| NO. | ITALIAN SCHOOLS | PLATE |
|---|---|---|
| 1601 | LEONARDO DA VINCI— | |
| Portrait of Mona Lisa La Joconde | [IV] | |
| 1383 | SIMONE MARTINI— | |
| Christ Bearing His Cross | [I] | |
| 1344 | FRA FILIPPO LIPPI— | |
| Madonna and Child, with Angels, and Two Abbots | [II] | |
| 1322 | DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO— | |
| Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandson (“The Bottle-nosed Man”) | [III] | |
| 1297 | BOTTICELLI— | |
| Giovanna Degli Albizzi and the Three Graces | [V] | |
| 1566a | PERUGINO— | |
| St. Sebastian | [VI] | |
| 1496 | RAPHAEL— | |
| La Belle Jardinière | [VII] | |
| 1505 | RAPHAEL— | |
| Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione | [VIII] | |
| 1134 | ANTONELLO DA MESSINA— | |
| Portrait of a Condottiere | [IX] | |
| 1136 | GIORGIONE— | |
| Pastoral Symphony | [X] | |
| 1399 | PALMA VECCHIO— | |
| The Adoration of the Shepherds, with a Female Donor | [XI] | |
| 1592 | TITIAN— | |
| The Man with a Glove | [XII] | |
| 1584 | TITIAN— | |
| The Entombment | [XIII] | |
| 1375 | ANDREA MANTEGNA— | |
| Parnassus | [XIV] | |
| 1117 | CORREGGIO— | |
| The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine | [XV] | |
| FLEMISH SCHOOL | ||
| 1986 | JAN VAN EYCK— | |
| The Virgin and Child, and the Chancellor Rolin | [XVI] | |
| [1] | HANS MEMLINC— | |
| Portrait of an Old Lady | [XVII] | |
| 1957 | GERARD DAVID— | |
| The Marriage at Cana | [XVIII] | |
| 2029 | QUENTIN MATSYS- | |
| The Banker and his Wife | [XIX] | |
| 1997 | JAN MABUSE— | |
| Portrait of Jean Carondelet | [XX] | |
| 2093 | RUBENS— | |
| Henry IV. leaves for the Wars | [XXI] | |
| 2113 | RUBENS— | |
| Portrait of Hélène Fourment and two of her Children | [XXII] | |
| 1967 | VAN DYCK— | |
| Portrait of Charles I. of England | [XXIII] | |
| GERMAN SCHOOL | ||
| 2715 | HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER— | |
| Portrait of Erasmus | [XXIV] | |
| SPANISH SCHOOL | ||
| 1731 | VELAZQUEZ— | |
| Portrait of the Infanta Margarita | [XXV] | |
| 1709 | MURILLO— | |
| The Immaculate Conception | [XXVI] | |
| DUTCH SCHOOL | ||
| 2384 | FRANS HALS— | |
| The Gipsy Girl | [XXVII] | |
| 2385 | FRANS HALS— | |
| Portrait of a Lady in Black | [XXVIII] | |
| 2539 | REMBRANDT— | |
| The Pilgrims at Emmaus | [XXIX] | |
| 2547 | REMBRANDT— | |
| Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels | [XXX] | |
| 2394 | VAN DER HELST— | |
| The Shooting Prize | [XXXI] | |
| 2348 | GERARD DOU— | |
| The Dropsical Woman | [XXXII] | |
| 2589 | TERBORCH— | |
| The Concert | [XXXIII] | |
| 2580 | JAN STEEN— | |
| Bad Company | [XXXIV] | |
| 2415 | PIETER DE HOOCH— | |
| Dutch Interior, with a Lady Playing Cards | [XXXV] | |
| 2456 | JAN VER MEER— | |
| The Lace-Maker | [XXXVI] | |
| FRENCH SCHOOL | ||
| 734 | NICOLAS POUSSIN— | |
| The Shepherds in Arcadia | [XXXVII] | |
| 317 | CLAUDE— | |
| View of a Seaport | [XXXVIII] | |
| 982 | WATTEAU— | |
| The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera | [XXXIX] | |
| 36 | BOUCHER— | |
| Vulcan Presenting Arms to Venus | [XL] | |
| 92 | CHARDIN— | |
| Grace before Meat | [XLI] | |
| 291 | FRAGONARD— | |
| The Music Lesson | [XLII] | |
| 372 | GREUZE— | |
| The Broken Pitcher | [XLIII] | |
| 522 | MME. VIGÉE LE BRUN— | |
| Portrait of the Artist and her Daughter | [XLIV] | |
| 199 | DAVID— | |
| Portrait of Mme. Récamier | [XLV] | |
| 338 | GÉRICAULT— | |
| The Raft of the “Medusa” | [XLVI] | |
| 207 | DELACROIX— | |
| Dante and Virgil | [XLVII] | |
| 422 | INGRES— | |
| The Spring | [XLVIII] | |
| 2801 | COROT— | |
| The Dell | [XLIX] | |
| 2867 | DUPRÉ— | |
| The Pond | [L] | |
| 2818 | DAUBIGNY— | |
| The Weir Gate at Optevoz | [LI] | |
| 644 | MILLET— | |
| Women Gleaning | [LII] | |
| 613a | MANET— | |
| Olympia | [LIII] | |
| ENGLISH SCHOOL | ||
| 1809 | CONSTABLE— | |
| Hampstead Heath | [LIV] |
[ [1] This picture has not yet received an official number.
