Musee Carnavalet

April 16th, 2006

In the main courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet, you can’t miss this statue of Louis XIV, the sun king, dressed as a roman emperor and made by Coysevox. It’s an unusual place for this kind of statue. They never stand like that in the middle of the yard because the owner, at that time, didn’t want such a masterpiece to disturb attention of his visitors.

This Hôtel, in which the Paris’s history museum took place is a mix of different buildings from different times. Its construction ended in the last 19th century when Haussmann enlarged and restored it between 1871 and 1890 to store the historic collections of the City of Paris. Haussmann, who destroyed half of Paris to draw main streets we know todays, was aware of his action. He tried to collect historic pieces and incorporated them in this Hôtel Carnavalet.

You can find the arch of rue de Nazareth (15th century) coming from the Ile de la Cité, the staircase from the Hôtel de Luynes and its painted background en trompe l’oeil and this statue of Louis XIV, who wasn’t set up in this place but at the Hôtel de Ville since july, 14th 1689.
During the french revolution, in 1789, all the king’s statues were destroyed except this one, made of bronze, forgotten in a backyard.

In 1830, Haussmann fetched the statue in the Hôtel Carnavalet.

Entry Filed under: Paris, Streets