Since 1927, it has displayed many large examples of Claude Monet‘s Water Lilies series as well as the Walter-Guillaume collection of Impressionist painting.

Bassin Octogonal

On the terrace are four works of sculpture by Auguste Rodin: Le Baiser (1881–1898); Eve (1881) and La Grande Ombre (1880) and La Meditation avc bras (1881–1905). It also has a modern work, Grand Commandement blanc (1986) by Alain Kirili.

The partially installed Roue de Paris, a 60-m. (200-ft.) tall transportable Ferris wheel, originally installed on the Place de la Concorde for the 2000 millennium celebrations.

The Jardin du Carrousel, also known as the Place du Carrousel, is the part of the garden that used to be enclosed by the two wings of the Louvre and by the Tuileries Palace. In the 18th century it was used as a parade ground for cavalry and other festivities. The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, its central feature, was built to celebrate the victories of Napoleon, with bas-relief sculptures of his battles by Jean Joseph Espercieux.

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La Comédie (Julien Toussaint Roux)

The elevated Terrasse (terrace), between the Carrousel and the rest of the garden, used to be at the front of the Tuileries Palace which, after the Palace was burned in 1870, was made into a road, which was put underground in 1877. The terrace is decorated by two large vases which used to be in the gardens of Versailles, and two statues by Aristide Maillol; the Monument to Cézanne on the north and the Monument aux morts de Port Vendres on the south.

From the Terrasse, two stairways descend to the moat named for Charles V of France, (who rebuilt the Louvre in the 14th century), part of the old fortifications which originally surrounded the palace. On the west side are traces left by the fighting during the unsuccessful siege of Paris by Henry IV of France in 1590 during the French Wars of Religion.

Since 1994, the moat has been decorated with statues from the facade of the old Tuileries Palace and with bas-reliefs made in the 19th century during the Restoration of the French monarchy which were meant to replace the Napoleonic bas-reliefs on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, but were never put in place.

The Jeu de Paume (Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume), built in 1861 by the architect Viraut, was enlarged in 1878. Today, it is used for exhibits of modern and contemporary art. On the terrace in front of the Jeu de Paume is the Le Bel Costumé (1973), a work of sculpture by Jean Dubuffet.

Tuileries Garden: 1st arrondissement, Paris, France

Louvre Pyramid (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

The Louvre Pyramid

At the main courtyard (Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) is the Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre), a large, glass and metal pyramid that serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Designed by the late Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei (Ieoh Ming Pei), the founder of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners known for his stellar work at the National Gallery in Washington as well as the Fine Arts Museum in Boston.

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L-R; Jandy, Grace, Cheska, Kyle and Manny

It was commissioned in 1984 by the, François Mitterrand, President of France, and completed on March 29, 1989 (symbolically, the bicentenary year of the French Revolution).

Cheska and Kyle

I.M. Pei’s most famous structure, this controversial structure, now an iconic symbol for the largest museum in the world, has become, together with the Arc de Triumphe and the equally controversial Eiffel Tower, a landmark of the city of Paris.

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One of the three smaller pyramids

Here are some interesting trivia regarding the Louvre Pyramid:

There are actually five pyramids throughout the museum. The Louvre Pyramid is surrounded by three smaller pyramids, positioned to create light shafts for access to the museum’s collections, plus the Pyramide Inversée (Inverted Pyramid), an upside-down and smaller version of the Louvre Pyramid. The latter is a skylight in the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall in front of the Louvre Museum.
The large pyramid has the exact same proportions as the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The choice of the pyramid figure serves as a reminder of the importance of the Egyptian antiquities collection inside the museum.
The Louvre Pyramid was featured near the beginning the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code. Here, Robert Langdon, the main character, meets French Police Captain Bezu Fache in front of the Louvre Pyramid. Today, the sites at the Louvre which are portrayed in the film are the subject of a special visitor trail which enters through the Pyramid and concludes at the Inverted Pyramid.
Because of a series of problems with the Louvre’s original main entrance (it could no longer handle, on an everyday basis, the enormous number of visitors, then at 5 million visitors a year), the Louvre Pyramid was created so that visitors entering through the pyramid first descend into the spacious, 60,386 sq. m. (650,000 sq. ft.) underground lobby before ascend into the museum’s three pavilions — Denon, Richelieu and Sully. However, in 2014, the Louvre’s attendance had doubled and the pyramid proved inadequate, necessitating a thorough redesign of the layout of the foyer area in the Cour Napoleon, including better access to the pyramid and the Passage Richelieu, between 2014 and 2017.
As soon as the Louvre Pyramid project, costing 5 billion euros, was announced, it triggered many years of strong and lively aesthetic and political debate. Accused of disfiguring the architecture, some questioned what direction the museum was headed. They criticized the Modernist style of the edifice being inconsistent with the majestic, old and classic French Renaissance architectural style and history of the Louvre; the pyramid being an unsuitable and anachronistic intrusion of an ancient Egyptian symbol of death in the middle of Paris; the hugely unpopular project being an immodest, pretentious, megalomaniacal folly imposed by then-President François Mitterrand (political critics referred to the structure as “Pharaoh Francois’ Pyramid”); and that Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei being insufficiently French to be entrusted with the task of updating the treasured Parisian landmark. Even today, many people still feel that the harsh modernism of the edifice is out of place.
M. Pei also included large glass pyramid concept on the roofs of the IBM Somers Office Complex(Westchester County, New York, 1989, the same year the Louvre Pyramid opened) and at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1995, Cleveland, Ohio).
Several other museums have also duplicated the pyramid concept, most notably the Museum of Science and Industry(Chicago, Illinois) and the Dolphin Centre (opened April 1982, by Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester).
It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, “the number of the beast” often associated with Satan and the beast in the Apocalypse. Dominique Stezepfandt’s book François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l’Universalso declares that “the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation (…) The entire structure is based on the number 6.” The story of the 666 panes originated in the 1980s, when the number 666 was mentioned in various newspapers as well as the official brochure published during construction (even twice, though, in a few pages earlier, the total number of panes was given as 672 instead). In 2003, the myth resurfaced when Dan Brown incorporated it in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. In the book, the protagonist reflects that “this pyramid, at President Mitterrand’s explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass.” However, the Louvre museum states that the finished pyramid contains 673 glass panes (603 rhombi and 70 triangles). David A. Shugarts obtained a higher figure from Pei’s offices, reporting that the pyramid contains 689 pieces of glass.
During the design phase, there was a proposal that the design include a spire on the pyramid to simplify window washing. However, Pei objected and this proposal was eliminated.
Just in case any glass pieces ever break, laminated glass manufacturer Saint-Gobain made enough to build two pyramids. However, after more than 30 years, no repairs have yet been needed.
In the early days, mountaineers were actually hired to scale the Pyramid and clean the glass, a monumental task. However, in the 1990s, a robot was designed to do the job. Then, in 2002, Advanced Robotic Vehicles, a Seattle company, developed a “double breadboxed-sized robot” which boasts a squeegee and rotating brush. When secured to the glass via suction cups, it is maneuvered by remote control to climb the Pyramid on tracks. However, human ropers are still used to repair the joints and descale the glass from time to time.
Although the Pyramid was constructed to accommodate a visitor entrance, it’s not the only way to get into the Louvre. Visitors, with single or group tickets, can enter through the Passage Richelieu, which is just off the Rue de Rivoli across from the Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre metro station. You can also enter via the Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping and dining space opened in 1993 and the location of the suspended Inverted Pyramid. Whichever entrance you choose, they all converge in the lobby beneath the Louvre Pyramid.

