Louvre, Façade rue de Rivoli, Paris

1855

Louvre, Façade rue de Rivoli, Paris, 1855. Édouard Baldus (French, 1813–1889). image: 28 x 21.8 cm (11 x 8 9/16 in.); paper: 39.9 x 29.9 cm (15 11/16 x 11 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of William and Margaret Lipscomb 2021.214 Baldus took up photography in the 1840s and became renowned for his architectural views. In 1854, he was commissioned to record construction of the New Louvre, Emperor Napoleon III’s project to build wings that would join the Louvre and Tuileries Palaces and create a vast courtyard. You can enter that courtyard through the arch hidden from view here between the pairs of columns, where you will find the glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei and completed in 1988. Like many early photographers, Edouard Baldus began as a painter.