Editing Louvre (section)

=== From 1870 to 1981 ===
[[File:Plaques honoring the defenders of the Louvre in May 1871.jpg|thumb|Memorial plaques honoring the Louvre's defenders in May 1871]]

The Louvre narrowly escaped serious damage during the suppression of the [[Paris Commune]]. On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of ''Communards'' led by {{ill|Jules Bergeret|fr}} set fire to the adjoining [[Tuileries Palace]]. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the Tuileries and spreading to the north west wing of the museum next to it. The emperor's Louvre library (''Bibliothèque du Louvre'') and some of the adjoining halls, in what is now the Richelieu Wing, were separately destroyed. But the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees led by curator [[Henry Barbet de Jouy]].<ref>{{cite book|author=René Heron de Villefosse |title=Histoire de Paris |publisher=Bernard Grasset |date=1959}}</ref>

Following the end of the monarchy, several spaces in the Louvre's South Wing went to the museum. The Salle du Manège was transferred to the museum in 1879, and in 1928 became its main entrance lobby.<ref>{{cite web|website=Le Point |date=16 May 2015 |author1=Frédéric Lewino |author2=Anne-Sophie Jahn |title=Visite interdite du Louvre #4 : la magnifique rampe en fer à cheval de la cour des Écuries |url=https://www.lepoint.fr/culture/visite-interdite-du-louvre-4-la-magnifique-rampe-en-fer-a-cheval-de-la-cour-des-ecuries-16-05-2015-1928803_3.php}}</ref> The large Salle des Etats that had been created by Lefuel between the {{lang|fr|[[Grande Galerie]]|italic=no}} and Pavillon Denon was redecorated in 1886 by {{ill|Edmond Guillaume|fr}}, Lefuel's successor as architect of the Louvre, and opened as a spacious exhibition room.<ref>{{cite web|website=INHA Institut national d'histoire de l'art |title=Guillaume, Edmond (24 juin 1826, Valenciennes – 20 juillet 1894, Paris) |url=https://www.inha.fr/fr/ressources/publications/publications-numeriques/dictionnaire-critique-des-historiens-de-l-art/guillaume-edmond.html |date=9 February 2010 |author=Olivia Tolede}}</ref><ref name=Bresc>{{cite book |author=Geneviève Bresc-Bautier |title=The Louvre, a Tale of a Palace |date=2008 |publisher=Louvre éditions |location=Paris |url=http://editions.louvre.fr/en/titles/visit-the-louvre/history-of-the-palace/the-louvre-a-tale-of-a-palace.html |access-date=1 May 2021 |archive-date=6 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230306033021/http://editions.louvre.fr/en/titles/visit-the-louvre/history-of-the-palace/the-louvre-a-tale-of-a-palace.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Edomond Guillaume also decorated the first-floor room at the northwest corner of the [[Cour Carrée]], on the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by [[Carolus-Duran]], ''The Triumph of [[Marie de' Medici]]'' originally created in 1879 for the [[Luxembourg Palace]].<ref name=Bresc/>

[[File:Daru staircase Louvre 2007 05 13.jpg|thumb|The Louvre's monumental [[Escalier Daru]], topped by the ''[[Winged Victory of Samothrace]]'', took its current appearance in the early 1930s.]]

Meanwhile, during the [[Third French Republic|Third Republic]] (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new artefacts mainly via donations, gifts, and sharing arrangements on excavations abroad. The 583-item {{lang|fr|Collection La Caze}}, donated in 1869 by [[Louis La Caze]], included works by [[Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin|Chardin]]; [[Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard|Fragonard]], [[Rembrandt]] and [[Jean-Antoine Watteau|Watteau]].{{R|Mignot|page=70-71}} In 1883, the ''[[Winged Victory of Samothrace]]'', which had been found in the Aegean Sea in 1863, was prominently displayed as the focal point of the [[Escalier Daru]].{{R|Mignot|page=70-71}} Major artifacts excavated at [[Susa]] in Iran, including the massive ''Apadana capital'' and glazed brick decoration from the [[Palace of Darius in Susa|Palace of Darius]] there, accrued to the Oriental (Near Eastern) Antiquities Department in the 1880s. The [[Société des amis du Louvre]] was established in 1897 and donated prominent works, such as the ''[[Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon]]''. The expansion of the museum and its collections slowed after World War I, however, despite some prominent acquisitions such as [[Georges de La Tour]]'s ''Saint Thomas'' and [[Edmond James de Rothschild|Baron Edmond de Rothschild]]'s 1935 donation of 4,000&nbsp;prints, 3,000&nbsp;drawings, and 500&nbsp;illustrated books.

From the late 19th century, the Louvre gradually veered away from its mid-century ambition of universality to become a more focused museum of French, Western and Near Eastern art, covering a space ranging from [[Iran]] to the Atlantic. The collections of the Louvre's [[musée mexicain]] were transferred to the [[Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro]] in 1887. As the {{lang|fr|[[Musée national de la Marine|Musée de Marine]]}} was increasingly constrained to display its core naval-themed collections in the limited space it had in the second-floor [[attic]] of the northern half of the Cour Carrée, many of its significant holdings of non-Western artefacts were transferred in 1905 to the Trocadéro ethnography museum, the [[National Archaeological Museum, France|National Antiquities Museum]] in [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]], and the [[Chinese Museum (Fontainebleau)|Chinese Museum]] in the [[Palace of Fontainebleau]].<ref>{{cite book|date=1906 |author=Max Charles Emmanuel Champion de Nansouty |title=Actualites scientifiques, Volume 3 |page=282}}</ref> The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the [[Palais de Chaillot]] in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of [[Asian art]] were moved to the [[Guimet Museum]] in 1945. Nevertheless, the Louvre's first gallery of [[Islamic art]] opened in 1893.<ref>{{Cite web |title=An Introduction to Islamic Art – The Cour Visconti |url=https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/the-palace/an-introduction-to-islamic-art |access-date=2024-01-17 |website=Le Louvre |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L15196, Paris, Besuch Gerd v. Rundstedt im Louvre.jpg|thumb|left|Generalfeldmarschall [[Gerd von Rundstedt]] is seen with a plaster model of the ''[[Venus de Milo]]'',<ref>''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=L0oEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40&q=%22the%20venus%20de%20milo%20now%20replaced%20by%20a%20plaster%20model%22 (4 November 1940), p. 39].</ref> while visiting the Louvre with the curator Alfred Merlin on 7 October 1940.]]

