![Daru staircase Louvre 2007 05 13](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Daru_staircase_Louvre_2007_05_13.jpg)
The Escalier Daru (Daru Staircase), also referred to as Escalier de la Victoire de Samothrace, is one of the largest and most iconic interior spaces of the
Louvre Palace in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, and of the
Louvre Museum
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
within it. Named after
Pierre, Count Daru, a minister of
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
, and initially designed in the 1850s by
Hector Lefuel
Hector-Martin Lefuel (14 November 1810 – 31 December 1880) 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.
Biography
He wa ...
as part of
Napoleon III's Louvre expansion
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 transforma ...
,
it received its current
Stripped Classicism
Stripped Classicism (or "Starved Classicism" or "Grecian Moderne") Jstor is primarily a 20th-century classicist architectural style stripped of most or all ornamentation, frequently employed by governments while designing official buildings. ...
appearance in the early 1930s. Since 1883, its focal point has been the ''
Winged Victory of Samothrace
The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the be ...
'', one of the highlights of the Louvre's collections.
[
]
Background
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
Mariana Victoria of Spain ( pt, Mariana Vitória; 31 March 1718 – 15 January 1781) was an '' Infanta of Spain'' by birth and was later the Queen of Portugal as wife of King Joseph I. She acted as regent of Portugal in 1776–1777, during the l ...
as promised wife of Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
, a staircase was built to lead directly into the Salon Carré
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 exhibitions of cont ...
on the upper level, dubbed after Mariana Victoria. Following 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
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
- thus the word for such shows. Visitors would use the to access the Salon from the , now covered as a glass atrium (since 1934) and known as .
Shortly before his death in 1780, Louvre architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot
Jacques-Germain Soufflot (, 22 July 1713 – 29 August 1780) was a French architect in the international circle that introduced neoclassicism. His most famous work is the Panthéon, Paris, Panthéon in Paris, built from 1755 onwards, original ...
designed a new staircase in the context of intensive planning for the creation of a public museum in the Louvre's Grande Galerie
The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
. Soufflot's design was implemented from 1781 by his successor . The new staircase or , which replaced the , opened on the ground floor on the that was intended to become the entrance of the museum, and led to what is now the on the upper floor, immediately to the north of the Salon Carré
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 exhibitions of cont ...
in Le Vau's wing doubling the Petite Galerie to the west.
Following the first opening of the Louvre Museum in 1793 and its reorganization under Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
in the early 1800s, the museum's main entrance was established further north, through the 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
The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
, Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
's architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine designed a monumental staircase, soon dubbed the , that started next to the and led straight to the Salon Carré
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 exhibitions of cont ...
. The structural work was completed in 1807, but the lavish decoration designed by Percier and Fontaine
Percier and Fontaine was a noted partnership between French architects Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine.
History
Together, Percier and Fontaine were inventors and major proponents of the rich and grand, consciously archaeol ...
took many more years and was only completed under their supervision during the Bourbon Restoration.
File:SouthWestWing.jpg, The Louvre's first floor in 1756 (Blondel plan) showing the Salon Carré (marked "T"), with the in its northwestern corner
File:247 of 'Le Louvre et son histoire. Ouvrage illustré de 140 gravures sur bois, etc' (11303227616).jpg, The Louvre's ground floor in 1780 (1895 reproduction) showing Brébion's
File:SouthWestWing 1836.jpg, The Louvre's ground floor in 1836 (by , 1870s) showing the flanking the (marked "C")
File:SouthWestWing 1857.jpg, Lefuel's plan for the Escalier Daru (ground floor), photographed by Édouard Baldus
Édouard Baldus (June 5, 1813, Grünebach, Prussia – 1889, Arcueil) was a French landscape, architectural and railway photographer.
Biography Early life
Édouard-Denis Baldus was born on June 5, 1813, in Grünebach, Prussia. He was original ...
File:Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin, Vue du Salon du Louvre en l'année 1753, 1753.jpg, Sketch of the in 1753 by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, also Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin, (Paris, 14 April 1724 - Paris, 14 February 1780) was a French draftsman, printmaker, etcher and painter.
Biography
His brothers Charles Germain de Saint Aubin and Augustin de Saint-A ...
, with visitors climbing the in the foreground
File:Napoléon Ier visitant l'escalier du musée du Louvre.PNG, Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
visiting the under construction, by Auguste Couder
File:Paris DSC 1331 (49630688182).jpg, Columns and ceiling decorations of the , preserved by Lefuel ''in situ'' in today's and
Lefuel's creation
In the context of Napoleon III's Louvre expansion
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 transforma ...
, Lefuel created a new entrance for the museum, west of the earlier one, on the ground floor of the . 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
Nicolas François, Count Mollien (born 28 February 1758 in Rouen, Seine-Inférieure – died 20 April 1850 in Paris, Seine), was a French financier. The son of a merchant, he early showed ability, and entered the ministry of finance, where he rose ...
, 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 or by his State Minister Achille Fould
Achille Fould (17 November 18005 October 1867) was a French financier and politician.
Early life
Achille Fould was born on 17 November 1800 in Paris. His father, Beer Léon Fould, was a Jewish banker.
Career
Fould began his career as a banker ...
, 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. 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 .
Later developments
The Escalier Daru was still unfinished at the end of the Second Empire Second Empire may refer to:
* Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783
* Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396)
* Second French Empire (1852–1870)
** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...
. 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
Samothrace (also known as Samothraki, el, Σαμοθράκη, ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a municipality within the Evros regional unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,859 (2011 ...
in 1863, and shipped to Paris in 1879. It was installed in the Daru Staircase in 1883.
In 1882, Lefuel's successor 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,[ on a design by painter ]Jules-Eugène Lenepveu
Jules-Eugène Lenepveu Boussaroque de Lafont, known as Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (1819 – 16 October 1898) was a French painter.
Biography
Born at Angers, he studied at the école des Beaux-Arts, and later was a pupil of François-Édouard Picot ...
.
The final completion was designed by Louvre architect and his successor from 1930 Albert Ferran, in the Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style of the times, and executed in 1932-1934 as part of a broader museum modernization effort led by Louvre Director Henri Verne
Henri Jean François Joseph Verne (21 September 1880, Cannes – 11 February 1949, Paris) was a French museum director and curator.
Biography
He held degrees in literature and law. In 1906, he became a document editor at the Ministry of Trade ...
. 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
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 ...
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.
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.
Notes
{{Louvre
Louvre Palace
Art Deco architecture