Napoleon III's Louvre expansion

The Louvre's pavillon de l'Horloge, refaced in the 1850s at the eastern end of the Nouveau Louvre

"Cour Napoléon" redirects here. Not to be confused with Napoleon Square (Warsaw).

The expansion of the Louvre under Napoleon III in the 1850s, known at the time 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 Lefuel. It represented the completion of a centuries-long project, sometimes referred to as the grand dessein ("grand design"), 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 few years later, Napoleon III's nouveau Louvre became the eastern end of Paris's axe historique centered on the Champs-Élysées.

The project was initially intended for mixed ceremonial, museum, housing and administrative use, including the offices of the ministère d’Etat which after 1871 were attributed to the Finance Ministry. Since 1993, all its spaces have been used by the Louvre Museum.

Project development

Following the French Revolution of 1848, the provisional government adopted a decree on the continuation of the rue de Rivoli toward the east and the completion of the Louvre Palace's north wing, building on the steps taken to that effect under Napoleon. Architects Louis Visconti and Émile Trélat produced a draft design for completing the entire palace and presented it to the Legislative Assembly in 1849. These plans were not implemented, however, until Napoleon III developed them into a more ambitious plan after becoming Emperor following his successful coup d'état on 2 December 1851.

Visconti was made architect to the Tuileries on 7 July 1852. His architectural concept for the New Louvre was swiftly approved by the emperor, and the first stone was laid on 25 July 1852.

After Visconti died of a heart attack on 29 December 1853, Hector Lefuel, by then the architect of the Palace of Fontainebleau, was appointed to replace him. Lefuel modified Visconti's project, keeping its broad architectural outlines but opting for a considerably more exuberant decoration program that came to define the nouveau Louvre in the eyes of many observers. Old houses and other buildings that still encroached on the central space of the Louvre-Tuileries complex, between the Cour Carrée and the place du Carrousel, were swept clear. The project was swiftly executed, and was substantially completed at the time of its inauguration by the emperor on 14 August 1857.

Aiding Lefuel was the young American architect Richard Morris Hunt, who had studied under Lefuel at the École des Beaux-Arts. Following Hunt's graduation, Lefuel made Hunt inspector of the Louvre work and allowed him to design the façade of the pavillon de la Bibliothèque facing the rue de Rivoli.

• 
  Plan of the unfinished Louvre by Charles Vasserot (1830)
• 
  Design of the Louvre expansion by Louis Visconti (1853)
• 
  One of many unrealized proposals for the completion of the Louvre, by Charles Brunet-Debaines (1833)

• 
  Visconti presents the plans for the Nouveau Louvre to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in 1853 at the Tuileries, painting by Jean-Baptiste-Ange Tissier (1865). Lefuel is the bearded figure in the shadow on the far right-hand side.
• 
  Engraving dedicated "to His Majesty the Emperor" showcasing Visconti's design, by Rudolf Pfnor (1853)
• 
  Celebratory tapestry cartoon showing the expanded Louvre between a cherub holding an ribbon inscribed with "LE LOUVRE DE NAPOLEON III" (lower left) and two angels holding the emperor's profile (upper right), by Victor Chavet (1857)

Description

The Nouveau Louvre mostly consists of two sets of buildings or wings, on the north and south sides of a central space now called Cour Napoléon. Lefuel created two octagonal gardens at the center of the Cour Napoléon (now replaced by the Louvre Pyramid). Napoleon III intended to adorn these with equestrian statues of, respectively, Louis XIV and Napoleon I, expressing his claim to legitimacy as the inheritor of France's two (royal and imperial) strands of monarchical development - a narrative that was simultaneously developed in the emperor's new Musée des Souverains, also in the Louvre. This part of the project, however, was not realized.

The new buildings were structured around a sequence of pavilions that were given names of French statesmen from Ancien Régime (North Wing) and Napoleonic times (South Wing), still used to this day: from the northwest to the southwest, pavillon Turgot, pavillion Richelieu, pavillon Colbert, pavillon Sully (the project's new name for the pre-existing pavillon de l'Horloge), pavillon Daru topping the eponymous staircase, pavillon Denon, and pavillon Mollien also featuring a monumental staircase. (From 1989, the names of the three central pavilions have also been given to the entire respective wings of the Louvre complex. Thus, the Louvre's North Wing is now known as aile Richelieu; its eastern square of buildings around the Cour Carrée is the aile Sully; and the Nouveau Louvre's South Wing is the aile Denon.)

In various parts of the project, Napoleon III emphasized his role as continuator of the great French monarchs of the past, and as the one who completed their unfinished work. On both sides of the Pavillon Sully, black marble plaques bear gilded inscriptions that read, respectively: "1541. François Ier commence le Louvre. 1564. Catherine de Médicis commence les Tuileries" and "1852-1857. Napoléon III réunit les Tuileries au Louvre."

