Description
The Louvre is the world's largest museum and the most visited, in a former royal palace on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris. It shows about 35,000 works, from prehistory to the 21st century, across three huge wings: Richelieu, Denon and Sully.
Eight departments share the rooms: Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, Islamic art, sculpture, decorative arts, paintings, and prints and drawings. Nobody sees it all in a day, so pick a few.
The stars are well known. Leonardo's Mona Lisa has hung in the Salle des États since 1966, behind a crowd. The Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are easier to enjoy: the Victory stands at the top of the Daru staircase, where it has been since 1883.
Underground, the medieval Louvre is the fortress built by King Philip II at the end of the 12th century to guard the city from the west, where the English still held Normandy. Its walls are still down in the basement.
The entrance is I. M. Pei's glass pyramid, opened in 1989 over an underground hall. A few years later the Finance Ministry finally moved out of the north wing, and the museum doubled its space.
The museum keeps growing in unexpected places. Contemporary artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Cy Twombly have been commissioned to work for it, and the Grand Louvre project of the 1980s and 1990s doubled its visitors by 2002.
In 1546 Francis I began turning the fortress into a Renaissance palace. He was also a collector, and among the paintings he gathered was the Mona Lisa. In 1682 Louis XIV left for Versailles, and the half-empty palace filled up with academies and artists.
The Revolution then answered the question of who would see the royal paintings. On 10 August 1793, exactly one year after the fall of the monarchy, the Louvre opened as a public museum: 537 paintings, free three days a week.
Napoleon filled it with the spoils of his campaigns, from the Vatican's Laocoön to whole collections from Italy and the Low Countries, and renamed it Musée Napoléon. After Waterloo much went back home, though far from all.
Don't miss
• The Mona Lisa.
• The Winged Victory of Samothrace.
• The Code of Hammurabi.
• The medieval Louvre.
Did you know?
• During World War II the Mona Lisa hid in the Château de Chambord, and the Venus de Milo at Valençay.
• In October 2025 thieves reached the Galerie d'Apollon on a truck-mounted lift and got away in minutes with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.
• The Code of Hammurabi, Babylon's laws, is carved on a stone over two meters tall.
Eight departments share the rooms: Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, Islamic art, sculpture, decorative arts, paintings, and prints and drawings. Nobody sees it all in a day, so pick a few.
The stars are well known. Leonardo's Mona Lisa has hung in the Salle des États since 1966, behind a crowd. The Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are easier to enjoy: the Victory stands at the top of the Daru staircase, where it has been since 1883.
Underground, the medieval Louvre is the fortress built by King Philip II at the end of the 12th century to guard the city from the west, where the English still held Normandy. Its walls are still down in the basement.
The entrance is I. M. Pei's glass pyramid, opened in 1989 over an underground hall. A few years later the Finance Ministry finally moved out of the north wing, and the museum doubled its space.
The museum keeps growing in unexpected places. Contemporary artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Cy Twombly have been commissioned to work for it, and the Grand Louvre project of the 1980s and 1990s doubled its visitors by 2002.
In 1546 Francis I began turning the fortress into a Renaissance palace. He was also a collector, and among the paintings he gathered was the Mona Lisa. In 1682 Louis XIV left for Versailles, and the half-empty palace filled up with academies and artists.
The Revolution then answered the question of who would see the royal paintings. On 10 August 1793, exactly one year after the fall of the monarchy, the Louvre opened as a public museum: 537 paintings, free three days a week.
Napoleon filled it with the spoils of his campaigns, from the Vatican's Laocoön to whole collections from Italy and the Low Countries, and renamed it Musée Napoléon. After Waterloo much went back home, though far from all.
Don't miss
• The Mona Lisa.
• The Winged Victory of Samothrace.
• The Code of Hammurabi.
• The medieval Louvre.
Did you know?
• During World War II the Mona Lisa hid in the Château de Chambord, and the Venus de Milo at Valençay.
• In October 2025 thieves reached the Galerie d'Apollon on a truck-mounted lift and got away in minutes with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.
• The Code of Hammurabi, Babylon's laws, is carved on a stone over two meters tall.