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The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
'' and the ''
Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...
''. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the
Right Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrai ...
of the
Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/ Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributa ...
in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward). At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet). Attendance in 2021 was 2.8 million due to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, up five percent from 2020, but far below pre-COVID attendance. Nonetheless, the Louvre still topped the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2021."The Art Newspaper", 30 March 2021. The museum is housed in the
Louvre Palace The Louvre Palace (french: link=no, Palais du Louvre, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and t ...
, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546
Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to: * Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407) * Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450 * Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547 * Francis I, Duke of Saxe-Lau ...
converted it into the primary residence of the
French Kings France was ruled by Monarch, monarchs from the establishment of the West Francia, Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Cl ...
. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682,
Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
chose the
Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigr ...
and the
Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (; en, "Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture") was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abo ...
, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
, the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the r ...
decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
and the museum was renamed ''Musée Napoléon'', but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of
Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...
and
Charles X Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Lou ...
, and during the
Second French Empire The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third Republic of France. Historians in the 1930s ...
the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments:
Egyptian Antiquities Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...
; Near Eastern Antiquities;
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities;
Islamic Art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...
;
Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
;
Decorative Arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usua ...
; Paintings; Prints and Drawings. The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than dedicated to the permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objet d'art, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds.


Location and visit

The Louvre museum is located inside the
Louvre Palace The Louvre Palace (french: link=no, Palais du Louvre, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and t ...
, in the center of Paris, adjacent to the
Tuileries Gardens The Tuileries Garden (french: Jardin des Tuileries, ) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in ...
. The two nearest Métro stations are Louvre-Rivoli and Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre, the latter having a direct underground access to the
Carrousel du Louvre The Carrousel du Louvre is an underground shopping mall in Paris, France, managed by Unibail-Rodamco. The name refers to two nearby sites, the Louvre museum and the Place du Carrousel. The mall contains a famous skylight, ''La Pyramide Inversée'' ...
commercial mall. Before the Grand Louvre overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, the 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 under the
Louvre Pyramid The Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass and metal structure designed by the Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei. The pyramid is in the main courtyard (Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace in Paris, surrounded by three smalle ...
, or ''Hall Napoléon'', which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground
Carrousel du Louvre The Carrousel du Louvre is an underground shopping mall in Paris, France, managed by Unibail-Rodamco. The name refers to two nearby sites, the Louvre museum and the Place du Carrousel. The mall contains a famous skylight, ''La Pyramide Inversée'' ...
, or (for authorized visitors) from the connecting to the nearby
rue de Rivoli Rue de Rivoli (; English: "Rivoli Street") is a street in central Paris, France. It is a commercial street whose shops include leading fashionable brands. It bears the name of Napoleon's early victory against the Austrian army, at the Battle of R ...
. A secondary entrance at the , near the western end of the Denon Wing, was created in 1999 but is not permanently open. The museum's entrance conditions have varied over time. Initially, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access, a feature that only disappeared in the 1850s. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-days "weeks" (french: décades), the first six days of which were reserved for visits by artists and foreigners and the last three for visits by the general public. In the early 1800s, after the seven-day week had been reinstated, the general public had only four hours of museum access per weeks, between 2pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. In 1824, a new regulation allowed public access only on Sundays and holidays; the other days the museum was open only to artists and foreigners, except for closure on Mondays. That changed in 1855 when the museum became open to the public all days except Mondays. It was free until 1922, when an entrance fee was introduced except on Sundays. Since its post-
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
reopening in 1946, the Louvre has been closed on Tuesdays, and habitually open to the public the rest of the week except for some holidays. The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.


