Louis Métezeau (1559 – 18 August 1615) was a French architect.Babelon 1996, p. 345.

Life and career

He was born in

Dreux Dreux () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. Geography Dreux lies on the small river Blaise, a tributary of the Eure, about 35 km north of Chartres. Dreux station has rail connections to Argentan, Paris and Granvi ...

Eure-et-Loir Eure-et-Loir (, locally: ) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.Thibault Métezeau, the brother of Clément II Métezeau and the nephew of Jean Métezeau. The register of the city of Dreux refers to him as ''architecte du roi et contrôleur des bâtiments royaux''.Sturgis 1901. He probably undertook the construction of 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 ...

of the

Louvre 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 ...

(the eastern section is traditionally attributed to him) and may have designed the Petite Galerie. He may also have conceived the

Place des Vosges The Place des Vosges (), originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France. It is located in the ''Marais'' district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionable ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. An archival discovery of 1984 led some historians to name Louis Métezeau as the architect of the Hôtel d'Angoulême. It is now suggested that Louis' father, Thibault Métezeau, more likely designed it.Gady 2008, p. 180. Métezeau was probably involved in the building of the

Palais du Luxembourg The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the ...

for Marie de Medicis: she is believed to have sent him to

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

in 1611 to make drawings of 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 ...

, which was to be used as a model by the regent's order. At his death he was identified as

Premier Architecte du Roi Under the Ancien Régime, the First Architect to the King (french: Premier Architecte du Roi) was the direct assistant to the general director of the building industries, arts and manufactures of France and, consequently, number 2 of the Bâtiments ...

Henry IV of France Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...

. File:L'Architecture française (Marot) BnF RES-V-371 173v-f378 Louvre, Face de la partie orientale de la Grande Galerie du côté de la rivière (porte déplacée).jpg, The eastern section of the Louvre's

, from an engraving by

Jean Marot Jean Marot (Mathieu, near Caen, 1463 – c. 1526) was a French poet of the late 15th and early 16 century and the father of the French Renaissance poet Clément Marot. He is often grouped with the "Grands Rhétoriqueurs". Jean Marot seems to ha ...

(c. 1670)

Notes

Bibliography

* Ayers, Andrew (2004). ''The Architecture of Paris''. Stuttgart; London: Edition Axel Menges. . * Babelon, Jean-Pierre (1996). "Métezeau: (1) Louis Métezeau", vol. 21, p.p 345–346, in ''The Dictionary of Art'', edited by Jane Turner, reprinted with minor corrections in 1998. . Also a
Oxford Art Online
* Ballon, Hilary (1991). ''The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. . * Gady, Alexandre (2008). ''Les hôtels particuliers de Paris, du Moyen-Âge à la Belle époque'', Paris, Parigramme. 2012 edition: . * Sturgis, Russell (1901)
"Métezeau, Louis", vol. 2 (F–N), col. 868
in ''A Dictionary of Architecture and Building''. New York: Macmillan. * Thomson, David (1984). ''Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475-1600,'' Berkeley, University of California Press. .

External links

"Louis Métezeau"
at Structurae Renaissance architects 16th-century French architects 17th-century French architects People from Dreux 1560 births 1615 deaths Year of birth uncertain {{France-architect-stub