When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few.

The Louvre opens August 10, 1793 as a public art museum for all Frenchmen

In 1546 Francis I, who was a great art collector, had a 12th Century castle built by King Philip II razed and began building a new royal residence on the same site.   Under Francis I, only a small portion of the present Louvre was completed, but over the nearly two centuries of its service as a royal residence, the Louvre, had additions by every subsequent French monarch with the most extensive building by Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Cardinal de Richelieu, the chief minister of Louis XIII.  The Louvre ceased to be a royal residence when Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles in 1682.

Art was a major passion for the French monarchy, with Louis XVI amassing one of the largest art collections in the world. In the seventeenth century, the artistic activity in France was concentrated in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which Louis created in 1648.  In 1690, King Louis decided to create a Gallery of paintings and sculptures, situated in the Louvre Palace, where students could study and copy pieces from antiquity and other masters.   These works were not put on public display, in fact, fine art was not very popular with ordinary people. Rich patrons, like the King, bought most of it and artists had little incentive to make things people might actually want to look at. Art was a proprietary good, like a luxury car or couture gown: something owned by the rich and displayed in their homes.

This all changed with the French Revolution.  No longer governed by a Monarch and no longer willing to support opulent palaces for the nobility, the revolutionary government looked to see how these assets could be put to public use.  With the abolition of the Ancien Régime in France, the hitherto hidden art collections of the Kings of France were available for all to enjoy but not immediately.  When Louis XVI fled Paris in 1789, he ordered all of his royal treasures moved to the Louvre.  It became, no longer a residence and certainly not a museum but a warehouse for the King’s possessions.   Louvre held some of these paintings are among the finest works ever created by their respective artists and some are even priceless.  It was also the repository of history of France with documents, furnishings, military gear, and all the royal trapping of several centuries of the French monarchy.  These were the national treasures of France.

In 1793, as a response to the growing outcry of the French middle class for access to the royal art collection, the revolutionary government opened to the public the Musée Central des Arts in the Grande Galerie. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, France put the artistic wealth of the nation on public display for all Frenchmen.

Under Napolean, the collection at the Louvre grew rapidly as the French army seized art and archaeological items from territory and nations conquered in the Napoleonic wars. While much of this plundered art was returned after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Louvre’s Egyptian antiquities collections, including the Roseta Stone, is a result of this plundering.  Over the course of the 19th century, the Royal Academy was converted into the National Academy, turning over control of the museum to the democratically-elected government of France.

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