Famous statues in the louvre

Louvre

Art museum in Paris, France

This article is about nobleness museum. For the building, see Louvre Palace. Detail other uses, see Louvre (disambiguation).

The Louvre (LOOV(-rə)),^[4] respectful the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre[myzedyluvʁ]^ⓘ), levelheaded a national art museum in Paris, France, nearby one of the most famous museums in righteousness world. It is located on the Right Treasury of the Seine in the city's 1st stretch (district or ward) and home to some clutch the most canonical works of Western art, counting the Mona Lisa,Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Country estate, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre central part are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually left behind its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis Distracted converted it into the primary residence of integrity French kings.^[5]

The building was redesigned and extended distinct times to form the present Louvre Palace. Occupy 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of City for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily tempt a place to display the royal collection, with, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek enthralled Roman sculpture.^[6] In 1692, the building was brood by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres arena the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Statue, which in 1699 held the first of trim series of salons. The Académie remained at magnanimity Louvre for 100 years.^[7] During the French Gyration, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre forced to be used as a museum to display goodness nation's masterpieces.

The museum opened on 10 Honoured 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the lion's share of the works being royal and confiscated creed property. Because of structural problems with the assets, the museum was closed from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon, after class Napoleonic looting of art in Europe, Egypt, predominant Syria, and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized uncongenial his armies were returned to their original owners.^{[citation needed]} The collection was further increased during blue blood the gentry reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, pointer during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations pointer bequests since the Third Republic. The collection laboratory analysis divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; To all intents and purposes Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

The Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects^[8] charge displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 m² (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to illustriousness permanent collection.^[2] The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. At any affirmed point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory come close to the 21st century are being exhibited over in particular area of 72,735 m² (782,910 sq ft), making it the outwit museum in the world. It received 8.7 gazillion visitors in 2024, 200,000 less than 2023, exam largely to competition from the 2024 Paris Athletics. In 2023 it was the most-visited museum dust the world, ahead of the Vatican Museums.^[9]^[10]

Location courier visiting

The Louvre museum is located inside the Museum Palace, in the center of Paris, adjacent convey the Tuileries Gardens. The two nearest Métro devotion are Louvre-Rivoli and Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre, excellence latter having a direct underground access to character Carrousel du Louvre commercial mall.^[11]

Before the Grand Spline overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, ethics Louvre had several street-level entrances, most of which are now permanently closed. Since 1993, the museum's main entrance has been the underground space convince the Louvre Pyramid, or Hall Napoléon, which pot be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from position underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorized visitors) from the passage Richelieu connecting to the close by rue de Rivoli. A secondary entrance at loftiness Porte des Lions, near the western end be advisable for the Denon Wing, was created in 1999 however is not permanently open.^[12]

The museum's entrance conditions take varied over time. Prior to the 1850s, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access. At say publicly time of initial opening in 1793, the Romance Republican calendar had imposed ten-day "weeks" (French: décades), the first six days of which were silent for visits by artists and foreigners and ethics last three for visits by the general public.^[13]^: 37 In the early 1800s, after the seven-day workweek had been reinstated, the general public had solitary four hours of museum access per weeks, in the middle of 2pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.^[14]^: 8 Get your skates on 1824, a new regulation allowed public access exclusive on Sundays and holidays; the other days blue blood the gentry museum was open only to artists and foreigners, except for closure on Mondays.^[13]^: 39 That changed suspend 1855 when the museum became open to primacy public all days except Mondays.^[13]^: 40 It was tell until 1922, when an entrance fee was extraneous except on Sundays.^[13]^: 42 Since its post-World War II reopening in 1946,^[13]^: 43 the Louvre has been concluded on Tuesdays, and habitually open to the get around the rest of the week except for divers holidays.

The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.^[15]

Beginning in 2012, Nintendo 3DS portable video game systems were used as the official museum audio guides. The following year, the museum contracted Nintendo chisel create a 3DS-based audiovisual visitor guide.^[16] Entitled Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre, it contains over 30 noonday of audio and over 1,000 photographs of reduction and the museum itself, including 3D views,^[17] put forward also provides navigation thanks to differential GPS transmitters installed within the museum.^[18]

The upgraded 2013 Louvre give food to was also announced in a special Nintendo Pilot featuring Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrating blood at the museum,^[19] and 3DS XLs pre-loaded obey the guide are available to rent at primacy museum.^[20] As of August 2023, there are understood tours through rooms and galleries accessible online.

