Representation des Machines qui ont servi à eslever les deux grandes pierres qui couvrent le fronton de la principale entrée du Louvre (1677): Art, History and Details

Representation des Machines qui ont servi à eslever les deux grandes pierres qui couvrent le fronton de la principale entrée du Louvre (1677) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sébastien Le Clerc I (French, 1637–1714).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Sébastien Leclerc’s etching showing the construction of one facade of the Louvre Palace in Paris shows the machines used to drag and raise a sixty-foot-long stone to cover both sides of a pediment. Leclerc shows a machine in the left foreground that drags the large stone while in the background, at the top of the pediment and an elaborate scaffolding, cranes can be seen raising and placing stone. Leclerc was among a number of printmakers who worked for King Louis XIV, helping to document his many building campaigns and art collections.

Object facts

• Title: Representation des Machines qui ont servi à eslever les deux grandes pierres qui couvrent le fronton de la principale entrée du Louvre
• Date: 1677
• Creator attribution: Sébastien Le Clerc I (French, 1637–1714)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching and engraving
• Dimensions: Platemark: 37.7 x 62.7 cm (14 13/16 x 24 11/16 in.); Sheet: 51.2 x 70.5 cm (20 3/16 x 27 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2021.168

A detail from the museum

King Louis XIV made improvements to the living quarters of the Louvre Palace as seen in this 1677 print, but soon abandoned Paris for his palace at Versailles, where he lived until his death in 1715.

Collection credit

L. E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fuhring, Peter, Louis Marchesano, Rémi Mathis, and Vanessa Selbach. A Kingdom of Images: French Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, 1660-1715. 2015.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.