The Escalier Daru is the last in a series of increasingly monumental staircases built to serve this area of the Louvre building. In 1722, as the old Queen Mother's apartment on the ground floor of the Petite Galerie was being prepared to be the residence of Mariana Victoria of Spain the betrothed of Louis XV,[3] a staircase was built to lead directly into the Salon Carré on the upper level, dubbed Escalier de l'Infante after Mariana Victoria. Following the ending of the engagement and her return to Spain after just three years, the Salon Carré became the venue for the yearly art show of the Académie des Beaux-Arts - thus the word Salon for such shows. Visitors would use the Escalier de l'Infante to access the Salon from the Cour de la Reine, later known as Cour du Sphinx and covered with a glass ceiling in 1934.[4]
Shortly before his death in 1780, Louvre architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot designed a new staircase in the context of intensive planning for the creation of a public museum in the Louvre's Grande Galerie.[1]:78 Soufflot's design was implemented from 1781 by his successor Maximilien Brébion[fr]. The new staircase or Escalier du Salon, which replaced the Escalier de l'Infante, opened on the ground floor on the Cour de la Reine that was intended to become the entrance of the museum, and led to what is now the Salle Duchâtel on the upper floor, immediately to the north of the Salon Carré in Le Vau's wing doubling the Petite Galerie to the west.[5]
Following the first opening of the Louvre Museum in 1793 and its reorganization under Napoleon in the early 1800s, the museum's main entrance was established further north, through the Rotonde de Mars on what is now the southeastern corner of the Cour Napoléon. To suitably lead visitors from there to the highlights of the museum's collection in the Grande Galerie, Napoleon's architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine designed a monumental staircase, soon dubbed the Escalier Percier et Fontaine, that started next to the Rotonde de Mars and led straight to the Salon Carré. The structural work was completed in 1807,[1]:84 but the lavish decoration designed by Percier and Fontaine took many more years and was only completed under their supervision during the Bourbon Restoration.
The Louvre's first floor in 1756 (Blondel plan) showing the Salon Carré (marked "T"), with the Escalier de l'Infante in its northwestern corner
The Louvre's ground floor in 1780 (1895 reproduction) showing Brébion's Escalier du Salon
The Louvre's ground floor in 1836 (by Theodor Josef Hubert Hoffbauer[fr], 1870s) showing the Escalier Percier et Fontaine flanking the Rotonde de Mars (marked "C")
Lefuel's plan for the Escalier Daru (ground floor), photographed by Édouard Baldus
Sketch of the Salon in 1753 by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, with visitors climbing the Escalier de l'Infante in the foreground
Columns and ceiling decorations of the Escalier Percier & Fontaine, preserved by Lefuel in situ in today's Salle Percier et Fontaine and Salle Duchâtel
Lefuel's creation
In the context of Napoleon III's Louvre expansion, Lefuel created a new entrance for the museum, west of the earlier one, on the ground floor of the Pavillon Denon. From there, two monumental galleries led west and east and were to end with monumental staircases. At the western end, that was a new staircase named, like the gallery that led to it and the pavilion in which it stood, after Nicolas François, Count Mollien, another of Napoleon's ministers. At the eastern end, Lefuel initially wanted to keep Percier & Fontaine's staircase for its aesthetic value, but was overruled by Napoleon III[6] or by his State Minister Achille Fould,[7] who insisted on a new staircase aligned with the new composition. Lefuel had presented eight successive projects to preserve Percier and Fontaine's ensemble, but eventually gave up and dismantled most of it in 1865 to give way to the new one.[8]:272 Even so, he was able to preserve some of the ceilings and columns of Percier and Fontaine's upper level, in the first-floor rooms that are now between the Escalier Daru and the Salon Carré, now known as the Salle Percier et Fontaine.
