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 and largest room of the museum, also referred to as the Grande Galerie, one of the museum's most iconic spaces. This unusually long wing was constructed beginning in 1595 on the initiative of King Henry IV and was completed in late 1607. It contained an elevated enclosed passageway linking the old Louvre Palace with the

Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...

. The passageway was used for various purposes until the creation 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 ...

in 1793, when it became the exhibition gallery it remains to this day. Originally 460 meters long, the room was reduced to its current length of 288 meters following the remodeling of its western section in the 1860s in the wake 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 ...

Pre-museum history

Henry IV directed the building of the gallery, which started in 1595. It may have been inspired by the

Vasari Corridor The Vasari Corridor ( it, Corridoio Vasariano) is an elevated enclosed passageway in Florence, central Italy, connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti. Beginning on the south side of the Palazzo Vecchio, it joins the Uffizi Galle ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

, designed and built in 1565 by

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

for Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, which connects the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

with the

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

. The entire wing was completed in 1607. The gallery is 13 meters wide, and was originally 460 meters long. The eastern part was built first. The original plans specified the western part would begin after a large pavilion marking the location of the

wall of Charles V The wall of Charles V, built from 1356 to 1383 is one of the city walls of Paris. It was built on the right bank of the river Seine outside the wall of Philippe Auguste. In the 1640s, the western part of the wall of Charles V was demolished and ...

, but this was changed in 1603, when construction of the western part began at the midpoint between the two ends, the Petite Galerie in the east and the Pavillon de Flore in the west. The midpoint was marked with the Pavillon de la Lanterne (today's Pavillon de Lesdiguières), which was originally designed to match the south façade of the Petite Galerie at the eastern end. Further west, the location of the moat of Charles V's wall was indicated by a bay widened by two niches.Hillary Ballon (1991), "The Louvre", pp. 29, 33–34, in ''The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism. New York: The Architectural History Foundation; Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. . The design of the eastern half is traditionally attributed to

Louis Métezeau Louis Métezeau (1559 – 18 August 1615) was a French architect.Babelon 1996, p. 345. Life and career He was born in Dreux, Eure-et-Loir, and died in Paris. He was the son of Thibault Métezeau, the brother of Clément II Métezeau and the ...

. The ground and intermediate () floors of the eastern half were soon devoted to artists' dwellings and workshops, by royal authorization in 1608. The design of the western half is attributed to Jacques II Androuet du Cerceau, who decorated it with a

giant order In classical architecture, a giant order, also known as colossal order, is an order whose columns or pilasters span two (or more) storeys. At the same time, smaller orders may feature in arcades or window and door framings within the storeys tha ...

coupled ''Coupled'' is an American dating game show that aired on Fox from May 17 to August 2, 2016. It was hosted by television personality, Terrence J and created by Mark Burnett, of '' Survivor'', ''The Apprentice'', '' Are You Smarter Than a 5th G ...

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s framing two floors of windows. The original design called for the ionic order, but this was changed in 1603 to the

composite order The Composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic order capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order.Henig, Martin (ed.), ''A Handbook of Roman Art'', p. 50, Phaidon, 1983, In many versions the composite or ...

with sculpted

dolphins A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...

celebrating the 1601 birth of the dauphin, the future

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

. The dolphin order was also used for Henri IV's additions to the Cour Ovale at the

Palace of Fontainebleau Palace of Fontainebleau (; ) or Château de Fontainebleau, located southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence ...

. On the southern side, Lemercier commissioned Nicolas Poussin in 1641 to decorate the ceiling of the Grande Galerie, but Poussin returned to Rome in 1642 leaving the work unfinished. In 1661, a fire destroyed the Petite Galerie, which linked the Grande Galerie with the

Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Cons ...

, and the adjacent 5-bay pavilion containing the at the eastern end of the Grande Galerie.

Louis Le Vau Louis Le Vau (1612 – 11 October 1670) was a French Baroque architect, who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was an architect that helped develop the French Classical style in the 17th Century.''Encyclopedia of World Biography''"Louis Le Vau", ...

reconstructed the Petite Galerie with the

Galerie d'Apollon The Galerie d'Apollon is a large and iconic room of the Louvre Palace, on the first (upper) floor of a wing known as the Petite Galerie. Its current setup was first designed in the 1660s. It has been part of the Louvre Museum since the 1790s, was ...

and the as the Salon Carré, raising the 5-bay pavilion by one storey. File:L'Architecture française (Marot) BnF RES-V-371 173v-f378 Louvre, Face de la Grande Galerie du côté de la rivière (porte déplacée).jpg, From left to right: the Pavillon de Flore, the western section designed by Jacques II Androuet du Cerceau, the Pavillon de la Lanterne, the eastern section designed by

with two 5-bay pavilions at either end, and the south end of the Petite Galerie. (From a single print from the '' Grand Marot'', published in 1686. The print shows the wing as modified by

after 1661.) In the 17th century the Grande Galerie was the theater of the "touching" ceremony, four times a year, in which the king was reputed to miraculously cure victimes of scrofula by simply touching them and pronouncing the ritual words "God heal you, the king touches you" (french: Dieu te guérisse, le roi te touche). From 1697 on, the French state's collection of plans-reliefs was stored in the Grande Galerie, of which it occupied all the space by 1754 with about 120 items placed on wooden tables. This was not intended as an artistic exhibition but served a military purpose, as the plans-reliefs were used to study and prepare defensive and offensive siege operations of the fortified cities and strongholds they represented. The plans-reliefs were removed in 1777 to the

Hôtel des Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides ( en, "house of invalids"), commonly called Les Invalides (), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as ...

