Salle des Caryatides

The western wing of the Louvre was built by Pierre Lescot. Its sculptural decoration is the work of Jean Goujon.

Goujon’s four caryatids supporting the gallery of the Salle des Caryatides in the Louvre, though derived from those of the Erechtheion, Athens, have a supple and voluptuous grace typical of French 16th-century taste. They are his only documented sculptures in the round. In these works Goujon rejected the classicizing ‘purity’ of the Fountain of the Innocents, following instead the example of the school of Fontainebleau.