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| Gallery of Kings (Notre-Dame) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Gallery of Kings |
| Caption | The Gallery of Kings on the western facade of Notre-Dame de Paris (photograph prior to 2019 fire) |
| Location | Notre-Dame de Paris |
| Coordinates | 48.852968, 2.349902 |
| Built | 12th–13th centuries |
| Architects | Jean de Chelles, Pierre de Montreuil (attributed) |
| Style | Gothic architecture |
Gallery of Kings (Notre-Dame) The Gallery of Kings is the elevated row of twenty-eight monumental statues on the western facade of Notre-Dame de Paris, representing the mythic and biblical lineage of the kings of Judah and the ancestral rulers linked to the history of France. Located above the three western portals and below the rose window, the gallery integrated sculptural program, political symbolism, and liturgical orientation, attracting scholarly attention from historians, archaeologists, curators, and conservationists. Its presence connected Capetian dynasty iconography, medieval Paris civic identity, and later modern restorations by figures such as Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and institutions like the Monuments Historiques.
The facade program emerged during the high medieval building campaigns of the Notre-Dame de Paris choir and nave under the episcopates of Maurice de Sully and the reigns of Philip II of France and Louis IX, amidst broader European projects like Chartres Cathedral and Reims Cathedral. The original statues, carved in the 13th century by anonymous workshops linked to master masons working on Amiens Cathedral and Beauvais Cathedral, embodied both Old Testament typology and Capetian legitimation similar to sculptures in Sainte-Chapelle and the royal iconography of Palace of Versailles. During the French Revolution, revolutionary commissions and the National Convention ordered the destruction of royal effigies across Paris; the Gallery was decapitated and the statues toppled in 1793 in actions paralleling events at Bourges Cathedral and Rouen Cathedral. In the 19th century, the Gothic Revival movement, spurred by publications by Alexandre Lenoir and restorations led by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus, oversaw the replacement and re-creation of the kings with new sculptures inspired by medieval models and contemporary nationalist narratives under the auspices of the Commission des Monuments Historiques and royal heritage debates involving figures such as Victor Hugo and Prosper Mérimée.
Architecturally the Gallery forms part of a tripartite western elevation featuring the Portal of the Last Judgment, the Portal of Saint Anne, and the Portal of the Virgin, integrated with the rose window and twin towers reminiscent of Notre-Dame de Reims and Amiens Cathedral. The gallery rests on a projecting cornice with clustered colonettes and archivolts related to structural solutions employed by master masons like those active at Canterbury Cathedral and Cologne Cathedral. Decorative programming shows affinities with the sculptural articulation of Sainte-Foy Abbey Church and the portals of Autun Cathedral. During the 19th-century restoration, masonry consolidation, polychromy studies, and anastylosis practices referenced methods used at Mont-Saint-Michel and Palace of Westminster restoration projects.
The twenty-eight kings represented biblical and legendary rulers whose identities were read through medieval chronicles such as the Historia Francorum and legendary genealogies circulating alongside texts like Liber Pontificalis and vernacular chansons of the Middle Ages. Iconographically, the kings wore crowns and royal regalia comparable to effigies depicted in illuminated manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and their poses paralleled statuary at Chartres Cathedral and the tympana sculptures at Sainte-Chapelle. Modern attributions and catalogues by curators from institutions including the Musée du Louvre, the École des Beaux-Arts, and scholars publishing in journals of the Société des Antiquaires de France debated original workshop attributions, stylistic phases, and the interplay between biblical typology and Capetian symbolism, themes also discussed in studies of Cluny Abbey and the iconography of Saint-Denis Basilica.
The Gallery sustained recurrent damage from iconoclasm during the French Revolution, pollution and weathering during the Industrial Revolution era alongside structural alterations under Napoleon I and Louis-Philippe of France, and interventions by 19th-century restorers including Viollet-le-Duc. Conservation campaigns involved the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, the Ministry of Culture (France), and international advisory bodies such as ICOMOS and influenced protocols later applied to sites like Chartres Cathedral and Amiens Cathedral. After the 2019 Notre-Dame de Paris fire, emergency assessments by teams from the Institut national du patrimoine, the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques, and international specialists from the Getty Conservation Institute examined surviving masonry, sculpture fragments, and archival photographs in collections at the Musée Carnavalet, Archives nationales (France), and records of the Architecte en chef des Monuments Historiques. Debates about anastylosis, replication, and the use of 3D scanning referenced precedents at Basilica of Saint-Denis and post-war reconstructions like Dresden Frauenkirche and involved stakeholders from UNESCO and the European Heritage Alliance.
The Gallery functioned as a visual manifesto linking Capetian dynasty legitimacy, medieval Parisian ritual processions such as those for Corpus Christi, and later national narratives cultivated during the 19th-century French Romanticism revival promoted by figures including Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. It featured in travel literature by Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire and was documented by photographers like Édouard Baldus and painters associated with the Romanticism and Realism movements, including Eugène Delacroix and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. The Gallery inspired comparative studies in art history departments at Sorbonne University and exhibitions at the Musée de Cluny and the Louvre, and it remains central to discussions in heritage law debates overseen by the Conseil d'État and to fundraising campaigns involving the Fondation du patrimoine and private donors such as those grouped around corporate benefactors of the Fondation du patrimoine and philanthropic networks modeled on the Getty Foundation.
Category:Notre-Dame de Paris Category:Gothic sculpture Category:Monuments historiques of France