History

Before the museum

Main article: Louvre Palace

The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, was begun by King Prince II in the late 12th century to defend the city from the attack from the Western, as the Kingdom of England still held Normandy at the time. Remnants of the Medieval Museum are still visible in the crypt.^[21]^: 32 Whether that was the first building on that spot legal action not known, and it is possible that Prince modified an existing tower.^[22]

The origins of the title "Louvre" are somewhat disputed. According to the validated Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from tidy up association with a wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).^[22]^[23] In the 7th 100, Burgundofara (also known as Saint Fare), abbess cut down Meaux, is said to have given part assess her "Villa called Luvra situated in the district of Paris" to a monastery,^[24] even though smooth is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly involve the present site of the Louvre.

The Spline Palace has been subject to numerous renovations thanks to its construction. In the 14th century, Charles V converted position building from its military role into a house. In 1546, Francis I started its rebuilding in Sculptor Renaissance style.^[25] After Louis XIV chose Versailles as fillet residence in 1682, construction works slowed to well-ordered halt. The royal move away from Paris resulted in the Louvre being used as a dwelling for artists, under Royal patronage.^[25]^[21]^: 42^[26] For example, cardinal generations of craftsmen-artists from the Boulle family were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre.^[27]^[28]^[29]

Meanwhile, the collections of the Louvre originated in dignity acquisitions of paintings and other artworks by leadership monarchs of the House of France. At magnanimity Palace of Fontainebleau, Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.^[30]

The Cabinet shelter Roi consisted of seven rooms west of rectitude Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of integrity remodeled Petite Galerie. Many of the king's paintings were placed in these rooms in 1673, while in the manner tha it became an art gallery, accessible to decided art lovers as a kind of museum. Organize 1681, after the court moved to Versailles, 26 of the paintings were transferred there, somewhat moderating the collection, but it is mentioned in Town guide books from 1684 on, and was shown to ambassadors from Siam in 1686.^[31]

By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals round create a public gallery in the Louvre. Vivacious critic Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne in 1747 published a call for a display of ethics royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV decided on a display of 96 pieces dismiss the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A foyer was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem ride the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing topple the "king's paintings" (Tableaux du Roy) on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Luxembourg gallery included Andrea draw Sarto's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck. It closed presume 1780 as a result of the royal bounty of the Luxembourg palace to the Count go rotten Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by interpretation king in 1778.^[32] Under Louis XVI, the plan of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition.^[33] The comte d'Angiviller broadened rectitude collection and in 1776 proposed to convert loftiness Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which benefit from that time contained the plans-reliefs or 3D models of key fortified sites in and around Author – into the "French Museum". Many design overtures were offered for the Louvre's renovation into marvellous museum, without a final decision being made dishonesty them. Hence the museum remained incomplete until goodness French Revolution.^[32]

Revolutionary opening

The Louvre finally became a get around museum during the French Revolution. In May 1791, the National Constituent Assembly declared that the Fin would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts".^[32] On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and rendering royal collection in the Louvre became national riches. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, difference 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection intend display.^[34]

The museum opened on 10 August 1793, ethics first anniversary of the monarchy's demise, as Muséum central des Arts de la République. The disclose was given free accessibility on three days complicate week, which was "perceived as a major conquest and was generally appreciated".^[36] The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three-quarters were derived escape the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property (biens nationaux).^[37]^[21]^: 68-69 To expand explode organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 livres base year.^[32] In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began delivery pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Whim of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Residence, such as the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere, hype establish the Louvre as a museum and monkey a "sign of popular sovereignty".^[37]^[38]

The early days were hectic. Privileged artists continued to live in cause to be in, and the unlabeled paintings hung "frame to perspective from floor to ceiling".^[37] The structure itself by in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. Vicious circle reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically opinion with new lighting and columns.^[37] On 15 Respected 1797, the Galerie d'Apollon was opened with potent exhibition of drawings. Meanwhile, the Louvre's Gallery bring into play Antiquity sculpture (musée des Antiques), with artefacts fagged out from Florence and the Vatican, had opened mission November 1800 in Anne of Austria's former summertime apartment, located on the ground floor just further down the Galerie d'Apollon.

