In the 18th century, the Salon Carré, one of the most prestigious rooms in the museum, was used for temporary exhibitions of contemporary painting. It lent its name to the generic term of “Salon,” which has since become the word in France for a temporary exhibition or trade fair, such as the Salon du Livre, Salon de l’Agriculture, and Salon du Tourisme. It was also the first room in the Muséum Central des Arts (the first name of the Musée du Louvre) when it opened to the public in 1793. It was here that the paintings regarded at the time to be the most admirable works in its collections were displayed. In the novel and the movie The Da Vinci Code, the curator Jacques Saunière dies in the nearby Grande Galerie, yet the black star-shaped motifs that can be seen on the parquet around his body are only present at the Louvre in the Salon Carré, which was also where the killer, Silas, was standing. Between the two is a metal gate that Saunière had activated by tearing a painting by Caravaggio from the wall. If you look up at the doorframe separating the Salon Carré from the Grande Galerie, you can see that there is no gate at this precise spot (although there are some at other locations in the Louvre). Furthermore, Caravaggio’s paintings in the Louvre are actually located three quarters of the way down the Grande Galerie and not, as in the novel, 15 feet from this door. The author of The Da Vinci Code has, as so often in his book, altered the real topography for the purposes of his narrative. |
