From Store to Museum: The Reorganization of the Louvre's Painting Collections in 1848

Abstract

With the founding of the Second Republic following the Revolution of 1848, the Louvre was placed under new political and artistic management. Philippe-Auguste Jeanron, Director of National Museums, and Frédéric Villot, Curator of Paintings in the Louvre, reorganized the exhibition of its French and European painting collections. This article analyses the rationale behind this reorganization, the debates to which it gave rise, and its implications for French nineteenth-century museography, with particular reference to the commentaries of two of the most important art journalists of the period, Louis Clément de Ris and Théophile Gautier.