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The underground lobby

Constructed entirely with 21.5 mm. (0.8-in.) thick, extra clear “Diamond Glass” laminated glass segments, totaling 1,800 sq. m. (19,375 sq. ft.) in area, and 6,000 metal poles, the structure, supported by 95 tons of steel and 105 tons of aluminum, is 21.6 m. (71 ft.) high and its square base has sides of 34 m. (112 ft.) and a base surface area of 1,000 sq. m. (11,000 sq ft.).

Spiral stair

Consisting of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments, elementary arithmetic allows for easy counting of the panes. Each of the three sides of the pyramid without an entrance has 18 triangular panes and 17 rows of rhombic ones arranged in a triangle, thus giving rhombic panes (171 panes total).

The side with the entrance has 11 panes fewer (9 rhombic, 2 triangular), so the whole pyramid consists of rhombi and triangles, 673 panes total.

The pyramid structure was engineered by Nicolet Chartrand Knoll Ltd. of Montreal (Pyramid Structure/Design Consultant) and Rice Francis Ritchie of Paris (Pyramid Structure/Construction Phase).

Information counter

Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre underground shopping mall, and an entrance at the Porte des Lions (near the western end of the Denon wing).

Admission is free, from October to March, on the first Sunday of every month. Still and video photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the galleries housing the permanent collection. The use of flash or other means of artificial lighting is prohibited. Photography and filming are not permitted in the temporary exhibition galleries.

How To Get There: the Louvre can be reached via Metro lines 1 and 7, station Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Métro or the Louvre-Rivoli stations. By bus, take No. 21, 24, 27, 39, 48, 68, 69, 72, 81, 95 as well as the touristic Paris l’Open Tour. By car, there is an underground parking reachable by Avenue du Général Lemonier, every day from 7 AM – 11 PM.

Louvre Museum – From Louis XIV to Louis XVI (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Parade room of the Hôtel de Chevreuse (Room 622)

The Louvre Museum houses one of the most prized collections of largely 18^th-century French decorative arts, some drawn from donations from benefactors like Comte Isaac de Camondo, Baronne Salomon James de Rothschild, Basile de Schlichting, René Grog and Marie-Louise Grog-Carven, J. Paul Getty, the Duchess of Windsor and the Kraemer family.

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Room 601 (Louis XIV Room) with a portrait of King Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud (oil on canvas, 1701, 277 cm. × 194 cm.)

A section entitled “From Louis XIV to Louis XVI” (“De Louis XIV à Louis XVI”), presented by the Department of Decorative Arts’ Collections, is a series of rooms, with over two thousand treasures of French art and design, we can walk through.

Room 603 with ceiling fresco “La France victorious at Bouvines” (Merry Joseph Blondel) which commemorate the victory at the Battle of Bouvines

This relatively new (opened last June 17, 2014) setting, designed to shed light on both the technical and stylistic history by introducing the major residences and key figures of the time (artists, craftsmen, and those who commissioned their work), offered a broad panorama of interior design, production from major manufactories, crafts, and the art trade.

The tapestry “Theseus tames the bull of Marathon and offers it as a sacrifice to Apollo” (Room 604)

Primarily French in character, from the reign of Louis XIV up to the French Revolution, this remarkable collection, most originally commissioned for royal or princely residences and formerly the preserve mainly of royalty but now for the enrichment of future generations, consist of wood paneling made of hand carved gilt boiserie and painted decorative elements, lots of gorgeous Sèvres porcelain, some furniture and personal effects of Marie Antoinette‘s, tapestries, fine furniture, decorative bronze work, marble items, gold- and silverware, jewelry, scientific instruments, silks, clocks, European faience, porcelain and sumptuous brocades, all previously hidden away in museum storerooms.

“The Audience given by Loius XIV at Fontainebleau, to Monsignor Cardinal Chigi,” a tapestry at Room 601, made at the Gobelins (Mobilier National, Paris, first version, 1665-1672).

To provide a clearer understanding of this luxurious art of living, particular care had been taken in refurbishing the 33 dedicated galleries which were previously closed for almost a decade. Their approach to exhibition design (masterminded by interior designer and French decorative arts connoisseur Jacques Garcia), adopted by some history museums in the nineteenth century, was to reconstruct the finest inventions of interior decorators and master craftsmen in their natural setting.

Room 631 (Furniture of Royal Residences, 1774-1792)

Through a US$35.4 million (€26 million) major renovation (the museum’s first major project entirely funded by private donors, mainly by the famous watch manufacturer Breguet) and complete revamp of the Louvre’s Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI rooms, these masterpieces by the artists and craftsmen from that bygone era were presented in 2,200 sq. m. of exhibition space in chambers that once housed the Council of State and the entire first floor of the north wing of the Cour Carrée.

The visitor trail is divided into three main chronological and stylistic sequences make up – Louis XIV’s personal reign and the Régence (1660–1725), development of the Rococo style (1725–1755) and return to Classicism and the reign of Louis XVI (1755–1790).

Room 603

A team of artisans, under the supervision of the Louvre’s successive curators of the Department of Decorative Arts under the direction of Marc Bascou, helped the 18^th century galleries regain their original splendor, thereby succeeding in safeguarding uncommon skills – cabinetmaking (Charles Cressent, Jean-Jean Henri Riesener, Jean-Baptiste-Claude Séné and Bernard II van Risenburgh), bronze work, silver- and gold smithing (Thomas Germain, Jacques Roëttiers and Robert-Joseph Auguste), gilding, upholstering, painting and decorating (Charles Le Brun and Charles-Antoine Coypel), parquet work and art restoration.