History


Before the Museum

The
Louvre Palace The Louvre Palace (french: link=no, Palais du Louvre, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and t ...
, which houses the museum, was begun by King Philip II in the late 12th century to protect the city from the attack from the West, as the
Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. On ...
still held
Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
at the time. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre are still visible in the crypt. Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, and it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. The origins of the name "Louvre" are somewhat disputed. According to the authoritative ''
Grand Larousse encyclopédique The ''Grand Larousse encyclopédique en dix volumes'' ("Big Larousse encyclopedia in ten volumes") is a French encyclopedic dictionary published by Larousse between February 1960 and August 1964, with two later supplements that update the conten ...
'', the name derives from an association with
wolf hunting Wolf hunting is the practice of hunting gray wolves ''(Canis lupus)'' or other species of wolves. Wolves are mainly hunted for sport, for their skins, to protect livestock and, in some rare cases, to protect humans. Wolves have been actively hun ...
den (via Latin: ''lupus'', lower Empire: ''lupara'').Edwards, pp. 193–94 In the 7th century, Burgundofara (also known as Saint Fare), abbess in Meaux, is said to have gifted part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery, even though it is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly to the present site of the Louvre. The Louvre Palace has been subject to numerous renovations since its construction. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building from its military role into a residence. In 1546, Francis I started its rebuilding in French Renaissance style.Edwards, p. 198 After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, construction works slowed to a halt. The royal move away from Paris resulted in the Louvre being used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage. For example, four generations of craftsmen-artists from the Boulle family were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre. Meanwhile, the collections of the Louvre originated in the acquisitions of paintings and other artworks by the monarchs of the House of France. At the
Palace of Fontainebleau Palace of Fontainebleau (; ) or Château de Fontainebleau, located southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence ...
, Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...
's ''
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
''. The Cabinet du Roi consisted of seven rooms west of the Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of the remodeled Petite Galerie. Many of the king's paintings were placed in these rooms in 1673, when it became an art gallery, accessible to certain art lovers as a kind of museum. In 1681, after the court moved to Versailles, 26 of the paintings were transferred there, somewhat diminishing the collection, but it is mentioned in Paris guide books from 1684 on, and was shown to ambassadors from
Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
in 1686. By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery in the Louvre. Art critic Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne in 1747 published a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750,
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
decided on a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the
Marquis de Marigny A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...
for public viewing of the "king's paintings" (''Tableaux du Roy'') on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Luxembourg gallery included
Andrea del Sarto Andrea del Sarto (, , ; 16 July 1486 – 29 September 1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. He was known as an outstanding fresco decorator, painter of altar-pieces ...
's ''Charity'' and works by
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...
;
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
; Veronese;
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...
;
Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
or
Van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh ...
. It closed in 1780 as a result of the royal gift of the Luxembourg palace to the
Count of Provence The land of Provence has a history quite separate from that of any of the larger nations of Europe. Its independent existence has its origins in the frontier nature of the dukedom in Merovingian Gaul. In this position, influenced and affected by ...
(the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778. Under
Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
, the idea of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition.Carbonell, p. 56 The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed to convert the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
of the Louvre – which at that time contained the '' plans-reliefs'' or 3D models of key fortified sites in and around France – into the "French Museum". Many design proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, without a final decision being made on them. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution.


Revolutionary opening

The Louvre finally became a public museum during the French Revolution. In May 1791, the National Constituent Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts". On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation as urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display. The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the monarchy's demise, as ''Muséum central des arts de la République''. The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated". The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and
Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...
property (''
biens nationaux The biens nationaux were properties confiscated during the French Revolution from the Catholic Church, the monarchy, émigrés, and suspected counter-revolutionaries for "the good of the nation". ''Biens'' means "goods", both in the sense of ...
''). To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 
livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 g ...
per year.Nora, p. 278 In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the
Treaty of Tolentino {{unreferenced, date=June 2018 The Treaty of Tolentino was a peace treaty between Revolutionary France and the Papal States, signed on 19 February 1797 and imposing terms of surrender on the Papal side. The signatories for France were the French Di ...
(1797) by works from the Vatican, such as the '' Laocoön'' and ''
Apollo Belvedere The ''Apollo Belvedere'' (also called the ''Belvedere Apollo, Apollo of the Belvedere'', or ''Pythian Apollo'') is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. The ''Apollo'' is now thought to be an original Roman creation of Hadri ...
'', to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty". The early days were hectic. Privileged artists continued to live in residence, and the unlabeled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling".Alderson, pp. 24, 25 The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on
14 July Events Pre-1600 * 982 – King Otto II and his Frankish army are defeated by the Muslim army of al-Qasim at Cape Colonna, Southern Italy. *1223 – Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II. *1420 & ...
1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns. On 15 August 1797, the Galerie d'Apollon was opened with an exhibition of drawings. Meanwhile, the Louvre's gallery of Antiquity sculpture (''musée des Antiques''), with artefacts brought from Florence and the Vatican, had opened in November 1800 in
Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (french: Anne d'Autriche, italic=no, es, Ana María Mauricia, italic=no; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was an infanta of Spain who became Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIII from their marriage in 1615 unt ...
's former summer apartment, located on the ground floor just below the Galerie d'Apollon.