Later developments
The Escalier Daru was still unfinished at the end of the Second Empire. Its current focal point, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, was only placed at its center after Lefuel's death in 1880. The sculpture had been found in Samothrace in 1863, and shipped to Paris in 1879. It was installed in the Daru Staircase in 1883.[9]
In 1882, Lefuel's successor Edmond Guillaume[fr] started making plans for the completion of the staircase. A team of Italian specialists created colorful mosaics for the vaulted ceilings, representing Victories holding palms and portraits of illustrious figures,[2][10] on a design by painter Jules-Eugène Lenepveu.[1]:107[11]
Jules-Eugène Lenepveu, La Grèce, Rome, l’Égypte et l’Assyrie, 1887-1888 (preparatory drawing for the decoration of the Escalier Daru).
The final completion was designed by Louvre architect Camille Lefèvre[fr] and his successor from 1930 Albert Ferran, in the Art Deco style of the times, and executed in 1932-1934 as part of a broader museum modernization effort led by Louvre Director Henri Verne.[12] Ferran covered the mosaics with stone-patterned wallpaper, broadened the stairs, and brought forward the Winged Victory to make it more prominent.
In 1997, in the third phase of the Grand Louvre project, the Escalier Daru was extended downwards to serve the newly opened gallery of Archaic Greece, in what had formerly been part of the Louvre's extensive complex of mid-19th-century horse stables.[13]
In the early 2010s, as the Winged Victory was temporarily removed for restoration, the option of uncovering the late-19th-century mosaics was considered. But it was eventually rejected by the Louvre's curators, and the staircase was kept in its mid-1930s state.[2]
The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is a national art museum in Paris, France. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa,Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.
The Tuileries Palace was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henry IV to Napoleon III, until it was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871.
Pierre Antoine Noël Bruno, Comte de Daru was a French soldier, statesman, historian, and poet.
Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti was an Italian-born French architect and designer.
The Louvre Palace, often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Originally a defensive castle, it has served numerous government-related functions in the past, including intermittently as a royal residence between the 14th and 18th centuries. It is now mostly used by the Louvre Museum, which first opened there in 1793.
The Salon Carré is an iconic room of the Louvre Palace, created in its current dimensions during a reconstruction of that part of the palace following a fire in February 1661. It gave its name to the longstanding tradition of Salon exhibitions of contemporary art in Paris which had its heyday there between 1725 and 1848. Since 1849, it has been permanently used by the Louvre Museum, which currently uses it to display Italian Renaissance painting.
The Pavillon de Flore, part of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France, stands at the southwest end of the Louvre, near the Pont Royal. It was originally constructed in 1607–1610, during the reign of Henry IV, as the corner pavilion between the Tuileries Palace to the north and the Louvre's Grande Galerie to the east. The pavilion was entirely redesigned and rebuilt by Hector-Martin Lefuel in 1864–1868 in a highly decorated Second Empire style. Arguably the most famous sculpture on the exterior of the Louvre, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's Triumph of Flora, was added below the central pediment of the south façade at this time. The Tuileries Palace was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871, and a north façade, similar to the south façade, was added to the pavilion by Lefuel in 1874–1879. Currently, the Pavillon de Flore is part of the Louvre Museum.
The grand appartement de la reine is the Queen's grand apartment of the Palace of Versailles.
The petit appartement du roi of the Palace of Versailles is a suite of rooms used by Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. Located on the first floor of the palace, the rooms are found in the oldest part of the palace dating from the reign of Louis XIII. Under Louis XIV, these rooms housed the King's collections of artworks and books, forming a museum of sorts. Under Louis XV and Louis XVI, the rooms were modified to accommodate private living quarters. At this time, the rooms were transformed and their decoration represent some of the finest extant examples of the Louis XV style and Louis XVI style at Versailles.
Hector-Martin Lefuel was a French architect, best known for his work on the Palais du Louvre, including Napoleon III's Louvre expansion and the reconstruction of the Pavillon de Flore.