INTRODUCTION
TO form a just appreciation of the magnificent collection of paintings which the Louvre to-day contains would require an exhaustive study which might be spread over a term of years spent in the famous French capital itself. In the limited space at our disposal we can only touch lightly upon the historical events, the sociological causes, the grandeur of royalty, and the taste of the people, all of which contributed towards bringing about the formation of the great Musée National du Louvre as we now know it. It has been our endeavour to throw into prominent relief the outstanding features in the history of the Gallery and to sketch them in chronological order. The architectural claims of the building, its priceless collections of statuary and of objets d’art of every age do not here immediately concern us; it is to the formation of the superb collection of paintings that we primarily desire to call our readers’ attention.
A small part of the building which is to-day known as the Louvre was first occupied as a royal residence by Philippe-Auguste (reigned 1180–1223), who converted a hunting-seat of the early French kings on this site into a feudal fortress with a strong donjon or keep, the exact plan of which may still be traced by the white line marked since 1868 on the pavement in the southwest corner of the old courtyard. Charles v. (reigned 1364–80), who may be regarded as the first royal collector of art treasures in France, greatly enlarged the building of the Old Louvre as a residential palace; he is also said to have decorated the building with statues and paintings which have long since disappeared. The real foundations of the collection of la maison du Roi were laid by François i. (reigned 1515–47), who during his Italian campaigns acquired a respect for art that proved to be an honour to his taste and a dowry for his country. The æsthetic movement had developed rapidly by 1541, when he laid the foundations of the present palace[2] and had already begun to form a collection of easel pictures. François i. invited to his court the master-painter Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who in 1516 left his native land for France, where he did the king little more than the compliment of dying in his realm, although not, as an unveracious tradition recounts, in his arms. Andrea del Sarto (1486–1531) was also employed at the French court, at which he arrived in 1518. Giovanni Battista Rosso (1494–1541), a painter of little genius but great ability, was summoned by François i. in 1530 to decorate the Château at Fontainebleau. Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71), the Florentine goldsmith, having “determined to seek another country and better luck,” was yet one more artist who set out for France, where, between 1540 and 1544, he adorned the royal tables with objects precious in workmanship and material. Primaticcio (1504–70), who is known to have cleaned at Fontainebleau in 1530 four of the large reputed Raphaels now in the Louvre, remained at the French court until his death. The strict authenticity of these four pictures—The Holy Family of Francis I. (No. 1498), the St. Margaret (No. 1501), the large St. Michael (No. 1504), and the Portrait of Joan of Arragon (No. 1507)—does not here concern us. François i. also possessed at this date, among other notable pictures, Raphael’s La Belle Jardinière (No. 1496, [Plate VII.]), Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks (No. 1599), and the same artist’s Mona Lisa or La Joconde (No. 1601, [Plate IV.]), while the art of Sebastiano del Piombo, Andrea del Sarto, and other painters, Flemish as well as Italian, was well represented in the royal collection during his reign.
[2] “François i. voulant avoir dans Paris un palais digne de sa magnificence et dédaignant le vieux Louvre et l’hôtel des Tournelles, amas irrégulier de tournelles (tourelles) et de pavillons gothiques, avait fait démolir, dès 1528, la grosse tour du Louvre, ce donjon de Philippe-Auguste duquel relevaient tous les fiefs du royaume. C’était démolir l’histoire elle-même; c’était la monarchie de la renaissance abattant la vieille royauté féodale.”—Martin, Hist. de France.
The example set by François i. was followed by his successor, Henri ii. (reigned 1547–59), for whom Niccolò dell’ Abbate (1515–71), an artist of secondary importance, was working from 1552 onwards. Henri ii.’s queen, Catherine de Médicis, was also a patron of art, being herself a collector of coins and medals. To her influence was due the decoration of the Château of Fontainebleau and the erection of the Palace of the Tuileries,[3] which was subsequently connected with the Louvre by means of the Long Gallery, now Room VI. Her eldest son, François ii. (reigned 1559–60), the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, first converted the new buildings of the Louvre into a royal residence. Henry iv. (reigned 1589–1610) enlarged the Tuileries, and almost completed the Long Gallery, which now contains such a large proportion of the pictures. Louis xiii. (reigned 1589–1610), his eldest son, seems to have taken little interest in the royal collection; but his mother, Marie de Médicis, invited Rubens (1577–1640) to Paris to decorate the Palace of the Luxembourg with that series of imposing canvases representing her own life-history which are to-day seen to their best advantage in the Salle Rubens (Room XVIII.) of the Louvre.
[3] An inscription on a tablet placed high up on the left of the Pavillon Sully records that François i. began the Louvre in 1541, and Catherine de Médicis the Tuileries in 1564.
No complete record has been found of the pictures which formed the royal collection previous to the year 1642. To that date belongs a meagre Catalogue of the objects of art which then remained at Fontainebleau, but it is supposed that when Louis xiv. (reigned 1643–1715) succeeded to the throne he inherited about one hundred pictures, the property of the Crown. With his accession a new era in the history of art in France began.