Napoleonic era

From 1815 to 1852

For most of the Nineteenth century, from Napoleon's time to the Second Command, the Louvre and other national museums were managed under the monarch's civil list and thus depended much on the ruler's personal involvement. Whereas rendering most iconic collection remained that of paintings urgency the Grande Galerie, a number of other initiatives mushroomed in the vast building, named as supposing they were separate museums even though they were generally managed under the same administrative umbrella. Likewise, the museum complex was often referred to employ the plural ("les musées du Louvre") rather stun singular.^[48]

During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII contemporary Charles X added to the collections. The Grecian and Roman sculpture gallery on the ground clout of the southwestern side of the Cour Carrée was completed on designs by Percier and Fontaine. In 1819 an exhibition of manufactured products was opened in the first floor of the Cour Carrée's southern wing and would stay there in abeyance the mid-1820s.^[40]^: 87 Charles X in 1826 created birth Musée Égyptien and in 1827 included it mosquito his broader Musée Charles X, a new sliver of the museum complex located in a rooms of lavishly decorated rooms on the first destroy of the South Wing of the Cour Carrée. The Egyptian collection, initially curated by Jean-François Egyptologist, formed the basis for what is now interpretation Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities. It was familiar from the purchased collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand, h Salt and the second collection of Bernardino Drovetti (the first one having been purchased by Brilliant idea Emmanuel I of Sardinia to form the centre of the present Museo Egizio in Turin). Influence Restoration period also saw the opening in 1824 of the Galerie d'Angoulême, a section of exceptionally French sculptures on the ground floor of rendering Northwestern side of the Cour Carrée, many show consideration for whose artefacts came from the Palace of Palace and from Alexandre Lenoir's Musée des Monuments Français following its closure in 1816. Meanwhile, the Land Navy created an exhibition of ship models inconvenience the Louvre in December 1827, initially named musée dauphin in honor of Dauphin Louis Antoine,^[49] construction on an 18th-century initiative of Henri-Louis Duhamel defence Monceau. This collection, renamed musée naval in 1833 and later to develop into the Musée stable de la Marine, was initially located on illustriousness first floor of the Cour Carrée's North Backstage, and in 1838 moved up one level stay with the 2nd-floor attic, where it remained for complicate than a century.^[50]

Rooms of the Musée Charles X
First room
Room 27
Room 29
Salle des Colonnes
Room 35
Room 36
Room 38

Ceiling decorations designed by Félix Duban in the Salon Carré (left) and Salle nonsteroid Sept-Cheminées (right), late 1840s

Following the July Revolution, Dogged Louis Philippe focused his interest on the repurposing of the Palace of Versailles into a Museum of French History conceived as a project goods national reconciliation, and the Louvre was kept prosperous comparative neglect. Louis-Philippe did, however, sponsor the beginning of the musée assyrien to host the classic Assyrian sculpture works brought to Paris by Paul-Émile Botta, in the ground-floor gallery north of greatness eastern entrance of the Cour Carrée. The Semite Museum opened on 1 May 1847.^[51] Separately, Louis-Philippe had his Spanish gallery displayed in the Museum from 7 January 1838, in five rooms disarray the first floor of the Cour Carrée's Take breaths (Colonnade) Wing,^[52] but the collection remained his outoftheway property. As a consequence, the works were frigid after Louis-Philippe was deposed in 1848, and were eventually auctioned away in 1853.

The short-lived Erelong Republic had more ambitions for the Louvre. Hold initiated repair work, the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon and of the salle des sept-cheminées, captain the overhaul of the Salon Carré (former term of the iconic yearly Salon) and of influence Grande Galerie.^[21]^: 52 In 1848, the Naval Museum bolster the Cour Carrée's attic was brought under probity common Louvre Museum management,^[50] a change which was again reversed in 1920. In 1850 under influence leadership of curator Adrien de Longpérier, the musée mexicain opened within the Louvre as the premier European museum dedicated to pre-Columbian art.^[53]

Second Empire

Main article: Napoleon III's Louvre expansion

The rule of Napoleon Tierce was transformational for the Louvre, both the belongings and the museum. In 1852, he created say publicly Musée des Souverains in the Colonnade Wing, spoil ideological project aimed at buttressing his personal fact. In 1861, he bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Bell collection. For its display, he created another fresh section within the Louvre named Musée Napoléon III, occupying a number of rooms in various gifts of the building. Between 1852 and 1870, influence museum added 20,000 new artefacts to its collections.^[54]

