During the reign of
Louis XVI, the
comte d’Angiviller promoted the use of the Grande Galerie as a public museum, tasked
Hubert Robert with preparing it, and had some paintings transferred there from Versailles in 1785. But the gallery was only opened to the public after the start of the
French Revolution, as the opened on 10 August 1793. Together with the
Salon Carré it became the core of the Louvre's exhibition spaces, soon enlarged to the
Galerie d'Apollon (1797) and the ground-floor summer apartment of
Anne of Austria (1800), and later expanded into the wings around the
Cour Carrée.
Hubert Robert, after being appointed the museum's first "keeper of paintings", projected to improve the lighting of the gallery, by sealing its windows and opening
skylights in its vaulted ceiling. This innovative plan was realized between 1805 and 1810 by
Percier and Fontaine, albeit in altered form with lateral skylights at regular intervals. Percier and Fontaine also created nine subdivisions of the long room, separated by groups of columns arranged in the manner of
Venetian windows as Robert had imagined. Lefuel also created the current skylight system at the center of the gallery's ceiling. The room was refurbished during the 1990s as part of the
Grand Louvre project, with no change of design but installation of
air conditioning and other amenities. In the current arrangement of the Louvre's collections, the Grande Galerie is entirely devoted to the display of Italian paintings. ==Influence==