Napoleonic era

On 19 November 1802, Napoleon appointed
Dominique Vivant Denon Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon (4 January 1747 – 27 April 1825) was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. Denon was a diplomat for France under Louis XV and Louis XVI. He was appointed as the first Director of the Louvre ...
, a scholar and polymath who had participated in the
Egyptian campaign The French campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in the Ottoman territories of Egypt and Syria, proclaimed to defend French trade interests, to establish scientific enterprise in the region. It was the pr ...
of 1798–1801, as the museum's first director, in preference to alternative contenders such as antiquarian
Ennio Quirino Visconti Ennio Quirino Visconti (November 1, 1751 – February 7, 1818) was an Italian antiquarian and art historian, papal Prefect of Antiquities, and the leading expert of his day in the field of ancient Roman sculpture. His son, Pietro Ercole Visconti, e ...
, painter
Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away f ...
, sculptor
Antonio Canova Antonio Canova (; 1 November 1757 – 13 October 1822) was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists,. his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the cla ...
and architects Léon Dufourny or Pierre Fontaine. On Denon's suggestion in July 1803, the museum itself was renamed ''Musée Napoléon''. The collection grew through successful military campaigns. Acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as the result of war looting or formalized by treaties such as the
Treaty of Tolentino {{unreferenced, date=June 2018 The Treaty of Tolentino was a peace treaty between Revolutionary France and the Papal States, signed on 19 February 1797 and imposing terms of surrender on the Papal side. The signatories for France were the French Di ...
. At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the
Treaty of Campo Formio The Treaty of Campo Formio (today Campoformido) was signed on 17 October 1797 (26 Vendémiaire VI) by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of the French Republic and the Austrian monarchy, respectively. The trea ...
was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of the
Austrian Monarchy The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
. This treaty marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the end of the first phase of the
French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Pruss ...
. It compelled Italian cities to contribute pieces of art and heritage to Napoleon's "parades of spoils" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum.Plant, p. 36 The
Horses of Saint Mark The Horses of Saint Mark ( it, Cavalli di San Marco), also known as the Triumphal Quadriga or Horses of the Hippodrome of Constantinople, is a set of bronze statues of four horses, originally part of a monument depicting a quadriga (a four-hors ...
, which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
in 1204, were brought to Paris where they were placed atop Napoleon's
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel () ( en, Triumphal Arch of the Carousel) is a triumphal arch in Paris, located in the Place du Carrousel. It is an example of Neoclassical architecture in the Corinthian order. It was built between 1806 and 1808 ...
in 1797. Under the
Treaty of Tolentino {{unreferenced, date=June 2018 The Treaty of Tolentino was a peace treaty between Revolutionary France and the Papal States, signed on 19 February 1797 and imposing terms of surrender on the Papal side. The signatories for France were the French Di ...
, the two statues of the Nile and Tiber were taken to Paris from the Vatican in 1797, and were both kept in the Louvre until 1815. (The Nile was later returned to Rome, whereas the Tiber has remained in the Louvre to this day.) The despoilment of Italian churches and palaces outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities. After the French defeat at Waterloo, the looted works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrator
Denon is a Japanese electronics company started in 1910 by Frederick Whitney Horn, an American entrepreneur. Denon produced the first cylinder audio media in Japan and players to play them. Decades later, Denon was involved in the early stages of de ...
was loath to comply in absence of a treaty of restitution. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, though far from all.Alderson, p. 25 In 1815
Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...
finally concluded agreements with the
Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...
government for the keeping of works such as Veronese's '' Wedding at Cana'' which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection.


