The musicians’ gallery

Find the four carved women beneath the gallery at one end of the hall. Their heads are close to the weight they support. From below, follow the line from one body to the next, then look at the space above. Musicians stood there. Their music travelled down to the people gathered in the hall. Figures used as columns are called caryatids. Jean Goujon, a French Renaissance sculptor, made these in 1550. The Renaissance was a period when many European artists studied ancient forms again. Here that interest takes a very direct shape. A human figure becomes part of the structure of a building. Look around the gallery. This was a ballroom for Henri II, king of France in the sixteenth century. His father, François I, had commissioned the architect Pierre Lescot to turn the old Louvre into a residence closer to the Italian palaces he admired. Kings also needed places to receive guests, celebrate and appear before them. In 1692, sculptures from the collection of Louis XIV, another French king, began to be displayed here. The room changed its purpose. We now see statues in a space that already had carved bodies built into its architecture. Some works in the collection are Roman copies of Greek originals. Their materials and journeys to the museum have different histories. Notice the posture of the caryatids and how the cloth falls over them. Then compare one with a nearby statue. You can start with the legs and move up to the torso. One figure is built into the gallery support and the other occupies its own place in the room.