The Pavillon de l’Horloge, also known as the Pavillon Sully, is a prominent architectural structure located in the center of the western wing of the Cour Carrée of the Louvre Palace in Paris. Since the late 19th century, the name Pavillon de l'Horloge has generally been applied to the structure's eastern face, which dates from the 17th century, and the name Pavillon Sully to its western face, which was redecorated in the 1850s as part of Napoleon III's Louvre expansion.
The Lescot Wing is the oldest preserved structure above ground of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France. It was designed by architect Pierre Lescot and built between 1546 and 1551. Its architecture is influenced by Italian Mannerism. It had seminal influence on what became the Parisian Renaissance style, and beyond it, French architectural classicism.
Marie-Noémi Cadiot, also known as Noémi Constant and her literary pseudonyms Claude Vignon and H. Morel, was a French sculptor, journalist and writer of the 19th century.
The Petite Galerie is a wing of the Louvre Palace, which connects the buildings surrounding the Cour Carrée with the Grande Galerie bordering the River Seine. Begun in 1566, its current structures date mainly from the 17th and 19th centuries. Most of its main floor is now the Galerie d'Apollon, one of the Louvre's most iconic spaces.
The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau, is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie, since it houses the longest and largest room of the museum, also referred to as the Grande Galerie, one of the museum's most iconic spaces.
The Grand Louvre refers to the decade-long project initiated by French President François Mitterrand in 1981 of expanding and remodeling the Louvre – both the building and the museum – by moving the French Finance Ministry, which had been located in the Louvre's northern wing since 1871, to a different location. The centerpiece of the Grand Louvre is the Louvre Pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei, which was also the project's most controversial component. The Grand Louvre was substantially completed in the late 1990s, even though its last elements were only finalized in the 2010s.
The Musée des Souverains was a history-themed museum of objects associated with former French monarchs. It was created by the future Napoleon III as a separate section within the Louvre Palace, with the aim to glorify all previous sovereign rulers of France and to buttress his own legitimacy. The museum was formed from collections previously held in the National Library, the National Furniture Depository, the Artillery Museum, and the Louvre Museum itself, as well as gifts. After the fall of the Second Empire, the museum was closed and its collections mostly returned to their previous owners.
The expansion of the Louvre under Napoleon III in the 1850s, known at the time and until the 1980s as the Nouveau Louvre or Louvre de Napoléon III, was an iconic project of the Second French Empire and a centerpiece of its ambitious transformation of Paris. Its design was initially produced by Louis Visconti and, after Visconti's death in late 1853, modified and executed by Hector-Martin Lefuel. It represented the completion of a centuries-long project, sometimes referred to as the grand dessein, to connect the old Louvre Palace around the Cour Carrée with the Tuileries Palace to the west. Following the Tuileries' arson at the end of the Paris Commune in 1871 and demolition a decade later, Napoleon III's nouveau Louvre became the eastern end of Paris's axe historique centered on the Champs-Élysées.
The Pavillon de Marsan or Marsan Pavilion was built in the 1660s as the northern end of the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and reconstructed in the 1870s after the Tuileries burned down at the end of the Paris Commune. Following the completion of the joining of the Louvre and the Tuileries in the 1850s and the demolition of the Tuileries' remains in the early 1880s, it is now the northwestern tip of the Louvre Palace. Since 1897 it has been part of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a separate institution from the Louvre.
The Pavillon du Roi was a tower-like structure built in the mid-16th century at the southern end of the Lescot Wing of the Louvre Palace. On its main floor was the primary apartment of the king of France. The pavilion served as a major emblem of the French monarchy for more than a century, and its design had seminal influence. From the 17th century, however, it gradually lost its visual and symbolic prominence. In the early 1640s, it was eclipsed by the slightly larger and more ornate Pavillon de l'Horloge; in the late 1660s, its main southern façade was hidden behind new structures; and in the early 19th century, its upper level was demolished and its interior arrangements were entirely remodeled.
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