Hector Lefuel
Encyclopedia
Hector-Martin Lefuel was a French historicist architect, whose most familiar work was the completion of the Palais du Louvre
Palais du Louvre
The Louvre Palace , on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, is a former royal palace situated between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois...

, including the reconstruction of the Pavillon de Flore
Pavillon de Flore
The Pavillon de Flore is a section of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, France. Its construction began in 1595, during the reign of Henry IV, and has had numerous renovations since. The structure stands along the south face of the Louvre Museum, near the Pont Royal...

 after a disastrous fire.

He was the son of Alexandre Henry Lefuel (1782-1850), an entrepreneurial speculative builder established in the town of Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

, who was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

 in 1829; there he studied with Jean-Nicolas Huyot
Jean-Nicolas Huyot
Jean-Nicholas Huyot was a French architect, best known for his 1823 continuation of work on the Arc de Triomphe from the plans of Jean Chalgrin....

 and in 1833 he received second place in the Prix de Rome competition.

A winner of the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

 in 1839, he spent the years 1840 to 1844 as a pensionary of the French Academy in Rome
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...

 at the Villa Medici
Villa Medici
The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French...

. On his return to France he opened his own practice and was appointed an inspector for the Chambre des députés.

Having carried out alterations as the Château de Meudon
Château de Meudon
The former Château de Meudon, on a hill in Meudon, about 4 kilometres south-west of Paris, occupied the terraced steeply sloping site. It was acquired by Louis XIV, who greatly expanded its as a residence for Louis, le Grand Dauphin...

 (1848) and for the housing of the Manufacture Royal de Porcelaine de Sèvres (1852), he was appointed chief architect of the Château de Fontainebleau
Château de Fontainebleau
The Palace of Fontainebleau, located 55 kilometres from the centre of Paris, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The palace as it is today is the work of many French monarchs, building on an early 16th century structure of Francis I. The building is arranged around a series of courtyards...

, one of the main seats of Napoleon III and the Second French Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...

; there he designed a new Imperial theatre (1853-1855). He was elected to the Académie des beaux-arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...

 in 1855, taking the chair of Martin Gauthier. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1854, and a Commander of the Legion in 1857.

At the same time Lefuel was placed in charge of the ambitious project of completing the Louvre, following the murder of the architect Louis-Tullius-Joachim Visconti in 1853. Adjusting and enriching Visconti's project he completed the project, one of the showpieces of the Second Empire. Lefuel produced the Salle des États in the extended northern wing facing the Place du Palais-Royal (containing the Ministry of Finance and the library, opened in 1857, the southern extension of the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau, with the Pavillon Lesdiguères and the Pavillon Trémoille. Aiding Lefuel was the young American architect Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...

, who had studied under Lefuel at the École des Beaux-Arts. Following Hunt's graduation, Lefuel made Hunt inspector of the Louvre work and allowed him to design the facade of the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque.

Lefuel's work at the Pavillon de Flore
Pavillon de Flore
The Pavillon de Flore is a section of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, France. Its construction began in 1595, during the reign of Henry IV, and has had numerous renovations since. The structure stands along the south face of the Louvre Museum, near the Pont Royal...

 which had been begun under Visconti was to the order of Napoléon III, who in 1861 authorized its remodeling. The renovation, performed between 1864 and 1868, added significant detail and sculpture to the work, which is thus noted as an example of Second Empire Neo-Baroque architecture as much as it is of the late sixteenth century.

For the Empress Eugénie, Lefuel created sumptuous apartments in the Palais des Tuileries, lost when that palace burned in the Paris Commune of 1871.

Lefuel also designed and erected the hôtel particulier
Hôtel particulier
In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it...

of Achille Fould
Achille Fould
Achille Fould was a French financier and politician.Born in Paris, the son of a successful Jewish banker, he was associated with and afterwards succeeded his father in the management of the business. As early as 1842 he entered political life, having been elected in that year as a deputy for the...

, Minister of Finance under Napoléon III, and that of the museum director Émilien de Nieuwerkerke
Émilien de Nieuwerkerke
Count Alfred Émilien O'Hara van Nieuwerkerke was a French sculptor of Dutch descent and a high-level civil servant in the Second French Empire...

 (the Hôtel de Nieuwekerke in Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau is a semi-public park situated in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, at the junction of Boulevard de Courcelles, Rue de Prony and Rue Georges Berger. At the main entrance is a rotunda. The park covers an area of 8.2 hectares ....

) and the Hôtel Émonville in Abbeville.

He designed funeral monuments, such as that to the composers Daniel-François-Esprit Auber and François Bazin
François Bazin
François Emmanuel Joseph Bazin was a well-known French opera composer during the nineteenth century. His works are not widely performed today.-Biography:...

 at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...

.

For the Paris Exposition of 1855 he build the temporary Palais des Beaux-Arts et de l'Industrie.

His palace in Louis XIII style at Neudeck (Świerklaniec
Swierklaniec
Świerklaniec is a village in Tarnowskie Góry County, in the Silesian Voivodeship of southwestern Poland.-Geography:Świerklaniec lies approximately east of Tarnowskie Góry and north of the regional capital Katowice in the Silesia region....

), Polish Silesia, built in 1868-72, the grandest of three residences there of the Donnersmarcks, was burnt out in 1945 and demolished in 1961.
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