Room 603. On the right is a tapestry set of The Vatican Stanze – Parnassus. A transposition, into tapestry, of one of Raphael’s compositions, painted to adorn a wall in the Stanza della Segnatura (Room of the Signatura) at the Vatican: the god Apollo is depicted as guardian of the arts, surrounded by the Muses and the most illustrious poets.

The rooms, adopting a chronological approach, took us through a natural progression of the major stylistic periods, from the flamboyant Louis XIV aesthetic and the Regency style, to the elaborate but lighthearted Rococo art, followed by a return to the antique taste and Neo-Classicism with its pure, geometrical proportions, straight lines and refined colors.

Cabinet woodwork of L’Hôtel Dangé-Villemaré

The master works on display, contributing to the spread of French culture, were done by the greatest artisans of their day, whose workshops served not only the French court, but also its European counterparts.

Room 609 displays a collection of scientific instruments (compass, magnets, perpetual calendar, etc.) donated by Nicolas and Simone Landau (1957 and 2002)

The three sparkly “new” and lavish period rooms (a rarity in French museums), formerly from palatial and fashionable private residences of the period and reconstructed, are the. faithfully reconstructed 1750 drawing room, salons, library and private sitting room of the former L’Hôtel Dangé-Villemaré (built in 1709 and redecorated in 1750, it is one of the most important surviving examples of an interior by a Louis XV-era Parisian workshop) at Place Vendôme, the drawing room of the Château d’Abondant, and the ceremonial bedchamber of the Hôtel de Chevreuse). They are in the style of Louis XIV and continue through to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

France, in the Midst of the Legislator, Kings and French Jurisconsults, Receives the Constitutional Charter from Louis XVIII (Merry Joseph Blondel, 1827)

All are prime examples of interior design by Parisian workshops under the reign of Louis XV. Brought back to life and put on display, it reconstituted a coherent decorative setting in terms of floors, paneling, doors, windows, cornices and ceilings, thus allowing us to view objects in historic context.

Grand Salon of the Château d’Abondant

A fully restored, reassembled and installed cupola fresco, in a Neo-Classical space at the heart of the new galleries, depicts mythological subjects from The Toilet of Venus painted in 1774 by Antoine-François Callet and Pierre-Hyacinthe Deleuze for Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé.

The Turkish cabinet of the Comte d’Artois, brother of Louis XVI (Room 630)

Some of the exceptional pieces in the exhibit include:

A top-quality, perfectly-proportioned Louis XVI garden with dolphins vase with a blue background in Sèvres porcelain made for the son of the king, painted by Pierre Joseph Rosset l’Ainé and gilded by Jean-Pierre Boulanger.
A gold coffer made for Louis XIV by goldsmith Jacob Blanck, with a wooden body covered in blue silk satin, cast, chased and filigreed gold and gilt bronze.
A Marie-Antoinette’s traveling case in mahogany containing 94 objects in silver, crystal, porcelain, steel, ivory and ebony.
An amazingly-detailed carved, elegantly painted and gilded wood paneling, originally created for aristocrat Le Bas de Montargis’ residence, which once adorning the Comte d’Artois’ Turkish-designed study in Versailles
A complete set of nine decorative paintings, in the grotesque style, depicting leisurely country pastimes by Jean-Baptiste Oudry.
A Louis XVI commode, by Martin Carlin, with a red griotte marble top, ebony and rosewood veneers and chased gilt-bronze mounts which highlights imported Japanese lacquer screen panels featuring Asian landscapes (among the best examples in the world of the cultural exchanges between Asia and France at the time).
A set of six straight-backed armchairs and a sofa owned by the financier Pierre Crozat in carved, gilded walnut, red and fawn-colored leather, and red-and-white silk braiding
A roll-top desk by Jean-François Leleu in oak, tulipwood veneer, gilt bronze and marquetry of barberry wood, hollywood, maple burr and boxwood on brown-stained maple, decorated with Sèvres porcelain plaques.
An armoire, for the royal furniture depository, in oak, softwood, ebony veneer, marquetry of tortoise shell, brass, pewter and stained horn, and gilt-bronze mounts, created by André-Charles Boulle, the first cabinetmaker to use lavish gilt-bronze mounts to enhance the decoration of his furniture.

Salle Marie-Antoinette (Room 632)

The luxurious art of living was made instantly perceptible and easier to understand via this museological concept, returning the creations of decorators and master artisans to their natural environment.

Marie Antoinette’s cylinder desk (Jean-Henri Riesener, 1784)

From Louis XIV to Louis XVI: First Floor, Sully Wing, Louvre, 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

Louvre Museum – Near Eastern Antiquities Department (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

Near Eastern Antiquities Department

Our visit to the the Near Eastern Antiquities Department, the second newest and one of the most spectacular departments of the Louvre, began at the Ground Floor of the Sully Wing. Here, we spent at least a half hour.

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The author. In the background is one of the heads of the columns of the audience hall (Apadana) of King Darius I. It formed part of the decoration of a 358-foot square room. Room 12-A, First Floor, Sully Wing

The world’s first “Assyrian Museum,” the precursor to today’s department, annexed to the “Department of Antiques,” was opened in 1847 and, in 1881, a “Department of Oriental Antiquities.” When the Louvre expanded with the Richelieu Wing, the department rearranged its collections and the first phase of this transformation, occupying the new wing, was inaugurated in 1993.

The second phase, funded by a generous donation, was inaugurated in 1997. A third phase, in the Denon Wing, was scheduled for the fall of 2012. It aims to organize joint exhibitions by the three Antiquities Departments, based on Roman objects from the eastern Mediterranean.

