The Pavillon de Marsan or Marsan Pavilion was built in the 1660s as the northern end of the

Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (, ) was a palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in the west-front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henri IV to Napoleon III, until it was b ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and reconstructed in the 1870s after the Tuileries burned down at the end of the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...

. 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 The Louvre Palace (, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxe ...

. Since 1897 it has been part of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a separate institution from the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

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 The (), 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 ...

; it remained a one-bay stub until the wing was extended by Percier and Fontaine in 1807–1812. For each of these façades Le Vau employed the giant order, which had first been used over sixty years earlier by Henry 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 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 ...

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, which until then had been referred to simply as the north pavilion or the pavilion near the rue Saint-Honoré, 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, Count of Chambord Henri, Count of Chambord and Duke of Bordeaux (; 29 September 1820 – 24 August 1883), was the Legitimist pretender to the throne of France as Henri V from 1844 until his death in 1883. Henri was the only son of Charles Ferdinand, Duke ...

was born here. In 1871 the Pavillon de Marsan burned down together with the

. Its ruins were entirely demolished and the pavilion reconstructed by Hector-Martin 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 Alphonse Justin Liébert (30 November 1826, Tournai - 18 June 1913, Paris) was a French photographer. Biography Initially devoted to a career in the French Navy, Navy, he was wounded at the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado (1845), in Argentina. He ...

File:Palais des Tuileries, Pavillon de Marsan. 1er arrondissement, Paris. PH17372.jpg, West façade viewed from the south File:La place des Pyramides - Giuseppe De Nittis.jpg, Reconstruction, 1875 painting by Giuseppe De Nittis File:West facade of the Pavillon de Marsan, Louvre, 7 May 2013.jpg, West façade in 2013 A project to locate the

Cour des Comptes The ''Cour des Comptes'' (, "Court of Accounts") is France's supreme audit institution, under French law an administrative court. As such, it is independent from the legislative and executive branches of the French Government. However, the 1946 ...

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 Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

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: ''The wise man welcomes Truth and rejects Error'' (1878) File:Pavillon de Marsan frise R.jpg, Frieze with letters "R" (for République) and window arch at the first floor Further east, on the south façade of the Aile de Marsan, are a series of eight pediments with allegorical sculptures, namely ''Astronomy'' (by Gabriel Thomas); ''Accounting'' (above ''Science'' and ''Art'', by Pierre-Jules Cavelier); ''Architecture'' (above ''Masonry'' and ''Ironwork'', by Louis-Ernest Barrias); ''Plenty'' (above ''Wheat Harvest'' and ''Grape Harvest'', by Mathurin Moreau); ''Legislation'' (above ''Charlemagne'' and ''Moses''), by Hélène Bertaux; ''The Birth of Venus'' (above ''Sea'' and ''Wind'', by Henri-Charles Maniglier); unidentified theme (above ''Mercury'' and ''Hercules'', by Amédée Donatien Doublemard); and ''Peace'' (by ). File:Pediment of the south facade of the Aile de Marsan (PA00085992 884).jpg, ''Architecture'' by Louis-Ernest Barrias File:Pediment of the south facade of the Aile de Marsan (PA00085992 892).jpg, ''Legislation'' by Hélène Bertaux File:Pediment of the south facade of the Aile de Marsan (PA00085992 896).jpg, ''The Birth of Venus''

Notes

{{coord, 48.8634, 2.3324, type:landmark_region:FR, display=title 1666 establishments in France Buildings and structures completed in 1666 Louvre Palace Office buildings in Paris Henri, Count of Chambord Burned buildings and structures in France

History

Decoration

See also

Notes