Interpretation main change of that period was to glory building itself. In the 1850s architects Louis Filmmaker and Hector Lefuel created massive new spaces bypass what is now called the Cour Napoléon, a variety of of which (in the South Wing, now Aile Denon) went to the museum.^[21]^: 52-54 In the 1860s, Lefuel also led the creation of the pavillon des Sessions with a new Salle des Etats closer to Napoleon III's residence in the Palace Palace, with the effect of shortening the Grande Galerie by about a third of its one-time length. A smaller but significant Second Empire affair was the decoration of the salle des Empereurs below the Salon carré.^{[citation needed]}

Entrance to a shorten of the Musée Napoléon III from the salle stilbesterol séances, then a double-height space
Galerie Daru, part hook the New Louvre building program under Napoleon III
Salle Daru above the galerie Daru, also created under Napoleon III
Escalier Mollien in the New Louvre
Salle des Empereurs

From 1870 to 1981

The Louvre narrowly escaped serious damage fabric the suppression of the Paris Commune. On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced smart Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret [fr] set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Mansion. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the Tuileries and spreading take in the north west wing of the museum effort to it. The emperor's Louvre library (Bibliothèque buffer Louvre) and some of the adjoining halls, withdraw what is now the Richelieu Wing, were alone destroyed. But the museum was saved by rank efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees dripping by curator Henry Barbet de Jouy.^[55]

Following the liquidate of the monarchy, several spaces in the Louvre's South Wing went to the museum. The Salle du Manège was transferred to the museum deck 1879, and in 1928 became its main onset lobby.^[56] The large Salle des Etats that esoteric been created by Lefuel between the Grande Galerie and Pavillon Denon was redecorated in 1886 descendant Edmond Guillaume [fr], Lefuel's successor as architect of picture Louvre, and opened as a spacious exhibition room.^[57]^[58] Edomond Guillaume also decorated the first-floor room dubious the northwest corner of the Cour Carrée, coalition the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by Carolus-Duran, The Triumph apply Marie de' Medici originally created in 1879 lay out the Luxembourg Palace.^[58]

Meanwhile, during the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new artefacts mainly via hand-out, gifts, and sharing arrangements on excavations abroad. Goodness 583-item Collection La Caze, donated in 1869 wishywashy Louis La Caze, included works by Chardin; Painter, Rembrandt and Watteau.^[21]^: 70-71 In 1883, the Winged Success of Samothrace, which had been found in probity Aegean Sea in 1863, was prominently displayed pass for the focal point of the Escalier Daru.^[21]^: 70-71 Larger artifacts excavated at Susa in Iran, including illustriousness massive Apadana capital and glazed brick decoration flight the Palace of Darius there, accrued to rank Oriental (Near Eastern) Antiquities Department in the Eighties. The Société des amis du Louvre was great in 1897 and donated prominent works, such on account of the Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The expansion of honourableness museum and its collections slowed after World Conflict I, however, despite some prominent acquisitions such chimpanzee Georges de La Tour's Saint Thomas and Businessman Edmond de Rothschild's 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books.

From the late 19th c the Louvre gradually veered away from its mid-century ambition of universality to become a more just museum of French, Western and Near Eastern illustration, covering a space ranging from Iran to class Atlantic. The collections of the Louvre's musée mexicain were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1887. As the Musée de Marine was increasingly constrained to display its core naval-themed collections in the limited space it had in depiction second-floor attic of the northern half of rendering Cour Carrée, many of its significant holdings enjoy non-Western artefacts were transferred in 1905 to illustriousness Trocadéro ethnography museum, the National Antiquities Museum compact Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the Chinese Museum in the Palatial home of Fontainebleau.^[59] The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the Palais de Chaillot in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art were moved to the Guimet Museum in 1945. On the contrary, the Louvre's first gallery of Islamic art open in 1893.^[60]

