Coupe en sardonyx (Sardonyx cup)
Enamelled gold mounts, rubies, diamonds and sapphires
Louis XIV’s hardstone vessel collection
Since the Louvre’s transformation into a museum, the gallery has displayed the magnificent hardstone vessel collection of the kings of France. These beautifully mounted treasures were carved from precious minerals (including agate, amethyst, lapis lazuli, jade and rock crystal). Louis XIV had a particular passion for hardstones, and his collection comprised some 800 pieces.*
In the Galerie d'Apollon, in the Petite Galerie
The Petite Galerie itself is an iconic wing of the Louvre. This was created in the second half of the 16th century under the command of Charles IX as a single storey hall. But construction wasn’t completed as internal conflicts locked France up in more important matters. As the century came to a close, the Petite Galerie got its second storey — and this is where the Galerie d’Apollon would eventually go. Before then, however, there was the Galerie des Rois, which showed artwork owned by Henry IV. Anne of Austria enjoyed the bottom floor as a summer apartment, which is why it has been lavishly decorated since the 1650s (some of this still survives today).
[Louvre Guide]
On 6th February 1661, flames ripped through the splendid Petite Galerie dating from the reign of Henri IV. Henri’s grandson, Louis XIV, immediately set about constructing an even more beautiful gallery to replace it and entrusted its design to the architect Louis Le Vau. The young king, aged twenty-three, had recently chosen the sun as his emblem, and so this became the theme of his new gallery, named after Apollo, the Greek god of the sun and the arts.
Charles Le Brun, First Painter to the king, was commissioned to design the decoration. He called on the finest artists to create it. The Galerie d’Apollon – the first royal gallery in France – was a laboratory for aesthetic and architectural experimentation which, twenty years later, served as a model for an icon of French classicism: the Hall of Mirrors at the Château de Versailles.
Le Brun decorated the gallery’s vaulted ceiling with paintings of Apollo driving his chariot across the sky. Those along the central axis show the sun god’s journey, marking the different times of the day from Dawn to Night. These are surrounded by a whole cosmos of images and symbols of everything that is influenced by variations in the sun’s light and heat (the hours, days, months, seasons, signs of the zodiac and continents). The ‘Gallery of Apollo’, with its lavish carved and painted decoration, gave visual form to the sun’s power over the whole universe, magnifying the glory of the Sun King.
However, it was not long before Louis XIV began to leave Paris and the Louvre behind in favour of Versailles, where he and his court eventually settled for good. The gallery’s decoration was not completed until two centuries later, in 1850, under the direction of architect Félix Duban. To decorate the centre of the ceiling, Delacroix was commissioned for a 12-metre wide painting; the result, Apollo Slaying the Serpent Python, is a manifesto of French Romanticism. The wall decoration was also completed, with portrait tapestries of 28 monarchs and artists who had built and embellished the Louvre palace over the centuries.
The royal collection also includes the Crown Jewels. The so-called ‘Côte de Bretagne’ spinel, which once belonged to Anne de Bretagne, is the oldest of the gems to have survived a tumultuous history involving theft, dispersal and sale. Three historical diamonds – the Regent, the Sancy and the Hortensia – formerly adorned royal crowns or garments. The spectacular 19th-century jewellery sets in the collection include emerald and diamond pieces that once belonged to Empress Marie Louise.
[Musee du Louvre]
Taken in the Louvre
The Musee du Louvre, in Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre)
Built over the Louvre fortress (itself founded by Philip II in 1190), the Louvre Palace was the chief residence of French kings from 1546, under Francis I until 1682, when Louis XIV moved to Versailles. Although Louis moved the household, the royal collection remained in the palace and in 1692 it was joined by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, remaining there for 100 years. The palace became a museum following the French Revolution, at the instruction of the National Assembly, and the Musee du Louvre opened 10 August 1793.
