Aile de Marsan

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.

History

The pavilion was originally built in 1666, based on a design by Louis Le Vau. The exterior was similar to that of its southern pendant, the Pavillon de Flore. On its south side, the Pavillon de Marsan was connected to Le Vau's pavilion for the stage of the Théâtre des Tuileries, completed in 1661. On the Pavillon de Marsan's east side, Le Vau constructed the first bay of the North Wing, heading toward the Louvre. The south façade of the North Wing replicated the courtyard façade of its southern pendant, the Grande Galerie. For each of these façades Le Vau employed the giant order, which had first been used over sixty years earlier by Henri IV's architect(s) for the Pavillon de Flore, the Petite Galerie of the Tuileries and the western section of the Grande Galerie.

File:L'Architecture française (Marot) BnF RES-V-371 175v-f390 Palais des Tuileries, Pavillon du côté de la rue St Honoré, Élévation du côté du Jardin achevé sous le Regne de Louis XIV (adjusted).jpg, West façade facing the garden, detail from a c.1670 engraving by Jean Marot
File:L'Architecture française (Marot) BnF RES-V-371 174v-f385 Palais des Tuileries, Pavillon du côté rue St Honoré, Plan -rez-de-chaussée- achevé sous le Regne de Louis XIV (adjusted).jpg, Ground-floor plan showing the pavilion and the first bay of the North Wing (at top), which contains the grand staircase, detail from an engraving by Jean Marot
File:East faces of the Salle des Machines and the Pavillon de Marsan and beginning of the Aile Nord in the 18th century, watercolor of Taraval – Christ 1949 Fig80.jpg, View of the east side with the first bay of the North Wing, 18th-century watercolor by Hugues Taraval

In the third quarter of the 18th century the Pavillon de Marsan included the apartment of Marie Louise de Rohan, governess of the king's grandchildren and known as from her past marriage with Gaston, Count of Marsan. The pavilion took its current name from her. At the time when the royal family inhabited the Tuileries during the French Revolution, Madame Adélaïde had her apartment on the pavilion's ground floor.

In the 1800s, Percier and Fontaine extended the North Wing to the east in order to complete the Louvre Palace but only went as far as the . The complete merger of the Tuileries and the Louvre would only be accomplished a half-century later with Napoleon III's Louvre expansion.

In 1820 Henri V, the Count of Chambord was born here.

In 1871 the Pavillon de Marsan burned down together with the Tuileries Palace. Its ruins were entirely demolished and the pavilion reconstructed by Hector Lefuel from 1874 to 1879. Lefuel, who disliked the giant order as a matter of principle and found it unsuitable for the Louvre, went on to reconstruct the North Wing on a slightly broadened footprint, but works to that end stopped around the time of his death in 1880. As a consequence, the North Wing is now divided into Lefuel's (Marsan Wing) to the west and Percier and Fontaine's (Rohan Wing) to the east.

File:Tuileries Palace, Burned. General View MET DP161581 (adjusted).jpg, Ruins after the fire, 1871 photo by
Alphonse Liébert
File:La place des Pyramides - Giuseppe De Nittis.jpg, Reconstruction, 1875 painting by Giuseppe De Nittis

A project to locate the Cour des Comptes in the Pavillon de Marsan was stillborn, even though the building was used in the late 19th century to store archives of that institution. In 1897 the Pavillon and Aile de Marsan were eventually given over to the , which remodeled it from 1898 to 1905 under designs by Gaston Redon assisted by Paul Lorain. The Arts Décoratifs Library opened in 1904 and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs opened in May 1905.

Decoration

The pavilion is adorned with abundant architectural sculpture, as with other parts of Lefuel's work at the Louvre. An unusual feature is the use of copper for the wings of an allegorical winged lion above the southern pediment facing the Carrousel Garden, created by Théodore-Charles Gruyère in 1878.

File:Paris - Palais du Louvre - PA00085992 - 909 (cropped).jpg, Sculpture of winged lion by Théodore-Charles Gruyère, on the south façade
File:Pediment Bonnassieux Pavillon de Marsan Louvre.jpg, Sculpture by Jean-Marie Bonnassieux, on the Tuileries Garden façade
File:Pavillon de Marsan frise R.jpg, Frieze with letters "R" (for République) and window arch at the first floor

See also

* Pavillon de Flore

Notes

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Louvre Palace
Buildings and structures in Paris