Charles Cournault’s Call for a ‘Persian Museum’ at the Louvre

In 1857, the French artist Charles Cournault published a plea for a French mission to Persepolis. The aimof the mission was to obtain examples of relief sculpture, like those he had seen in the British Museum, for theLouvre Museum. Believing that Achaemenid art deserved as much attention as Assyrian, Greek and Roman art,Cournault urged the government to undertake the mission and felt certain that it would be aided by the efforts ofthe Iranian diplomat Farrokh Khan who was, at the time, in France. Franco-Iranian relations having never beenbetter, Cournault believed the time was right for a concerted effort to obtain diagnostic Persepolitan sculptures forthe purpose of educating the public. If France did not pursue this goal, he felt certain that other powers would doso. Cournault displayed a reverence for ancient Achaemenid art and sought to promote its qualities to an audienceaccustomed to viewing Greek, Roman and, more recently, Assyrian art as the greatest of all early human artistictraditions.