Inside the North Wing were prestige apartments for some of the regime's principal figures, including Charles de Morny; administrative offices for the ministère d'Etat and other departments; barracks; and the Bibliothèque du Louvre, personal property of the emperor but open to the public, on the upper floor between the pavillon Richelieu and the rue de Rivoli. The latter was acceded by another monumental staircase, known as escalier Lefuel since the late 19th century.

The South Wing was largely devoted to new spaces for the Louvre Museum. These included, on the upper ground floor, a new entrance lobby flanked by two long stone-clad galleries, respectively named after Napoleon's ministers Pierre, comte Daru (galerie Daru) and Nicolas François, Count Mollien (galerie Mollien), with the monumental staircases bearing those same names at both ends; and on the first floor, high-ceilinged exhibition rooms for large paintings, the salle Daru and salle Mollien, with the pavillon Denon in the middle. On the South Wing's first floor, between the pavillon Denon and the Grande Galerie, Lefuel created a large Estates Hall (salle des États) for state events and ceremonies. This space was later converted into a spacious exhibition room, best known for housing the Mona Lisa.

Below these prestige spaces was an extensive complex of stables including the brick-and-stone salle du Manège, a monumental indoor space for horse-riding under the salle des Etats, between the South Wing's two interior courts named after Caulaincourt (west) and Visconti (east). (The cour Caulaincourt was renamed after Lefuel following the architect's death in 1880.) The South wing also included barracks for the Cent-gardes Squadron and lodgings for the palace's service personnel.

The Louvre expansion shortly after its completion, photographed by Édouard Baldus (late 1850s)

On the eastern side of the Cour Napoléon, the project entailed no new building but rather the exterior refacing of the pre-existing palace whose interior rooms were left unchanged. Visconti took inspiration from Jacques Lemercier's 1620s design of the eastern side of the central pavillon de l'Horloge on the Cour Carrée for that structure's new western façade, as he did for the central pavilions of the Richelieu and Denon wings. Lefuel transformed Visconti's understated original design and added a profusion of elaborate sculptural detail. Despite being criticized by Ludovic Vitet in 1866, Lefuel's treatment of the square-dome-roofed pavilions became a seminal model for Second Empire architecture in France and elsewhere.

• 
  North Wing
• 
  Appartements Napoléon III
• 
  Appartements Napoléon III
• 
  Galerie Daru
• 
  Salle Daru
• 
  Pavillon Denon ceiling
• 
  Escalier Mollien
• 
  Cour Lefuel with ramps to the salle du Manège
• 
  Interior of the salle du Manège
• 
  Pavillon de la Bibliothèque on the rue de Rivoli

Statuary

Plan of the Louvre with the 86 hommes illustres marked in red

Sculptural profusion was one of the defining features of Lefuel's approach, in some contrast to Visconti's. Possibly the most salient aspect is the series of 86 statues of celebrated figures (hommes illustres) from French history and culture, each one labelled with their name. These include, following the order of the wings from northwest to southwest:

