Jeu de Paume
In Jeu de Paume once stood, a building first conceived for jeu de paume—real tennis—on the west side of the Tuileries Gardens beside the Place de la Concorde. It was constructed in 1861 at the request of Napoleon III, with Charles Delahaye overseeing the work and Hector-Martin Lefuel commissioned as architect. A second court was added on the east side when Delahaye commissioned Virant to design it in 1877, a reminder of how deliberately the complex was built for the sport’s needs. As tennis displaced jeu de paume, the space proved inadequate and the site was transformed into a gallery in 1909, re-opening with the exhibition “One hundred portraits of women from the 18th-century English and French Schools.” That institutional role later had a darker chapter: from 1940 to 1944, the Jeu de Paume was used to store Nazi plunder looted in France by the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (ERR). …
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