The museum’s collection consists of the following:

The 37 the monumental bas-reliefs discovered during archaeological excavations in Khorsabad, started by Paul-Émile Botta (consul of France in Mosul) from 1843-1854 in the ancient Assyrian city of Dur-Sharrukin. The excavation showed the existence of a palace built by King Sargon II in 706 BC. During transport on the Tigris River, a large part of the objects were lost in a shipwreck.
Palestinian and Jewish antiquities from his archaeological expedition of Louis Félicien de Saulcy.
Sumerian works excavated from the site of Tello (in Lower Mesopotamia) by the French vice-consul at Basra, Ernest de Sarzec.
The core of the Phoenician collection supplied by Ernest Renan’s excavations in Lebanon.
The first Cypriot collection established by Melchior de Vogué.
The first elements of the polychrome brick decoration of the Palace of Darius, discovered by the Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy excavations in 1886.
The Code of Hammurabi, a basalt stele discovered by the archaeological mission led by Jacques de Morgan in 1901 in Susa, covers family law, slavery, commercial & agricultural law, and even sets prices and salaries.
Claude Schaeffer’s excavations at Ras Shamra (Ugarit)
Excavations conducted at Mari, from 1933 to 1974, by André Parrot while pursuing his career as department curator, then as director of the Louvre (1968-1972).
Significant collections of Cypriot (Enkomi) and other antiquities, derived from excavations by the Biblical School of Jerusalem at Tell el-Farah (Tirzah) by donations and acquisitions.
The Anatolian, Punic, and South Arabian collections added with loans from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Institut.
The large private collection, assembled by Louis de Clercq around 1900, and donated by Henri de Boisgelin in 1967
The Coiffard collection of Luristan bronzes, acquired in 1958
Collections extended toward Central Asia thanks to a number of acquisitions made in recent decades.
A set of objects unearthed during rescue excavations at Meskene (Emar) which entered the Louvre in 1980.
A rare gypsum statue from Ain Ghazal (dated around 7000 BC, currently the oldest major artwork in the Louvre), discovered in 1985 in a Neolithic site, entered the department in 1997 via a loan agreement with Jordan. Sully Wing, Room D.

The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele (inscribed stone) set up around 840 BCE by King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan).

The Near Eastern Antiquities Department presented an overview of the ancient civilizations of the Near East, which extends from nine thousand years ago, and the “first settlements” before the arrival of Islam, and encompasses an area stretching from North Africa to the Indus Valley and Central Asia, and from the Black Sea (Anatolia) to the Arabian peninsula (as far as the Indian Ocean).

The basalt Shihan stele, was the oldest monument from the Holy Land to be found in the Louvre’s collection until the inter-war excavations bore their fruit.

The department, covering 25 rooms, is divided into three major cultural and geographic areas, with the exhibits arranged chronologically – the Mediterranean Levant (the lands west of the Euphrates, including Cyprus, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa), ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran as far as Central Asia).

Statue of Queen Napirasu, wife of King Untash-Napirisha

The scope and diversity of the collections allow for a historical approach. Illustrated in this department are the names of Sumer, Akkad, Ur, Babylon, the Hittites, Assyria and many others.

Votive Steles of Ugarit

The museum contains major sculptures and monuments such as the Prince of Lagash’s Stele of the Vultures (from 2450 BC); the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains; the 18th-century BC mural of the Investiture of Zimrilim; the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il (found in the ancient city-state of Mari), the 5,52 m. high “Hero Overpowering a Lion,” and the 2.25m. (7.38 ft.) high Code of Hammurabi (the great emblem of Mesopotamian antiquity, it prominently displays Babylonian Laws so that no man could plead their ignorance) in Room 3, Richelieu wing, Ground Floor.

Rooms 1 to 6, comprising the complete Mesopotamian section, features Sumerian artwork, the Code of Hammurabi and the Khorsabad Court. In Room 2 is the special and well conserved for his age (2100 BC) seated statue of Goudea, prince of Lagash (Sumer).

The Iranian Collection

The ancient Iranian civilizations were essentially represented by works from excavations at Susa (a city founded around 4000 BC), its cultural richness reaching its peak with the works of Darius and Xerxes, the great kings of the Persian Empire.

Frieze of Archers from Darius’ Palace

Rooms 7 to 10 house the first part of the Iranian section while the north wing of the Cour Carrée continues the Iranian section with the Iron Age collection (1st millennium BC), the remains of the palace of Persian king Darius I in Susa, and objects representing the Parthian and Sassanian empires.

Lion Relief from the Palace of Darius I

The Iranian section contains rare objects from Persepolis which were lent to the British Museum for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005.The Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I are both works from the archaic period.

Furniture From a Princely Achaemenid Tomb

In Room 12-B are the friezes of parades of archers (armed with lances and bows on their shoulders) and lions, glazed, colored brick decorations of the palace of Darius at Susa.

Art of the Achaemenid Court

Most visitors always like to have their photos taken in front of the spectacular winged human-headed winged bulls of 4 x 4 m., protective genies placed as guardians at the gates of the city. However, one of them is a copy, the original being in the Oriental Institute of Chicago.

Floor Covering Panel – Satyr Head

Rooms A to D, in the west wing of the Cour Carrée (opened in 1993), is devoted to Cyprus and the Levant, from Prehistory to the Phoenician Period (early first millennium BC).

Sarcophagus Lid

A section of the north wing houses galleries devoted to the Levant (until the conquest of Alexander the Great), with royal sarcophagi from Sidon. The Phoenicians in the West are represented by Carthage and Punic North Africa.

Vase from Amathus

A section dedicated to Cyprus in the 1st millennium BC is structured around the monumental vase from Amathus.

The last rooms are devoted to the civilizations of pre-Islamic Arabia from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century AD (essentially Yemen and Hauran), and to the caravan cities of Syria (Palmyra and Dura Europos).

We weren’t able to visit Cour Khorsabad at the ground floor of the adjoining Richelieu Wing. This courtyard houses the impressive remains of the palace inaugurated by King Sargon II in Khorsabad (a city in northern Iraq) in 706 BC., its sculpted reliefs displayed in their original configuration, re-creating the monumental architecture of the palace.

Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

Louvre Museum – Egyptian Antiquities Department (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

Egyptian Antiquities Department – crowds gathered around a statue of Horus

After viewing the paintings of Italian and French masters at the Denon Wing, Jandy and I proceeded to the underground level of the Sully Wing to visit the Egyptian Antiquities Department, passing the Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC) statue and the excavated and preserved remains of the medieval fortress and moat of the Louvre.

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Guardian Lion at the Entrance to a Chapel of the Serapeum of Saqqara

A numbers of visitors to the Louvre come with the sole aim of visiting this department and it would be a real pity if we did not to spend at least one hour here.

Set for protection of the mummy

The Egyptian Antiquities collection of the Louvre, the second biggest in the world after the Cairo Museum, comprises over 50,000 pieces, includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century AD. The collection overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.

Funerary servants

The department’s origins lie in the royal collection, but it was augmented by Napoleon’s 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Vivant, the future director of the Louvre. After Jean-François Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created.

Fragment of Statue of Ramses II

Champollion advised the purchase of 7,000 works from the three its continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including The Seated Scribe.

Magic protection, amulets, steles of Horus

In 1997, during the Grand Louvre renovation project, this huge collection was distributed on two different floors in what is now called the Sully Wing at the east end of the Louvre.

