The Louvre (Engraving)

Artist/Maker: published by F. Chereau^[1]

Created: 18th century

Origin/Purchase: Paris

Materials: engraving

Dimensions: 24.8 x 130.8 (9 3/4 x 51 1/2 in.)

Location: Bedchamber

Provenance: Thomas Jefferson; by descent to Thomas Jefferson Randolph; by descent to by descent to Olivia Taylor; by gift and bequest to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation

Accession Number: 1969-8

Historical Notes: No longer a royal residence, the Louvre served multiple purposes during Jefferson's time in France. There he visited the studios of the artist Jacques-Louis David and the architect Clerisseau, met with members of various royal academies, and attended the Salon of 1787. The "new" east facade of the Louvre (designed by the architects Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, and Claude Perrault from 1667 to 1670) impressed Jefferson as one of the "celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have already received the approbation of all good judges."^[2] He recommended it many years later as a model for buildings in the United States Capitol.^[3]

Footnotes

1. ↑ This article is based on Stein, Worlds, 180.
2. ↑ Howard Rice, Thomas Jefferson's Paris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 22-35.
3. ↑ See also Saul Padover, ed., Thomas Jefferson and the National Capitol (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 58-59.