, where most of them are still displayed in the Musée des Plans-Reliefs.

Louvre Museum

During the reign of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

, the comte d’Angiviller promoted the use of the Grande Galerie as a public museum, tasked

Hubert Robert Hubert Robert (22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.Jean de Cayeux. ...

with preparing it, and had some paintings transferred there from Versailles in 1785. But the gallery was only opened to the public after the start of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, as the opened on 10 August 1793. Together with the Salon Carré it became the core of the Louvre's exhibition spaces, soon enlarged to the

(1797) and the ground-floor summer apartment of

Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (french: Anne d'Autriche, italic=no, es, Ana María Mauricia, italic=no; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was an infanta of Spain who became Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIII from their marriage in 1615 un ...

(1800), and later expanded into the wings around the

, after being appointed the museum's first "keeper of paintings", projected to improve the lighting of the gallery, by sealing its windows and opening skylights in its vaulted ceiling. This innovative plan was realized between 1805 and 1810 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 ...

, albeit in altered form with lateral skylights at regular intervals. Percier and Fontaine also created nine subdivisions of the long room, separated by groups of columns arranged in the manner of

Venetian window A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian ar ...

s as Robert had imagined. On 2 April 1810,

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

Marie Louise of Austria Marie Louise (12 December 1791 – 17 December 1847) was an Austrian archduchess who reigned as Duchess of Parma from 11 April 1814 until her death. She was Napoleon's second wife and as such Empress of the French and Queen of Italy from their ...

led a procession from the Tuileries throughout the Grande Galerie on the occasion of their wedding, which was celebrated in the Salon Carré, temporarily converted into a chapel. File:Hubert Robert - The Grande Galerie - WGA19594.jpg, Grande Galerie during the Louvre's early years, by

File:Hubert Robert - Projet d'aménagement de la Grande Galerie du Louvre (1796).JPG, Hubert Robert's 1796 project for the gallery's skylights File:Louvre-peinture-francaise-p1020324.jpg, Grande Galerie in ruins, imagined by Hubert Robert (1796) File:Hubert Robert - The Grande Galerie of the Louvre after 1801.jpg, Another sketch by Hubert Robert for the gallery's skylights File:Grande Galerie Louvre by Thomas Allom.jpg, Grande Galerie in the 1840s, by

Thomas Allom Thomas Allom (13 March 1804 – 21 October 1872) was an English architect, artist, and topographical illustrator. He was a founding member of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He designed many buildings in London, i ...

Edouard-Denis Baldus Paris Grande Galerie c1855

In 1849–1851, the exterior façade of the Eastern section of the Grande Galerie was renovated by architect

Félix Duban Jacques Félix Duban () (14 October 1798, Paris – 8 October 1870, Bordeaux) was a French architect, the contemporary of Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Henri Labrouste. Life and career Duban won the Prix de Rome in 1823, the most prestigious aw ...

, who replaced most of the stonework even though he scrupulously respected most of the original design. Duban replaced a former passageway, the , with a monumental entrance initially called , later renamed . In the 1860s, the Louvre's architect

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 ...

remodeled the southwestern wing of the Louvre Palace and created a new venue for state ceremonies, the , close to the

where Emperor Napoleon III had his Paris residence. Lefuel cut the Grande Galerie short, reducing it by about a third of its original length, to make space for the new room. Since that room was broader than the gallery, it resulted in a protruding structure on the northern side, the . The building was entirely demolished west of the , as was the Pavillon de Flore at its western end, and rebuilt to the new plan and new exterior designs that replaced the previous

, which Lefuel disliked, with a replica of Métézeau's façade pattern further east. Lefuel also created the current skylight system at the center of the gallery's ceiling. The new ceilings of the gallery below the and Lefuel's new were adorned with paintings by Alexandre-Dominique Denuelle and stucco sculptures by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. The interior design was again streamlined around 1950 by Louvre architect . in the late 1960s, designer Pierre Paulin created new seats for the Grande Galerie. The room was refurbished during the 1990s as part 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, with no change of design but installation of

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

and other amenities. In the current arrangement of the Louvre's collections, the Grande Galerie is entirely devoted to the display of Italian paintings.

Influence

The Grande Galerie inspired the design of the

Galerie des Batailles The Galerie des Batailles (; en, "Gallery of Battles") is a gallery occupying the first floor of the Aile du Midi of the Palace of Versailles, joining onto the ''grand'' and '' petit appartement de la reine''. long and wide, it is an epigon ...

Versailles Palace The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...

, created under Louis-Philippe I for his Musée de l'Histoire de France. Pierre Fontaine advised Louis-Philippe's architect for that project's zenithal lighting. It also inspired the similar gallery of the Museo del Prado in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

Media

Since 2007, ''Grande Galerie'' has also been the title of a glossy quarterly magazine published by the Louvre.

Notes

{{Authority control Louvre Palace Ancien Régime French architecture

Pre-museum history

Louvre Museum

Influence

Media

See also

Notes