Sphinx of Tanis guarding entrance

Guarded by the Great Sphinx of Tanis (c. 2000 BC), this department now fills 30 large rooms. Holdings include art, papyrus scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments and weapons.

Canopes (Vases)

The 19 rooms on the ground floor include two in the basement for particularly heavy exhibits (another reason they are at ground level is that there are pedestrian entrances to the courtyard). As the heaviest objects had to remain on the ground floor, it was impossible to arrange the works by period.

Sarcophagus Room (Room 14)

Instead, they are organized into a “thematic circuit” centered on the major aspects of Egyptian civilization (i.e. the daily life in Ancient Egypt), using authentic relics and artworks to illustrate and explain the topics of agriculture, hunting, fishing, animal husbandry, writing, arts and crafts, domestic life, temples, funeral rites and gods in ancient Egypt. The ground floor includes the Temple Room (Room 12) and the Sarcophagus Room (Room 14).

Room 3

Room 3 has models, found in graves, that show people rowing on the Nile River or poling through shallow water. The models were perhaps intended to provide transportation in the afterlife for the person who had died.

Model of a funeral boat

Room 11 contains a row of six of the sphinxes which were set up, in the 4th or 3rd century BC, along the aisle leading to the temple Sérapéum de Saqqara in Egypt. In 1851, these were discovered and excavated out of the sand by workers under the direction of Auguste Mariette.

A row of 6 sphinxes in Room 11

Later, in 1869, Mariette was asked to suggest a plot for an opera about ancient Egypt, and his idea was accepted as the basis for the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi.

Naos Housing a Statue of Osiris

The large Temple Room (Room 12), divided into 4 sections, shows the remains of sanctuaries from various sites and all epochs of ancient Egyptian history. It gives us an idea of the structure and function of a temple and the ceremonies that took place there.

The large Temple Room (Room 12)

After visiting the 12 densely packed rooms of the thematic tour of ancient Egypt, we went down a long staircase (there’s also an elevator for people with restricted mobility) that lead down to the basement.

Room 13

Here, Room 13 displays the huge, extremely heavy red granite royal tomb of pharaoh Ramses III, who ruled from 1186–1155 BC. This room is also identified as the crypt of the god Osiris.

The pink granite cartouche-shaped tomb, at Room 13, once contained the nest of coffins of Pharaoh Ramesses III.

Rooms 18 and 19 have an alphabetical guide to the ancient Egyptian gods, including their appearance, their attributes, their roles, all illustrated with authentic figurines made of metal, ceramics or stone. There is also an exhibit of mummified animals.

Statue of Bes, god of matrimony, as a dwarf

Statue of Bes, god of matrimony, as a misshapen nude dwarf with overly long arms, bowed legs, and a face combining leonine and human features

Rooms 20 to 30, on the first floor, on the other hand, is organized into a “chronological circuit” showing outstanding examples of Egyptian art, from the earliest to the latest periods of ancient Egypt. present a chronological approach, highlighting the different historical periods and the development of Egyptian art from 4000 BC to 400 AD.

The small wooden stele features an image of Lady Taperet praying to different aspects of the sun: Ra, the sun at its zenith, on one side; and Atum, the setting sun, on the other

Pieces from the ancient period include the Gebel el-Arak Knife from 3400 BC, the Head of King Djedefre and The Seated Scribe, its most famous artifact. Probably the most famous statue in the Egyptian collection of the Louvre, “The Seated Scribe” (c. 2620-2500 BC), in room 22 on the 1st floor, always impresses visitors. Its inlaid eyes are the most striking aspect of this sculpture. Nothing is known about the person portrayed

Well Painted Coffin of the Lady of Madjadiscovered in a cemetery in West Thebes overlooking the valley of Deir el-Medina, behind the hill of Qurnet Mourai

The highly decorated coffin of the Lady of Madja discovered in a cemetery in West Thebes overlooking the valley of Deir el-Medina, behind the hill of Qurnet Mourai

The Middle Kingdom art, known for its gold work and statues, moves from realism to idealization. This is exemplified by the schist statue of Amenemhatankh and the wooden Offering Bearer. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess Nephthys and the limestone depiction of the goddess Hathor demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth.

Troop of funerary servant figures

In Room 28 (Musee Charles X), the exhibits are about Egyptian Princes and courtiers in the period from 1295–1069 BC. However, its ceiling painting, by Horace Vernet (1789-1863), shows something completely different -Pope Julius II ordering Bramante, Michelangelo, and Raphael to build the Vatican and Saint Peter’s in Rome.

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Musee Charles X

In Room 29 (Musee Charles X), the exhibits are about the Third Middle Period of ancient Egypt, from about 1069–404 BC. Here the ceiling painting, L’Egypte sauvée par Joseph (Egypt saved by Joseph) by Alexandre-Denis Abel de Pujol (1785-1861), has to do with Egypt.

Fragment of a Statue of a Nubian

Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

Admission is free, from October to March, on the first Sunday of every month. Still and video photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the galleries housing the permanent collection.The use of flash or other means of artificial lighting is prohibited. Photography and filming are not permitted in the temporary exhibition galleries.

Louvre Museum – Charles X Museum (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

Salle des Colonnes (Column Room) of Charles X Museum (Musee Charles X)

The Charles X Museum (Musee Charles X), located in a series of 9 inner rooms on the first floor (not the ground floor, but one flight up) of the southeast wing of the Cour Carrée, first housed the apartments of the reigning queen, next to the king’s pavilion. The western part is located in the wing built by Pierre Lescot, while the eastern part was built by Louis Le Vau.

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After the king left for the Palace of Versailles, the Academy of Architecture occupied this wing but, after the Revolution, the entire wing was used as housing and workshops for artists. Under Napoleon I, the development of this space, began by the architect Fontaine, was completed in 1819. It had 4 rooms on each side of the Columns room located in the Arts pavilion. Between 1819 and 1827, these rooms were used for exhibitions of the products of industry and the Salon of living artists.

Room 30

The increase in the collections of the Louvre museum required new exhibition spaces and King Charles X commissioned some of the leading architects (including Fontaine) and painters of his day to redesign and redecorate the suites. Each room turned out to be quite lavish and impressive, with mahogany-veneered glass cabinets (by Jacob Desmalter), a fireplace topped with a mirror and a painted ceiling whose theme recalls the country whose works are exhibited in the room. On December 15, 1827, the museum was inaugurated by King Charles X.

