Forthcoming Exhibition: Saint Louis
Paris, 8 October 2014 – 11 January 2015
King Louis IX (1214-1270) was a personality that exercised an unusually high amount of influence throughout the medieval West. Few other French kings possessed a comparable charisma, and no other was canonised. Louis IX’s double identity as a king and a saint created an almost mythical figure, whose ideological instrumentalisation obscured his actual character.
In 2014, on occasion of the eight centenary of the king’s birth, the imprints of Louis IX, both within the domaines of political action and royal artistic patronage, will be revisited. A selection of 130 works of art of exceptionally high quality, coming from some of the most renowned French collections (Louvre, Cluny, Orsay, Archives Nationales and BnF), and accompanied by rare manuscripts, ivories and reliquaries kept outside of France (United States, Italy, Netherlands, Vatican State), will bear witness to the greatness of Parisian art under the reign of Louis IX.
The Sainte-Chapelle which was erected at the heart of the royal palace in order to treasure the Passion relics and which is one of the most elegant expressions of Gothic architecture, will be one of the highlights of the exhibition parcours.
Further highlights to be expected:
- The Treasure of the Sainte-Chapelle
- A previously unpublished 3D-reconstruction of the Palais de la Cité in the 13th century
- Original stained glass windows from the Sainte-Chapelle, in storage since the 19th century and now restored
- Rarely exhibited artworks
- Reconstitution of artistic ensembles nowadays dispersed
Commissariat: Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, Chief Conservator at the Musée du Louvre.
Catalogue: Saint Louis, with a foreword by Jacques Le Goff and edited by Pierre-Yves Le Pogam. Editions du patrimoine.
