The Pavillon de Flore, part of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, France, stands at the southwest end of the Louvre, near the Pont Royal. It was originally constructed in 1607–1610, during the reign of Henry IV, as the corner pavilion between the Tuileries Palace to the north and the Louvre's Grande Galerie to the east. The pavilion was entirely redesigned and rebuilt by Hector Lefuel in 1864–1868 in a highly decorated Napoleon III style. Arguably the most famous sculpture on the exterior of the Louvre, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's Triumph of Flora, was added below the central pediment of the south facade at this time. The Tuileries Palace was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871, and a north facade, similar to the south facade, was added to the pavilion by Lefuel in 1874–1879. Currently, the Pavillon de Flore is part of the Musée du Louvre.
Location
The Pavillon de Flore is in central Paris, on the Right Bank (French: Rive Droite) and is connected to the Louvre. It is directly adjacent to the Pont Royal on the Quai François Mitterrand (formerly Quai du Louvre, renamed on October 26, 2003), which is between the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar Senghor and the Pont du Carrousel. Its geographic coordinates are .
Metro access
History
17th century
The Pavillon de Flore was part of a larger plan, known as the "Grand Design" () and devised during the reign of King Henry IV, to connect the Louvre Palace and Tuileries Palace. The Grande Galerie was built from 1595, starting at the riverside end of the pre-existing Petite Galerie which ran south from the Palais du Louvre to the Seine, for half a kilometer along the Seine until it reached the Tuileries. The Pavillon de Flore, known at the time as the or , marked the endpoint of the new wing and its connection with the Tuileries. The cornerstone of the pavilion was laid in 1607, and its exterior structure was nearly completed by October 1608. Its design has traditionally been assigned to Jacques Androuet II du Cerceau, who is also thought to have designed the adjacent western section of the Grande Galerie. The Palais des Tuileries was duly extended south from its Pavillon Bullant to connect with the Pavillon de Flore, via the . Further work on the Grand Design was abandoned following the assassination of Henry IV in 1610. By that time, the building of the Grande Galerie, the Gros Pavillon de la Rivière, and the Petite Galerie des Tuileries had been substantially completed.
King Louis XIV organized yearly ballets, and in early 1669 insisted on a particularly magnificent one to be held in the Pavillon's . The seasons-themed spectacle, titled , was a joint creation of scenic designer Carlo Vigarani, costume designer Henri de Gissey, libretto author Isaac de Benserade, and music composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. It was first danced on 13 February 1669, with the king himself taking a dancing role, with repeat representations in the following weeks. The memory of that Flore Ballet show appears to have lingered in the building's name, even though the earliest known written mention is in 1726. A similar lingering memory, of Louis XIV's great show of 1662, remains in the name of the Place du Carrousel, which first appears in written sources in 1714.
18th century
The Pavillon's was converted into apartments in 1716, shortly after Louis XIV's death.
From 1789 until 1792, when the French royal court resided in the Tuileries, the apartment of the ground floor of the Pavillon de Flore housed the office of the princesse de Lamballe, being side by side with the apartment of queen Marie Antoinette in the ground floor of the main building of the Tuileries, while the first floor of the Pavillon housed the apartment of Madame Elisabeth.
During the French Revolution, the Pavillon de Flore was renamed Pavillon de l'Égalité (House of Equality). Under its new name, it became the meeting point for several of the Committees of the period. Many other committees of the Revolutionary Government occupied the Palais des Tuileries (referred to by contemporaries as the Palace of the Nation) during the time of the National Convention. Notable occupiers included the Monetary Committee, the Account and Liquidation Examination Committee. However, the most famous was the Committee of Public Safety.