• North Wing, western side: La Fontaine, by Jean-Louis Jaley; Pascal, by François Lanno; Mézeray, by Louis-Joseph Daumas; Molière, by Bernard Seurre; Boileau, by Charles Émile Seurre; Fénelon, by Jean-Marie Bonnassieux; La Rochefoucauld, by Noël-Jules Girard; and Corneille, by Henri Lemaire.
• North Wing, southern side: Gregory of Tours, by Jean Marcellin; François Rabelais, by Élias Robert (now a copy); Malherbe, by Jean-Jules Allasseur; Abelard, by Jules Cavelier; Colbert, by Raymond Gayrard (copy); Mazarin, by Pierre Hébert; Buffon, by Eugène André Oudiné; Froissart, by Henri Lemaire; Rousseau, by Jean-Baptiste Farochon; Montesquieu, by Charles-François Lebœuf; Mathieu Molé, by Charles-François Lebœuf; Turgot, by Pierre Travaux; Saint Bernard, by François Jouffroy; La Bruyère, by Joseph-Stanislas Lescorné; Suger, by Nicolas Raggi; Jacques Auguste de Thou, by Auguste-Louis Deligand; Bourdaloue, by Louis Desprez; Racine, by Michel-Pascal; Voltaire, by Antoine Desboeufs; Bossuet, by Louis Desprez; Condorcet, by Pierre Loison (sculpteur); Denis Papin, by Jean-François Soitoux; Sully, by Vital-Dubray (copy); Vauban, by Gustave Crauck; Lavoisier, by Jacques-Léonard Maillet; and Jérôme Lalande, by Jean-Joseph Perraud.
• Eastern side of the Cour Napoléon: Louvois, by Aimé Millet; Saint-Simon, by Pierre Hébert; Joinville, by Jean Marcellin; Esprit Fléchier, by François Lanno; Commynes, by Eugène-Louis Lequesne; Jacques Amyot, by Pierre Travaux; Mignard, by Debay fils; Massillon, by François Jouffroy; Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau, by Georges Diebolt; Jean Goujon, by Bernard Seurre; Claude Lorrain, by Auguste-Hyacinthe Debay; Grétry, by Victor Vilain; Jean-François Regnard, by Théodore-Charles Gruyère; Jacques Cœur, by Élias Robert; Enguerrand de Marigny, by Nicolas Raggi; Chénier, by Auguste Préault; Jean-Balthazar Keller, by Pierre Robinet; and Antoine Coysevox, by Jules-Antoine Droz.
• South Wing, northern side: Jean Cousin the Younger, by Napoléon Jacques; Le Nôtre, by Jean-Auguste Barre; Clodion, by Vital-Dubray; Germain Pilon, by Louis Desprez; Ange-Jacques Gabriel, by Augustin Courtet; Le Pautre, by Bosio the Younger; Michel de l'Hôpital, by Eugène Guillaume; Lemercier, by Antoine Laurent Dantan; Descartes, by Gabriel Garraud; Ambroise Paré, by Michel-Pascal; Richelieu, by Jean-Auguste Barre; Montaigne, by Jean-François Soitoux; Houdon, by François Rude (copy); Étienne Dupérac, by Jacques Ange Cordier; Jean de Brosse, by Auguste Ottin; Cassini de Thury, by Hippolyte Maindron; d'Aguesseau, by Louis-Denis Caillouette; Hardouin-Mansart, by Jean-Joseph Perraud; Poussin, by François Rude (copy); Gérard Audran, by Jacques-Léonard Maillet; Jacques Sarazin, by Honoré-Jean-Aristide Husson; Nicolas Coustou, by Augustin Courtet; Le Sueur, by Honoré-Jean-Aristide Husson; Claude Perrault, by Auguste-Hyacinthe Debay; Philippe de Champaigne, by Louis-Adolphe Eude; and Puget, by Antoine Étex.
• South Wing, western side: Lescot, by Henri de Triqueti; Bullant, by Pierre Robinet; Le Brun, by Jean-Claude Petit; Pierre Chambiges, by Jules-Antoine Droz; Libéral Bruand, by Armand Toussaint; Philibert de l'Orme, by Jean-Pierre Dantan; Palissy, by Victor Huguenin; and Rigaud, by Victor Thérasse.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Among the abundant architectural sculpture of the Nouveau Louvre, the pediments of the three main pavilions stand out:

• Pavillon Richelieu: "France distributing crowns to its worthiest children"
• Pavillon Sully: "Napoleon I above History and Arts"
• Pavillon Denon: "Napoleon III surrounded by Agriculture, Industry, Commerce and the Fine Arts"

The latter group includes the depiction of a locomotive, then representing cutting-edge technological progress, and is the only surviving public portrayal of Napoleon III in Paris.

• 
  Pediment, Pavillon Richelieu
• 
  Pediment, Pavillon Sully

The salle du Manège in the South Wing was another opportunity for Lefuel to foster a rich structural program, which was only executed in 1861 after the Nouveau Louvre's inauguration. Outside in the Cour Lefuel, four bronze groups of wild animals by Pierre Louis Rouillard stand at the start of the two horse ramps : Chienne et ses petits, Loup et petit chien, Chien combattant un loup, and Chien combattant un sanglier. At the top of the ramps above the entrance to the manège, a monumental group, also by Rouillard, features three surging horses that echo Robert Le Lorrain's chevaux du soleil at the Hôtel de Rohan (Paris). Inside, the idiosyncratic hunting-themed capitals feature heads of horses and other animals, by Emmanuel Frémiet, Rouillard, Alfred Jacquemart, Germain Demay, and Houguenade.

• 
  Rouillard's wild animals in the Cour Lefuel
• 
  Rouillard's "dog fighting a wolf"
• 
  Rouillard's "wolf and puppy"
• 
  Rouillard's three horses above the Manège's entrance
• 
  One of the capitals of the Salle du Manège

Influence

Old City Hall (Boston), 1865

See also: Napoleon III style and Second Empire architecture in the United States and Canada

The nouveau Louvre was highly influential and became the exemplar of the Napoleon III style, also known as Second Empire architecture, subsequently adopted in numerous buildings in France as well as elsewhere in Europe and in the world. Prominent examples in the United States include the Old City Hall in Boston (built 1862-1865), the State, War, and Navy Building in Washington DC (built 1871-1888), and the Philadelphia City Hall (built 1871-1901).

