On April 15, 2019, the world watched in horror and disbelief as the medieval lead roof, the massive medieval oaken framework that supported it, and the nineteenth-century spire of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Our Lady), on Paris’s Île de la Cité, went up in flames. The molten and burned remains of that superstructure brought down parts of the masonry vaults in the nave in the early morning of April 16 as well.
Begun around A.D. 1160 in the Early Gothic style and completed in the early thirteenth century in the High Gothic style, the current Notre-Dame is the crown jewel of France’s medieval architectural patrimony and one of the nation’s most cherished sites. Its restoration began immediately upon the securing of the undamaged parts of the structure and the clearing of the charred wreckage; completion of the project is not expected before December 2024, although the exterior will be fully restored in time for visitors to the Paris Summer Olympics in July 2024.
Unfortunately, the premodern treasury (collection of precious objects) of Notre-Dame was completely obliterated more than two centuries ago, between 1789 and 1791, at the height of the French Revolution. Although a rebuilding of the treasury began in the early nineteenth century, the riches accumulated by Notre-Dame over the preceding one and a half millennia remain forever lost.
Now at the Louvre, sixty-three objects related to Notre-Dame from French and European collections that escaped the revolutionary partisans—historical documents, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, and metalwork—are brought together to give visitors an idea of what was lost. Those objects are complemented by fifty-five of the post-revolutionary treasury’s highlights. Among the most remarkable of these are the works in precious metals designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79), the French architect, author, and restorer of Notre-Dame from 1844 to 1869.
A modest space in the Louvre’s Richelieu wing has been retrofitted with five contiguous galleries to accommodate the exhibition. Understated matte-gray walls ensure that nothing distracts viewers from the objects themselves. While a general-admission ticket to the museum gives visitors access to the show, a free timed-entry ticket must also be booked to assure that the relatively narrow galleries do not become too crowded.
The earliest objects in the exhibition shed light on the medieval treasury’s origins and contents. Among the standouts are an early seventh-century copy, remarkably on papyrus rather than parchment, of a bequest between 575 and 584 of a silver plate to Notre-Dame by a Merovingian noblewoman named Erminethrudis or Ermentrudis and twelve magnificent illuminated liturgical manuscripts written or adapted for use at Notre-Dame that range in date from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. One of the twelve, the Breviary of the dauphin Louis, duc de Guyenne (d. 1415), a son of King Charles VI, is opened to the miniature that depicts a procession into Notre-Dame of the golden cruciform reliquary made to house the fragments of the True Cross sent to Notre-Dame in the early twelfth century by Anseau, a canon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Fortunately, a number of the lost early-modern treasures of Notre-Dame are depicted in prints, drawings, and paintings. One is the silver gilt monstrance known as the “Grand Soleil,” made by Claude II Ballin between 1708 and 1710 and given to Notre-Dame by Antoine de la Porte (1627–1710), a canon of Notre-Dame. De la Porte can be seen performing Mass before the imposing object—measuring over five feet tall and weighing more than 110 pounds—in a contemporary painting by Jean Jouvenet.
Fourteen monumental tapestries made between 1638 and 1657 for Notre-Dame that depict the life of the Virgin enjoyed a happier fate: they were sold in 1739 to Strasbourg Cathedral and thereby escaped revolutionary destruction. Being too large for the Louvre exhibition space, the tapestries are represented by two preparatory sketches by the great seventeenth-century French painter Philippe de Champaigne and two painted copies after the tapestries of about 1652 by Charles Poërson.
The rebuilding of the treasury of Notre-Dame was set in motion by two post-revolutionary events. With the concordat concluded between Napoleon Bonaparte—then First Consul of the French Republic—and the papacy in July 1801 and formally promulgated the following Easter, the Catholic Church was officially reinstated in France. The second event was Napoleon’s decision to have himself crowned emperor in Notre-Dame in December 1804. Seven objects made or acquired for Napoleon’s consecration are included in the exhibition. One of the most interesting is the so-called Crown of Charlemagne. While the crown itself was made by Martin-Guillaume Biennais in 1804, its embellishment with classical cameos makes clear Napoleon’s desire to present himself as a new Roman or Holy Roman emperor.
With the reinstatement of the church in 1801, reliquaries, cult statues, and Mass vessels and vestments also needed to be made or acquired. The most impressive in terms of size—it measures over five and a half feet in height—is the silver repoussé standing Virgin and Child made in 1826 by Charles-Nicolas Odiot.
In 1831, after the sack of Notre-Dame during the July Revolution of 1830, the architects Jean-Baptiste Lassus (1807–57) and Viollet-le-Duc were commissioned to design a new combined sacristy and treasury for the cathedral. Viollet-le-Duc envisioned the new structure as an “oeuvre d’art totale” (Gesamtkunstwerk); to realize his vision, he designed an array of complementary liturgical objects in a neo-Gothic style that were executed by other artisans.
Much has been made about Viollet-le-Duc’s mastery of High and Late Gothic forms: the handsome reliquary for the Crown of Thorns made in 1862 is just one of many examples in the exhibition that prove the point. His command of medieval Christian iconography, however, was not as sure. On one of the two baisers de paix (medallions for the liturgical Kiss of Peace) that Viollet-le-Duc designed in 1867, the crucified Savior is depicted turning his head to his left. Given the associations of the sinister side with the devil and eternal damnation that have lasted even into the modern era, it is not surprising that Jesus is almost never depicted looking leftward from the cross in medieval art. Instead, he turns his head rightward, toward his mother at the foot of the cross and toward those souls granted admission to heaven in depictions of the Last Judgment.
The Louvre show and its exhaustive and beautifully produced catalogue reconstruct the treasury of Notre-Dame as fully as possible even as the cathedral itself is being restored after the disastrous fire of 2019. Said exhibition and catalogue also open a window onto fifteen hundred years of French art, history, and culture. If he were still with us, Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo would surely ring the bells of Notre-Dame to celebrate all these endeavors.