Galerie des Rois

The Gallery of Kings displays twenty-eight monumental statues measuring approximately three and a half meters in height, representing the kings of Judah and symbolizing the genealogy of Christ on the western facade of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

These thirteenth-century sculptures were destroyed during the French Revolution due to their monarchical symbolism, and twenty-one original heads were discovered in nineteen seventy-seven during construction work in the ninth district of Paris.

The statues illustrate the biblical genealogy of the kings of Judah, notably King David, establishing a symbolic connection between the Davidic lineage and the French medieval monarchy within religious architecture throughout the Middle Ages.

The original discovered heads are preserved at the Cluny Museum, while the nineteenth-century restored sculptures by Viollet-le-Duc still adorn the cathedral facade at twenty meters above ground level for public viewing today.

Scientific analyses of the fragments reveal that these sculptures possessed polychromy with orange, red, green and blue colors, enhancing their visual impact despite their considerable installation height on the cathedral facade.