The exhibits have been rearranged several times since then but, today, the first four rooms of the Musée Charles X are still used to display a small part of the Louvre’s huge collection of Egyptian and Greco-Roman antiquities. During our visit to the museum, we admired the ceiling decoration and the showcases which offer a rare testimony of a 19th century museography.

Egyptian Antiquities Department

Room 28, the second room of the Musée Charles X, has the ceiling painting “Pope Iulius II Orders the Works of Vatican and Saint-Peter Basilica” by Horace Vernet (1789-1863) which shows Pope Julius II ordering Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael to build the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Its exhibits are about Egyptian princes and courtiers in the period from 1295–1069 BC.

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Study and Genius Unveiling Ancient Egypt to Greece (1826, François-Edouard Picot)

In Room 29, the ceiling painting has to do with Egypt – “Egypt saved by Joseph” (L’Egypte sauvée par Joseph) by Alexandre-Denis Abel de Pujol (1785-1861). The exhibits are about the Third Middle Period of ancient Egypt, from about 1069–404 BC.. In Room 30 is Study and Genius Unveil the Antique Egypt to the Greece‎.(by François-Édouard Picot) while in Room 27 is The Genius of France Animates the Arts and Protects Humanity.

The crossing between Greek and Egyptian Antiquities is the Column Room of the Pavillon des Arts. On the ceiling are The Time raises Truth to the throne of Wisdom and Real Glory is supported by Virtue.

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Cybele protects from Vesuvius the towns of Stabies, Herculanum and Pompei

Rooms 35 – 37 display Greek terracotta figurines. The ceiling paintings found here are The Apotheosis of Homer by Ingres‎ (Room 35), Vesuvius Receiving from Jupiter the Fire Which Will Consume Herculanum, Pompei and Stabies‎ (Room 36) and Nymphs of Parthenope (Napoli) Bring Far From Home Their Penates to the Banks of Seine River‎ (Room 37). In Room 38 is Cybele protects from the Vesuvius the towns of Stabies, Herculanum and Pompei‎.

Real Glory is Supported by Virtue (Antoine-Jean Gros)

Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

Admission is free, from October to March, on the first Sunday of every month. Still and video photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the galleries housing the permanent collection.The use of flash or other means of artificial lighting is prohibited. Photography and filming are not permitted in the temporary exhibition galleries.

Louvre Museum – Greek, Etruscan and Roman Department (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, one of the museum’s oldest, is home to a collection of artworks representing the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman civilizations, spanning from the Cycladic Period to the decline of the Roman Empire.

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Crowds gathered in front of the ca. 190 BC Winged Victory of Samothrace, a magnificent Hellenistic statue that may have commemorated a naval victory, possibly by a fleet from Rhodes in the 2nd century BC. Excavations on the island of Samothrace, where it was found in 1863, revealed that it originally stood on the prow of a grey marble ship, at the center of an ornamental fountain. It depicts the winged Hellenistic goddess Nike. During World War II, this masterpiece, along with the Mona Lisa, Slaves by Michelangelo and the Venus de Milo sculpture were shifted to Château de Valençay.

The best artists from the reign of Charles X (Jean-Auguste-Dominique ngres, Vernet, Fragonard, etc.) amazingly combined palace décor from 1827 with antiquities collections to evoke Homer, Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Winged Victory of Samothrace welcomed Jandy and I as well as other visitors, dazzling us with its triumphant silhouette, as we appreciated its size from the top of the steps of the Daru staircase.

The author (right)

The exhibits, housed on the first floor of the Denon Wing (part of it also seen on the mezzanine) and part of the Sully Wing, are themed and chronological, with the Greek works separated from the Roman and Etruscan antiquities.

Here’s the historical timeline of the museum:

In 1793, the department was formed around the appropriated former royal art collections (some of which was acquired under Francis I), initially focused on marble sculptures.
During the French Revolution, it was further enriched by property seized
During the Napoleonic Wars, works such as the Apollo Belvedere
In 1800, the museum was installed in the summer apartments of Anne of Austria.
In the 19th century, works including vases from the Durand collection and bronzes such as the Borghese Vase from the Bibliothèque Nationale, were acquired by the Louvre.
In 1807, the purchase of over five hundred marble sculptures from the Borghese collection required the refurbishment of the Salle des Cariatides, the ground floor of the Pavillon du Roi, and the queen’s winter apartments.
In 1815, after the return of the works to Italy (including the Apollo Belvedere), Ennio Quirino Visconti (1751-1818), the Louvre’s first curator of antiquities, adopted an active acquisitions policy.
In 1818, the Tochon collection was purchased enriching, with archaeological objects, the Louvre’s collection which mostly comprised of marble sculptures. This was followed by that of Durand (1825-1836).
In 1821, the Venus de Milo (a sculpture of Aphrodite with her arms missing discovered on the Greek island of Milos, in the Cyclades Archipelago) entered the museum. It was first offered to Louis XVIII by the Marquis de Rivière, after which the monarchy donated it to the Louvre.
in 1827, the Musée Charles X, on the first floor of the Louvre palace, was opened.
In 1861, when the Campana collection was acquired, its vases were installed on the first floor of the Cour Carrée’s south wing, in a gallery parallel to the Musée Charles X.
During the second half of the 19th century, as a result of archaeological expeditions, the museum acquired many objects from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire.
In 1884, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, discovered by Champoiseau in 1863, was placed at the top of the Daru staircase. Ancient Greek sculpture then came to the fore with the Kore of Samos, the Rampin Head, the Lady of Auxerre, and the Tanagra figurines of Boeotia.
In the early 20th century, it was decided to renovate the department completely, and this project was carried out in various stages.
In 1934, the museum of sculpture inaugurated by Napoleon was dismantled, and chronological classification was established. A section devoted to Greek art, centered on the sculptures in the queen’s winter apartments, the Salle de Diane, and the Salle des Cariatides, was opened on the ground floor; and a Roman art section was created around the former summer apartments of Anne of Austria.
In the postwar period, the first floor was reorganized. Bronzes were displayed in the Salle Lacaze, Etruscan art in the Salle Henri II, and Roman silverware and frescoes in the Salle des Bijoux.
In 1980, an ambitious reorganization plan was initiated resulting in the present arrangement of the department. The Etruscan collections were displayed on the ground floor (between the Cour du Sphinx and the Petite Galerie), and Roman sculptures moved to the Petite Galerie and the Salle d’Auguste.
In the 1990s, after the inauguration of the Louvre pyramid, a new organizational project was launched, initially concerning the Greek art collection and the first-floor rooms (1997-2010).
In 1997, the Pre-Classical Greek gallery opened, supplemented by a gallery dedicated to Greek epigraphy, a room representing the Severe style, and a new room (under the Winged Victory staircase) devoted to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. As a result, a new entrance to the department was created, combining artworks representing a wide range of materials and techniques.
The same year saw other changes, with the renovation of the Galerie Daru, and the refurbishment of the first floor: silverware was moved to the Salle Henri II, glassware to the former jewelry room, terracotta figurines and reliefs took over half the former Musée Charles X, and the bronze room and Galerie Campana were fully renovated.
In 2004, the Salle du Manège was opened That same year, a remarkable life-sized horse’s head, a fragment from an Archaic Greek sculpture dating from the 6th century BC., was acquired.
In 2006, the Salle de Diane was rearranged to display the Parthenon marbles.
In July 2010, the renovation of the Greek art section was finalized with the opening of rooms dedicated to classical Greek and Hellenistic art, and a new home for the Venus de Milo.