[[File:Meuble de type borne dans la grande galerie du Louvre.jpg|thumb|Seating designed by [[Pierre Paulin]] in the late 1960s, {{lang|fr|[[Grande Galerie]]|italic=no}}]]
[[File:Salon Carré D201805 2.jpg|thumb|{{ill|Marc Saltet|fr}}'s 1972 museography for the [[Salon Carré]], with "dos-à-dos" seat designed in 1967 by [[Pierre Paulin]]]]

In the late 1920s, Louvre Director [[Henri Verne]] devised a master plan for the rationalization of the museum's exhibitions, which was partly implemented in the following decade. In 1932–1934, Louvre architects {{ill|Camille Lefèvre (architect)|lt=Camille Lefèvre|fr|Camille Lefèvre (architecte)}} and Albert Ferran redesigned the [[Escalier Daru]] to its current appearance. The {{lang|fr|Cour du Sphinx}} in the South Wing was covered by a glass roof in 1934. Decorative arts exhibits were expanded in the first floor of the North Wing of the [[Cour Carrée]], including some of France's first [[period room]] displays. In the late 1930s, The La Caze donation was moved to a remodeled {{lang|fr|Salle La Caze}} above the {{lang|fr|salle des Caryatides}}, with reduced height to create more rooms on the second floor and a sober interior design by Albert Ferran.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

During [[World War II]], the Louvre conducted an elaborate plan of [[Evacuation of the Louvre museum art collection during World War II|evacuation of its art collection]]. When Germany occupied the [[Sudetenland]], many important artworks such as the ''[[Mona Lisa]]'' were temporarily moved to the [[Château de Chambord]]. When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as ''[[Winged Victory of Samothrace]]'' and the ''[[Venus de Milo]]'' were sent to the [[Château de Valençay]].<ref>Alan Riding, ''And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris''. Alfred A Knopf, New York: 2010. p. 34.</ref> On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement".<ref>Matila Simon, "The battle of the Louvre;: The struggle to save French art in World War II". Hawthorn Books, 1971. p. 23.</ref> In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre.<ref>Simon,&nbsp;p.&nbsp;177</ref>

New arrangements after the war revealed the further evolution of taste away from the lavish decorative practices of the late 19th century. In 1947, Edmond Guillaume's ceiling ornaments were removed from the {{lang|fr|Salle des Etats}},<ref name=Bresc/> where the ''Mona Lisa'' was first displayed in 1966.<ref>{{cite web |website=Louvre |author=Vincent Delieuvin |title=Les accrochages de la Joconde de 1797 à nos jour |url=https://focus.louvre.fr/sites/default/files/louvre-les-accrochages-joconde.pdf |access-date=1 May 2021 |archive-date=1 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501030432/https://focus.louvre.fr/sites/default/files/louvre-les-accrochages-joconde.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Around 1950, Louvre architect {{ill|Jean-Jacques Haffner|fr}} streamlined the interior decoration of the {{lang|fr|[[Grande Galerie]]|italic=no}}.<ref name=Bresc/> In 1953, a new ceiling by [[Georges Braque]] was inaugurated in the {{lang|fr|Salle Henri II}}, next to the {{lang|fr|Salle La Caze}}.<ref name=LAT>{{cite web|website=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-27-la-et-louvre-twombly27-2010mar27-story.html |title=Hitting the Louvre ceiling |author=Devorah Lauter |date=27 March 2010}}</ref> In the late 1960s, seats designed by [[Pierre Paulin]] were installed in the {{lang|fr|Grande Galerie|italic=no}}.<ref>{{cite web|website=Elle Decor |title=Pierre Paulin, the man who made design an art |author=Rita Salerno |date=30 May 2019 |url=https://www.elledecor.com/it/best-of/a27734656/pierre-paulin-biography-works/}}</ref> In 1972, the {{lang|fr|[[Salon Carré]]}}'s museography was remade with lighting from a hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect {{ill|Marc Saltet|fr}} with assistance from designers {{ill|André Monpoix|fr}}, [[Joseph-André Motte]] and Paulin.<ref>{{cite web|website=Le Monde |title=Le "salon Carré", prestigieux vestibule à la Grande Galerie |author=Michel Conil Lacoste |date=9 February 1972 |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1972/02/09/le-salon-carre-prestigieux-vestibule-a-la-grande-galerie_2381391_1819218.html}}</ref>

In 1961, the Finance Ministry accepted to leave the [[Pavillon de Flore]] at the southwestern end of the Louvre building, as Verne had recommended in his 1920s plan. New exhibition spaces of sculptures (ground floor) and paintings (first floor) opened there later in the 1960s, on a design by government architect Olivier Lahalle.<ref>{{cite web|website=Le Figaro |url=https://www.lefigaro.fr/histoire/2014/12/04/26001-20141204ARTFIG00203-1964-le-louvre-sera-le-plus-beau-musee-du-monde.php |title=1964 : Le Louvre sera le plus beau musée du monde |author=Pierre Mazars |date=18 November 1964}}</ref>