Historic Renovations Funded by AFL

AFL is a proud sponsor of the restoration of l’appartement d’ete de la reine Anne d’Autriche—the summer apartments of Queen Anne of Austria—with a contribution of nearly $2 million. Lavishly decorated in the grand Italian tradition, these apartments were constructed in 1655 by the architect Louis Le Vau at the order of King Louis XIV, who wished to transform a preexisting gallery into summer apartments for his mother. When the palace became a museum at the end of the 18th century, the architect Jean-Arnaud Raymond transformed the royal apartments into a gallery of antiquities. In the 19th century, his successor Hector Lefuel completed the row of apartments with the creation of the Auguste Room. 

Following the first complete restoration since the 1930s, in 2027 the summer apartments of Anne of Austria will welcome the Louvre’s Roman collections, continuing their tradition as an exhibition space for classical treasures. As a special preview of the extraordinary displays to come, the Museum invites the public to rediscover these apartments with the exhibition Masterpieces of the Torlonia Collection from June 26th – November 11th, 2024. 

AFL has likewise supported the restoration of the apartments of Napoleon III. Exemplary of the exceptional quality of decorative arts under the Second Empire, the apartments of Napoleon III comprise 11 rooms occupying close to 1,000 square meters, and testify to their age’s taste for luxury and pageantry. Closed since September 2023, the flamboyance of these rooms can today be freshly appreciated. Decorated between 1857 and 1860 by Lefuel, who was also in charge of constructing the wing uniting the Louvre with the Tuileries, the Napoleon III Apartments first opened to the public in 1993. The Grand Salon is without a doubt the most spectacular of the rooms, and the original furniture of the apartments remarkably remains intact.