Salle du Manège

The department illustrates the art of a vast area encompassing Greece, Italy, and the whole of the Mediterranean Basin, and spans the period from Neolithic times (4th millennium BC) to the 6th century.

The Louvre collection counts 2700 vases on display in new and elegant showcases. It includes a large number of Greek vases of all shapes such as amphora, krater, hydria, long shaped lekythos, cups and some interesting rythons with a head of a donkey. In Room 43 is a unique oenochoe (wine jug) in the form of a head from a black slave.

Niobid Krater. Ca. 470 to 450 BC., it shows the god Apollo and his sister Artemis killing the children of Niobe who were collectively called the Niobids.

Masterpieces from the Hellenistic Era include the Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC) and the Venus de Milo (Room 16 on the ground floor of the Pavillon du Roi, presented to Louis XVIII by the Marquis de Rivière in 1821), symbolic of Classical art. The latter, the highlight of the museum, stands at the staircase linking the Denon and Sully wings.

Jewelry and pieces, such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre (from 640 BC) and the cylindrical Hera of Samos (circa 570–560 BC.), demonstrate the archaic.

Daru Gallery

The Galerie Daru (Room 406), which formed part of Napoleon III’s “New Louvre,” was originally intended as a sculpture gallery for the annual Paris Salon. It now displays Greek and Roman antiquities, notably the celebrated Borghese Gladiator which exemplifies increased focus on the human form after the 4th century BC.

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Borghese Gladiator (Daru Gallery), created at Ephesus about 100 BC, is a life-size, Hellenistic marble sculpture portraying a swordsman.

An outstanding collection of more than one thousand Greek potteries are displayed at the long Galerie Campana.

Roman Art (Julio-Claudian Period I, Between 1655 and 1658), at Room 410, Ground Floor, Denon Wing, houses the Roman Department. Louis Le Vau transformed Anne of Austria’s summer apartments. The new decoration featured paintings by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli and stucco work by sculptor Michel Angier. The apartments became a gallery of antiquities in 1799.

Paralleling the Seine River are galleries that display much of the museum’s Roman sculpture. Roman portraiture, representative of that genre, include the portraits of Agrippa and Annius Verus. Among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino.

Bronze Room (Salles des Bronzes)

The Bronze Room (Salle des Bronzes, Room 32, 1st Floor, Sully Wing), built between 1551 and 1553 by the architect Pierre Lescot, was designed as the centerpiece of the 16th-century additions to the Louvre.

Between 1936 and 1938, it was transformed by Albert Ferran and the gallery now houses the museum’s collection of more than 1,000 pieces of ancient art created from bronze (helmets, Hellenic rings, the crown of laurel in gold, etc.), as well as other precious metals.

The Cy Twombly Ceiling

Standing out is Cy Twombly’s 344 sq. m. (3700 sq. ft.) ceiling mural created in 2010. Alongside German Anselm Kiefer and Frenchman Francois Morellet, Twombly is the third artist and the first American to ever paint a permanent modern decorative work for the Louvre. Along the edges are white strips that contain the names (in Greek) of seven renowned Greek sculptors from the Classic period.

The first-floor Salle des Sept Cheminées, formerly the King’s chamber (above the Venus de Milo room), is devoted to Italic and Etruscan art.

The completely refurbished Rooms 7-17 (open to the public since July 7, 2010), at the Sully Wing, are devoted to the classical Greek and Hellenistic art while Rooms 35 – 37 (Musée Charles X) displays Greek terracotta figurines arranged chronologically, geographically and thematically.

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Musee Charles X

The terracotta figures (“Tanagra figurines”) date from the Archaic, Pre-Classical Hellenistic and Roman periods. It includes the small and quite elegant “Victory with Wings” (from 190 BC.).

Terra cotta figurines

The Salle des Caryatids, at Room 348, is located on the ground floor of Pierre Lescot’s 16th-century Renaissance wing. This room takes its name from the four female figures sculpted by Jean Goujon in 1550 to support the musicians’ gallery. Today, it houses Roman copies of Greek originals long since disappeared.

Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

Admission is free, from October to March, on the first Sunday of every month. Still and video photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the galleries housing the permanent collection.The use of flash or other means of artificial lighting is prohibited. Photography and filming are not permitted in the temporary exhibition galleries.

Louvre Museum – Apollo Gallery (Paris, France)

Posted on 24 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Apollo Gallery (Galerie d’Apollon)

The iconic Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo Gallery), home to some of the Louvre’s most precious historical collections, is famous for its high vaulted ceilings with painted decorations. Originally called the ‘Petite Galerie’ of the Louvre, this room was decorated, according to designs by Martin Fréminet for Henri IV of France, by the artists of the Second School of Fontainebleau, most notably Toussaint Dubreuil, Jacob Bunel and his wife Marguerite Bahuche.

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Gallery entrance

Originally designed as a reception hall, this was the first Royal Gallery for Louis XIV and served as a model for the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles. The gallery, left incomplete during the reign of Louis XIV, was filled with paintings by members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in the 18th century. With a total surface area of 600 sq. m., it is 61.34 m. long, 15 m. high and was built over 350 years ago and decorated over the course of two centuries.

