Louvre Masterclass V : The Salon Carré

This fifth Louvre Masterclass explores the Salon Carré, one of the museum’s most emblematic and historically significant rooms.

The visit begins at the Daru staircase, with the Winged Victory of Samothrace, followed by the corridor displaying frescoes by Fra Angelico and Botticelli — rare examples of works of this kind preserved in a museum.

We will then enter the Salon Carré and consider its central place in French art history. Under Louis XIV, it became a venue for exhibitions organised by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, giving rise to the Salon. The session will also trace changes in the room’s display and decoration during the nineteenth century. Devoted to contemporary painting until the Second Empire, it later housed the museum’s most prestigious pictures, before the Third Republic undertook a comprehensive decorative redesign.

The greater part of the masterclass will focus on the paintings now on display, offering one of the most comprehensive surveys of early Italian Renaissance painting outside Italy. We will begin with the precursors Cimabue and Giotto, then examine major works by Fra Angelico and Uccello. Finally, we will consider the decisive transformations in Tuscan painting towards the end of the Quattrocento, notably through Botticelli and the Lippi painters.

Throughout, participants will develop practical approaches to interpreting the Salon Carré for different audiences, using one room to tell the history of the Louvre and incorporating the history of exhibitions and museum display into a guided visit.