In February 2015, I visited a Viollet-le-Duc exhibition at the Cité de L'Architecture museum in Paris. Architect Viollet-le-Duc was among the first to provide insights into medieval architecture. His extensive volume, Encyclopédie Médiévale, has been a key reference for me in medieval restorations.
At the exhibition, I purchased a special issue of Beaux Arts Magazine dedicated to Viollet-le-Duc (no longer available). It featured an image of Une Soirée au Louvre chez le comte de Nieuwerkerke, depicting a gathering of influential figures at the Louvre. To my surprise, I recognized composer Franz Liszt^50b seated among them.
Having previously researched Liszt and his romance with Caroline de Saint-Cricq during a sabbatical project (see saintcricq.com), I was certain of his presence in the painting. In his time, Liszt was a celebrated figure, well-connected with Parisian elites.
His name was absent from the list of thirty figures included in the Beaux Arts journal, so I contacted the Musée de Compiègne, which houses the painting, to verify. The museum provided me with a research document authored in 2000, which confirmed the names listed in Beaux Arts —but Liszt was not among them.

Discovering a new painting that featured Liszt excited me. Familiar not only with Liszt but also many of his artistic, musical, and political acquaintances, I volunteered to investigate further to identify additional figures. Using high-resolution images generously provided by the Musée de Compiègne, I counted a total of eighty faces, including several partial or blurred ones.
Identifying all of them would be an arduous task, yet recognizing even a few dozen more would be a deeply rewarding experience. Coincidentally, Soirée au Louvre had been completed 100 years before my birth, making this research a particularly meaningful endeavor.

Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke¹⁶ was a French sculptor of Dutch descent—his grandfather, Willem van Nieuwkerk, was an illegitimate son of a Prince of Orange. Ambitious, handsome (le beau Batave), and refined, he became the lover of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, a powerful cousin of Emperor Napoleon III.
In return for his support of Napoleon’s coup in December 1851, he was appointed head of fine arts within the imperial household, giving him full authority over the Louvre, Luxembourg, Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and all imperial art collections.
From his apartment in the Louvre, he hosted a prestigious weekly Friday-evening salon (vendredi-soirée) where politicians, painters, composers, writers, ambassadors, nobility, and other elites gathered.
These evenings provided a space for lectures and musical performances, enabling guests to connect with one another and key museum personnel. The salon strengthened a network of influential figures who played decisive roles in art acquisitions and the shaping of Paris, France, and beyond.
Recognizing the significance of these gatherings, he commissioned François Biard³⁶ to create a monumental painting in the style of François-Joseph Heim^28b, inviting select guests to pose at Biard’s atelier in Place Vendôme. Over three years, Biard meticulously composed the painting, which measures 233 x 168 cm, completing it in time for its presentation at the Paris Salon in the spring of 1855.

Through extensive research in periodicals, gossip publications, books, and personal diaries, I uncovered evidence that the painting underwent significant modifications in 1854. One or more figures were removed and replaced, a revision I hope future infrared imaging or optical analysis will confirm. More details on my research can be found on the Analysis & Reference page (planned for completion by mid-July).

At the Salon of 1855, critics were unimpressed. One remarked:
"Haunted by the memory of Heim, the artist sought to recreate the latter’s Distribution of Awards and, alas, failed. All these men in evening dress, crowded together in solemn, artificial poses, are utterly devoid of life."
The fact that de Nieuwerkerke never publicly expressed appreciation for the painting suggests its reception was underwhelming. Before its unveiling, the press speculated that it would be popular in engraved form. The earliest known engraving was produced by Dayot in 1900.
Despite mixed critiques, Une Soirée au Louvre remains a remarkable document of elite society at its peak during the Second Empire.

In keeping with tradition, de Nieuwerkerke also invited his friend, painter Eugène Giraud¹¹, to produce watercolor caricatures of guests during these soirées. Unlike Biard’s formal composition, Giraud’s works offered a lively, humorous portrayal and were well received by critics. He created his caricatures during or after the gatherings, often while a smaller group of guests enjoyed cigars, tea, and conversation in Viel-Castel’s⁴³ Louvre quarters.
Unlike Giraud, Biard did not attend these soirées. Apart from spending two years painting de Nieuwerkerke’s salon interiors, he remained at his atelier, waiting for guests to pose for his composition.
Identifying these figures offers a new perspective on the mid-19th century —a time when Paris was modernized, the foundations of industrial society were laid, and Impressionist art and music began to emerge.

During a visit to Compiègne in spring 2015 to view the painting, I met conservator Laure Chabanne and somewhat naively mentioned that I could research the work in detail and develop an interactive display. Assuming the process would take only a few months, I quickly discovered the scale of the challenge —identifying every figure took nearly a year.
The next step was to create profiles for each person —not merely summarizing Wikipedia entries, but detailing why they were included in the painting and how they related to the broader scene.
This phase proved far more time-consuming than expected; some figures required weeks of dedicated research. With eighty individuals to cover, it became clear that completing the work would take several years. By 2017, I had built a first version of this website, with profiles on 43 characters.
Between 2017 and 2020, professional commitments and other obligations slowed the project nearly to a halt. I revived it in early 2020 and consulted experts at the Louvre regarding de Nieuwerkerke’s apartment and other details. The response was disappointing —historical research now takes a backseat to exhibitions designed to attract new visitors.
My Louvre visit coincided with the Da Vinci exhibition, during which the museum remained open 24 hours a day to accommodate 50,000 daily visitors. My only personal takeaway from the visit was a mild case of Covid-19.
For further details on the research, visit my Soirée au Louvre Background page (planned for completion by mid July).

Other art-related projects delayed my research until late December 2024. During this time, I tested my interactive web software with proof-of-concept applications, including Rembrandt’s Night Watch (which took only one week to develop), my artist-friend Jann Haworth’s iconic designs for The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, and her Work In Progress project.

While verifying details on Franz Liszt and other figures in Une Soirée au Louvre, I uncovered two newly digitized press articles from April 2024. A Gazette du Midi article, published on March 12, 1855, listed the names of seventy-four of the eighty individuals depicted in the painting. Most matched the identities I had established in 2015, but about a dozen differed. A second article from Aude Courrier, published on March 14, 1855, listed the same names, with only minor variations.
An exciting discovery!

I resumed my research to assess the credibility of the articles, verify the new names, locate images, and confirm Legion of Honor records. However, a challenging aspect of these provincial publications was that they listed individuals not previously mentioned in any reputable Parisian press accounts. Even when the painting debuted at the Salon de Paris in 1855, no local newspapers referenced these names. Given these inconsistencies, I began to question the reliability of the sources. More details and a full analysis can be found on my Gazette du Midi page (planned for completion by mid July).

To my personal disappointment, the articles omitted the two figures who had originally inspired this research in 2015:

• Architect Viollet-le-Duc^40a (previously confirmed by institutions such as the Musée de Compiègne and featured in an exclusive Beaux Arts publication).
• Franz Liszt^50b, my cherished composer.

Also absent from the lists were:

• Baron Georges Haussmann⁰⁷, whose omission seems unlikely given his Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur distinction.
• Ernest Renan^27a, historian and writer, previously identified through earlier research and the Beaux Arts journal.