Here is the historical timeline of this room:

On February 6, 1661, a fire destroyed much of this small gallery and the young Louis XIV ordered the reconstruction of this part of the Louvre as a reception hall, in line with the fashion of palaces and noble houses at that time.
Between 1661 and 1663, architectural work was entrusted to architect Louis Le Vau who carried out reconstruction activities. The sculptor François Girardon was responsible for the stucco sculptures.
From 1663–1677, interior decoration was implemented by Charles Le Brun, the first painter to Louis XIV, who was assigned responsibility by Colbert.
In 1692, the academy of painting and sculpture was installed at the Louvre which encouraged young artists to finish the room with “reception” or “masterpieces.”
From 1766–1781, the gallery was completed under the supervision of six academics.
From 1848–1851, complex restoration work was done by architect Félix Duban, with painting The Race of Apollo by Eugène Delacroix, Aurore by Muller and Triumph of the Earth or Cybele by Joseph Guichard.
From 1999–2004, restoration activities were carried out by the French restoration service of historical monuments.

As part of the Louvre, this unique masterpiece is both a national and World Heritage Site. A witness to 200 years of art history, it showcases 105 artworks (41 paintings, 36 sculpture groups made up of 118 sculptures and 28 tapestries) along the vaulted ceiling and frescoed walls.

The French Crown Jewels

Dozens of French artists contributed to this exceptional interior. Le Brun authored three large paintings, designing a painted and sculpted decor on the theme of the sun and its movement through space (earth, water and continents) and time (zodiac).

Fall of Icarus (Merry-Joesph Blondel)

The Sun King Louis XIV is glorified by the myth of the sun god Apollo, also evoked by the procession of the Muses. An idyllic vision of the universe in harmony, governed by Apollo, is offered by the overall program. The central section of the ceiling, left blank since Le Brun had worked on the room, was adorned by Eugène Delacroix who thus created the spectacular Apollo Slays the Python.

As of 1663, the stuccoes were made by François Girardon, followed by the Gaspard brothers, Balthasar Marsy, and Thomas Regnaudin, resulting in the majestic, dynamic ensemble we see today.

Since 1861, the gallery has housed Louis XIV’s collection of hardstone vessels in large gilt-wood display tables and vitrines, and those along the walls and under the windows. In 1887, it was joined by the French Crown Jewels, the legacy of centuries of monarchs who successively owned them and had them remounted to their liking. The jewels are presented in custom-made display cases created in the 19th century.

Some of the most precious artworks in the Louvre, this inalienable collection of jewels were initially assembled by Françis I in 1532, grew under Louis XIV and reached its peak under Louis XV. During the French Revolution, the items were dispersed but they were brought back together by Napoleon I. In 1887, however, the French State unfortunately decided to sell almost the entire collection. Luckily, the “Regent,” a white diamond “the size of a Reine Claude plum” (Saint-Simon) was not included in the auction. Acquired by Louis XV, it is the largest of its kind known to exist in Europe.

Display cases housing the French Crown Jewels

The remaining 23 pieces of jewels and precious stones held by the Louvre are now displayed in three cases in the center of the gallery and grouped by period: pre-Revolution (including the “Regent” and “Sancy” diamonds, which adorned the crown used at the coronation of King Louis XV in 1722), the First French Empire, the Bourbon Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire (including what remains of Empress Eugénie’s jewelry sets). Several protective cases designed to hold the items are also presented nearby.

Crown of Louis XV

NOTE:

Following the completion of works that began in March 2019, the Galerie d’Apollon reopened. Improvements were made to both the room itself and the presentation of the artworks held within with three new display cases created for the French Crown Jewels (which are now shown together), offering a complete overview of their history.

Several changes were also made in the presentation of Louis XIV’s collection of hardstone vessels. For informational purposes, further examples have been added along with a centerpiece given to Napoleon I by Charles IV of Spain, part of another artwork of royal origin and made of an equally rich variety of materials.

Conservation work was also carried out on the gallery’s décor, returning the room to its former glory. The paintings and stuccoes, along with the tapestries (masterpieces commissioned from the Gobelins manufactory by Félix Duban and put in place in 1852), were dusted and new lighting and an improved security system were installed. A second entrance, making the gallery accessible by both the Rotonde d’Apollon and the Salon Carré, was also opened.

Emerald and Diamond Tiara made for the Duchesse d’Angouleme

Louvre Museum: 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 40 20 50 50. Open daily, except Tuesdays and holidays, 9 AM- 6 PM (until 10 PM on Wednesday and Friday evenings).

The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre underground shopping mall, and an entrance at the Porte des Lions (near the western end of the Denon wing).

Admission is free, from October to March, on the first Sunday of every month. Still and video photography is permitted for private, noncommercial use only in the galleries housing the permanent collection.The use of flash or other means of artificial lighting is prohibited. Photography and filming are not permitted in the temporary exhibition galleries.

This travel blog, a diary of the author’s local and international travels, aims to provide the reader with news and information on people, places and events that would interest the avid traveler and tourist. But, it also aims to be much more, providing insights on the wonders of this beautiful country, as well as the world, beyond the strict confines of the city. Have a BLAST seeing old churches, exotic temples, educational museums as well as palm-fringed islands; white sand beaches; thundering waterfalls; placid lakes; fiery sunsets; turquoise seas; cathedral-like caves; swirling rivers; majestic mountains; stupendous, amphitheater-like rice terraces; awesome volcanoes and the like. Get to know the movers and shakers in the tourism industry; find out where to titillate the palate; rejuvenate your body; feed your adrenalin, unwind and relax; satisfy your craving for history and culture; and find out what's being celebrated and where.

BENJAMIN “BENJIE” LAYUG, an architect by profession (he finished his B. S. Architecture degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1982), is an avid reader, traveler and free-lance travel writer in his spare time, contributing articles to Travel Update, Philippine Daily Inquirer, COLORS, TODAY, 7107 Islands Magazine, Business Day, Bluprint and the Business Mirror.

He is also the author of the following travel books:

A Philippine Odyssey (New Day Publishers, 2005)
Pathfinder’s Travel Guide: Boracay (Great Books Trading, 2006)
A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Churches (New Day Publishers, 2007)
A Tourist to Notable Philippine Historical Landmarks, Monuments and Shrines (New Day Publishers, 2010)
A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Museums (New Day Publishers, 2012)

Some of his books now appear in the local library shelves of the National Library of the Philippines, De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Sto. Tomas, U.P. Diliman, Centro Escolar University, San Sebastian College, Miriam College, Silliman University, to name a few, as well as internationally at the National Library of Australia and the University of California Berkeley Library.

Now a senior citizen, he is probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest, active travel blogger in the country today. He also has a lifestyle blog called F.Y.I.:Firing Your Imagination (www.firingyourimagination.blogspot.com). Benjie has traveled to two-thirds (53) of the country’s 81 provinces and over 20 countries in 4 continents.