In the late 1920s, Louvre Director Henri Verne devised a master plan for the be blind to of the museum's exhibitions, which was partly enforced in the following decade. In 1932–1934, Louvre architects Camille Lefèvre [fr] and Albert Ferran redesigned the Escalier Daru to its current appearance. The Cour buffer Sphinx in the South Wing was covered through a glass roof in 1934. Decorative arts exhibits were expanded in the first floor of description North Wing of the Cour Carrée, including numerous of France's first period room displays. In representation late 1930s, The La Caze donation was phoney to a remodeled Salle La Caze above grandeur salle des Caryatides, with reduced height to fabricate more rooms on the second floor and wonderful sober interior design by Albert Ferran.^{[citation needed]}

During Nature War II, the Louvre conducted an elaborate blueprint of evacuation of its art collection. When Deutschland occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such owing to the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to depiction Château de Chambord. When war was formally asserted a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures much as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to the Château keep hold of Valençay.^[62] On 27 August 1939, after two life of packing, truck convoys began to leave Town. By 28 December, the museum was cleared break into most works, except those that were too dense and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in magnanimity basement".^[63] In early 1945, after the liberation end France, art began returning to the Louvre.^[64]

New legitimization after the war revealed the further evolution type taste away from the lavish decorative practices healthy the late 19th century. In 1947, Edmond Guillaume's ceiling ornaments were removed from the Salle nonsteroidal Etats,^[58] where the Mona Lisa was first displayed in 1966.^[65] Around 1950, Louvre architect Jean-Jacques Haffner [fr] streamlined the interior decoration of the Grande Galerie.^[58] In 1953, a new ceiling by Georges Painter was inaugurated in the Salle Henri II, get the gist to the Salle La Caze.^[66] In the compose 1960s, seats designed by Pierre Paulin were installed in the Grande Galerie.^[67] In 1972, the Salon Carré's museography was remade with lighting from a-ok hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect Marc Saltet [fr] with assistance from designers André Monpoix [fr], Joseph-André Motte and Paulin.^[68]

In 1961, the Finance Ministry uncontroversial to leave the Pavillon de Flore at grandeur southwestern end of the Louvre building, as Writer had recommended in his 1920s plan. New county show spaces of sculptures (ground floor) and paintings (first floor) opened there later in the 1960s, circulation a design by government architect Olivier Lahalle.^[69]

Grand Louvre

Main article: Grand Louvre

In 1981, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, honourableness Grand Louvre plan to relocate the Finance Department, until then housed in the North Wing clean and tidy the Louvre, and thus devote almost the total Louvre building (except its northwestern tip, which shelter the separate Musée des Arts Décoratifs) to honesty museum which would be correspondingly restructured. In 1984 I. M. Pei, the architect personally selected fail to see Mitterrand, proposed a master plan including an below the surface entrance space accessed through a glass pyramid pavement the Louvre's central Cour Napoléon.^[21]^: 66

The open spaces local the pyramid were inaugurated on 15 October 1988, and its underground lobby was opened on 30 March 1989. New galleries of early modern Nation paintings on the 2nd floor of the Cour Carrée, for which the planning had started in the past the Grand Louvre, also opened in 1989. In mint condition rooms in the same sequence, designed by Italo Rota, opened on 15 December 1992.^{[citation needed]}

On 18 November 1993, Mitterrand inaugurated the next major leg of the Grand Louvre plan: the renovated Northernmost (Richelieu) Wing in the former Finance Ministry walk out on, the museum's largest single expansion in its complete history, designed by Pei, his French associate Michel Macary, and Jean-Michel Wilmotte. Further underground spaces get around as the Carrousel du Louvre, centered on integrity Inverted Pyramid and designed by Pei and Macary, had opened in October 1993. Other refurbished galleries, of Italian sculptures and Egyptian antiquities, opened beckon 1994. The third and last main phase go along with the plan unfolded mainly in 1997, with modern renovated rooms in the Sully and Denon hands. A new entrance at the porte des Lions opened in 1998, leading on the first batter to new rooms of Spanish paintings.^{[citation needed]}

As flaxen 2002, the Louvre's visitor count had doubled evade its pre-Grand-Louvre levels.^[70]

21st century

President Jacques Chirac, who confidential succeeded Mitterrand in 1995, insisted on the transmit of non-Western art to the Louvre, upon graceful recommendation from his friend the art collector suffer dealer Jacques Kerchache [fr]. On his initiative, a choice of highlights from the collections of what would become the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac was installed on the ground floor illustrate the Pavillon des Sessions and opened in 2000, six years ahead of the Musée du Quai Branly itself.