Later history

The pavillon de Flore photographed by Baldus in 1861 just before its demolition (left) and Lefuel's reconstructed version (right)

Napoléon III's second salle des Etats, in Lefuel's pavillon des Sessions, was later used to display the Marie de' Medici cycle by Rubens (1929)

Lefuel's guichets du Louvre seen from across the pont du Carrousel

Cain's lionesses and one of Barye's lions, porte des Lions

Following the successful completion of the Louvre expansion, Napoleon III in 1861 commissioned Lefuel to rebuild the Pavillon de Flore and the wing that connected it to the Nouveau Louvre's South Wing, on the first floor of which was the Grande Galerie. Part of the project involved the creation of a new salle des Etats closer to the Tuileries, in a protruding wing known as the pavillon des Sessions, in the place of the western third of the Grande Galerie which was correspondingly cut short. The Southern façade was completely changed, as Lefuel replaced Louis Le Vau's colossal order with a replica of the earlier design further to the east. At the eastern end of the new project, Lefuel created monumental archways for the road connecting the Pont du Carrousel to the south with the rue de Rohan to the north, known as the guichets du Louvre or guichets du Carrousel. The project was completed in 1869 as an equestrian statue of Napoleon III by Antoine-Louis Barye was placed above the arches of the guichets. Further west are pairs of monumental lions by Antoine-Louis Barye and lionesses by Auguste Cain, respectively on the South and North side of the porte des Lions, with two additional lionesses by Cain in front of the nearby porte Jaujard.

That setting, however, did not last long, as the Second Empire came to its abrupt end. On 6 September 1870, days after the emperor’s capture at the Battle of Sedan, Barye's equestrian statue was topped and destroyed. At the end of the Paris Commune in on 23 May 1871, the Tuileries Palace was burned down, as also was the Bibliothèque du Louvre. Lefuel led the repairs to the Pavillon de Flore and the symmetrical Pavillon de Marsan to the north, executed between 1874 and 1879. In 1877, a bronze Genius of Arts by Antonin Mercié was installed in the place where Barye's equestrian statue had stood. Also following the fall of the Second Empire in 1871, the French Finance Ministry took over the Nouveau Louvre's North Wing, where it stayed until the late 1980s. The Duke of Morny’s apartment became that of the Finance Minister. It features prominently in Raymond Depardon’s documentary 1974, une partie de campagne, shot during the presidential election campaign of then minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

Gambetta Monument, late 19th / early 20th century

A tall monument to Léon Gambetta was planned in 1884 and erected in 1888 in front of the two gardens on what is now the Cour Napoléon. That initiative carried heavy political symbolism, since Gambetta was widely viewed as the founder of the Third Republic, and his outsized celebration in the middle of Napoleon III's landmark thus affirmed the final victory of republicanism over monarchism nearly a century after the French Revolution. Most of the monument's sculptures were in bronze and in 1941 were melted for military use by German occupying forces. What remained of the Gambetta Monument was dismantled in 1954.

The Louvre Pyramid surrounded by Napoleon III's Nouveau Louvre, 2014

In 1908, both octagonal gardens in the Cour Napoléon were adorned with monumental statues. An equestrian statue of La Fayette, by Paul Wayland Bartlett, was placed at the center of the eastern garden. This initiative had been sponsored in 1899 by American diplomat Robert John Thompson in gratitude of the French gift of the Statue of Liberty, and originally intended for a dedication at Lafayette's grave at the Picpus Cemetery during the Exposition Universelle of 1900. In preparation for the Grand Louvre remodeling, the Lafayette monument was transferred in 1985 to its current location on the Cours-la-Reine.

The western garden was adorned with the monumental bronze group Le Temps et le Génie de l’Art by Victor Ségoffin. Around that centerpiece a number of sculptures were installed in the garden, dubbed the "campo santo". Due to changing tastes, that group was transferred to the southern French town of Saint-Gaudens in 1935 on the initiative of Education Minister Anatole de Monzie. It was also melted down during World War II. The bronze group les fils de Caïn by Paul Landowski replaced it in the garden, and was in turn removed in 1984 to its current location in the Tuileries Garden.

In the context of the Grand Louvre project initiated by President François Mitterrand in the 1980s, the French Finance Ministry was compelled to leave the Louvre's North Wing. While most of the interior spaces were gutted and rebuilt, the more artistically and historically significant ones were preserved and renovated. These included two monumental staircases, the escalier Lefuel and escalier du ministre; the former ministerial office, rebranded as Café Richelieu; and the palatial suite of rooms created by Lefuel and his team for the Duke of Morny, rebranded as appartements Napoléon III. The Café Marly, located outside of the Louvre museum in the same wing and opened in 1994, has been designed by Olivier Gagnère in a reinterpretation of the Second Empire style. Meanwhile, the Cour Napoléon was radically transformed with the erection of the Louvre Pyramid and of the copy in lead of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's equestrian statue of Louis XIV.

See also

• Palais Garnier
• Grand Louvre