The Treasury of Notre-Dame Cathedral: from its Origins to Viollet-le-Duc

Placide Poussielgue-Rusand following drawings of Eugène VIollet-le-Duc, Reliquary of the Nail and Wood of the Holy Cross, 1862, Treasury of the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris.

As restoration work on the cathedral enters its final stage, the Musée du Louvre dedicates an unprecedented exhibition to the treasury of Notre-Dame de Paris. This treasury, uniting sacerdotal objects and vestments necessary for worship, relics and reliquaries, manuscript books as well as other precious artefacts given as acts of piety, will then return to the cathedral’s neo-Gothic sacristy, built to house it by Jean Baptiste Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc from 1845 to 1850 and renovated for the cathedral’s 2024 reopening.

This exhibition provides a condensed history of the treasury through more than 120 works, restoring them to the context of its age-old history: from its origins to the Middle Ages up to its resurrection in the 19th century and full flowering with Viollet-le-Duc during the Second Empire.

By returning to the treasury’s origins, the exhibition reveals its diversity and richness, particularly through surviving manuscripts. Although during the French Revolution reliquaries and liturgical objects in precious metal were entirely destroyed, the paintings, drawings and engravings exhibited provide a glimpse of their splendour. For the coronation of Napoleon I at Notre-Dame, the treasury was reconstituted and enriched with prestigious relics, notably those of the Crown of Thorns and the Wood of the Cross (not shown at the Musée du Louvre), transferred from the former treasury of Sainte-Chapelle and for which new reliquaries were commissioned. Between 1845 and 1865, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was given responsibility for the restoration of the cathedral and reconstruction of the sacristy, the treasury’s home. He then offered to create new liturgical furnishings and reliquaries to harmonise with Notre-Dame’s Gothic architecture.