Vue de la Grande Façade du Vieux Louvre

Jacques Rigaud

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a striking horizontal print, one of a series of twenty-one views of Paris, Jacques Rigaud has depicted the long east facade of the Louvre, still a royal palace in the eighteenth century. Designed in the late 1660s by a team including Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, and Claude Perrault, the facade demonstrates the majesty and authority of French Baroque architecture, which is notable for its classical grandeur, restrained ornament, and balanced proportions. As depicted by Rigaud, it is a monument inviting both admiration and admission: near the center foreground, a gentleman gestures as though explaining the building to his companion, and in the center of the facade, the illuminated entrance frames figures strolling in the courtyard beyond.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art