Editing Louvre (section)

=== Second Empire ===
{{Main|Napoleon III's Louvre expansion}}

The rule of [[Napoleon III]] was transformational for the Louvre, both the building and the museum. In 1852, he created the [[Musée des Souverains]] in the [[Louvre Colonnade|Colonnade Wing]], an ideological project aimed at buttressing his personal legitimacy. In 1861, he bought 11,835&nbsp;artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the [[Campana collection]]. For its display, he created another new section within the Louvre named {{lang|fr|Musée Napoléon III}}, occupying a number of rooms in various parts of the building. Between 1852 and 1870, the museum added 20,000&nbsp;new artefacts to its collections.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What is the Louvre? {{!}} Hobble Creek |url=https://hobblecreek.us/blog/entry/what-is-the-louvre |access-date=9 December 2022 |website=hobblecreek.us}}</ref>

The main change of that period was to the building itself. In the 1850s architects [[Louis Visconti]] and [[Hector Lefuel]] created massive new spaces around what is now called the [[Cour Napoléon]], some of which (in the South Wing, now Aile Denon) went to the museum.{{R|Mignot|page=52-54}} In the 1860s, Lefuel also led the creation of the {{lang|fr|pavillon des Sessions}} with a new {{lang|fr|Salle des Etats}} closer to Napoleon III's residence in the [[Tuileries Palace]], with the effect of shortening the {{lang|fr|[[Grande Galerie]]|italic=no}} by about a third of its previous length. A smaller but significant Second Empire project was the decoration of the {{lang|fr|salle des Empereurs}} below the [[Salon carré]].{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} {{clear}}

<gallery mode="packed">
File:Musée Napoléon III.jpg|Entrance to a section of the ''Musée Napoléon&nbsp;III'' from the ''salle des séances'', then a double-height space
File:Galerie Daru - Musée du Louvre.jpg|''Galerie Daru'', part of the New Louvre building program under Napoleon&nbsp;III
File:Paris - Musée du Louvre (30612872064).jpg|''Salle Daru'' above the ''galerie Daru'', also created under Napoleon&nbsp;III
File:Escalier Mollien in 2010 (1).jpg|''Escalier Mollien'' in the New Louvre
File:P1080712 Louvre salle romaine rwk.JPG|''Salle des Empereurs''
</gallery>
{{clear}}