From 1815 to 1852

For most of the 19th century, from
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
's time to the Second Empire, the Louvre and other national museums were managed under the monarch's
civil list A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government, typically for service to the state or as honorary pensions. It is a term especially associated with the United Kingdom and its former colonies of Canada, India, New Zeal ...
and thus depended much on the ruler's personal involvement. Whereas the most iconic collection remained that of paintings in the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
, a number of other initiatives mushroomed in the vast building, named as if they were separate museums even though they were generally managed under the same administrative umbrella. Correspondingly, the museum complex was often referred to in the plural ("") rather than singular. During the
Bourbon Restoration Bourbon Restoration may refer to: France under the House of Bourbon: * Bourbon Restoration in France (1814, after the French revolution and Napoleonic era, until 1830; interrupted by the Hundred Days in 1815) Spain under the Spanish Bourbons: * Ab ...
(1814–1830),
Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...
and
Charles X Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Lou ...
added to the collections. The Greek and Roman sculpture gallery on the ground floor of the southwestern side of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
was completed on designs by
Percier and Fontaine Percier and Fontaine was a noted partnership between French architects Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine. History Together, Percier and Fontaine were inventors and major proponents of the rich and grand, consciously archaeol ...
. In 1819 an exhibition of manufactured products was opened in the first floor of the Cour Carrée's southern wing and would stay there until the mid-1820s. Charles X in 1826 created the and in 1827 included it in his broader , a new section of the museum complex located in a suite of lavishly decorated rooms on the first floor of the South Wing of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
. The Egyptian collection, initially curated by
Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in t ...
, formed the basis for what is now the Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities. It was formed from the purchased collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt and the second collection of Bernardino Drovetti (the first one having been purchased by
Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia Victor Emmanuel I (Vittorio Emanuele; 24 July 1759 – 10 January 1824) was the Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia (1802–1821). Biography Victor Emmanuel was the second son of King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonia Ferdinanda ...
to form the core of the present
Museo Egizio The Museo Egizio ( Italian for Egyptian Museum) is an archaeological museum in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, specializing in Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities, with more than 30,0 ...
in
Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
). The Restoration period also saw the opening in 1824 of the , a section of largely French sculptures on the ground floor of the Northwestern side of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
, many of whose artefacts came from the
Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
and from Alexandre Lenoir's Musée des Monuments Français following its closure in 1816. Meanwhile, the
French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
created an exhibition of ship models in the Louvre in December 1827, initially named in honor of Dauphin Louis Antoine, building on an 18th-century initiative of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau. This collection, renamed in 1833 and later to develop into the Musée national de la Marine, was initially located on the first floor of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
's North Wing, and in 1838 moved up one level to the 2nd-floor
attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
, where it remained for more than a century. File:Dernière salle des antiquités égyptiennes (Louvre).jpg, First room File:Egyptian antiquities in the Louvre - Room 27 and others.jpg, Room 27 File:Egyptian antiquities in the Louvre - Room 29 D201903.jpg, Room 29 File:Salles des colonnes du Louvre, vue vers l'ouest.jpg, Salle des Colonnes File:Greek antiquities in the Louvre - Room 35 D201903.jpg, Room 35 File:Room 36 of the Greek antiquities in the Louvre.jpg, Room 36 File:Greek antiquities in the Louvre - Room 38 D201903.jpg, Room 38 Following the
July Revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after French Revolution, the first in 1789. It led to ...
,
King Louis Philippe Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...
focused his interest on the repurposing of the
Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
into a Museum of French History conceived as a project of national reconciliation, and the Louvre was kept in comparative neglect. Louis-Philippe did, however, sponsor the creation of the to host the monumental
Assyrian sculpture Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopo ...
works brought to Paris by
Paul-Émile Botta Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 – 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Shar ...
, in the ground-floor gallery north of the eastern entrance of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
. The Assyrian Museum opened on 1 May 1847. Separately, Louis-Philippe had his Spanish gallery displayed in the Louvre from 7 January 1838, in five rooms on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's East (
Colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or cur ...
) Wing, but the collection remained his personal property. As a consequence, the works were removed after Louis-Philippe was deposed in 1848, and were eventually auctioned away in 1853. The short-lived Second Republic had more ambitions for the Louvre. It initiated repair work, the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon and of the , and the overhaul of the (former site of the iconic yearly
Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon ( ...
) and of the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
. In 1848, the Naval Museum in the Cour Carrée's attic was brought under the common Louvre Museum management, a change which was again reversed in 1920. In 1850 under the leadership of curator Adrien de Longpérier, the musée mexicain opened within the Louvre as the first European museum dedicated to
pre-Columbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era c ...
.


Second Empire

The rule of
Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...
was transformational for the Louvre, both the building and the museum. In 1852, he created the Musée des Souverains in the Colonnade Wing, an ideological project aimed at buttressing his personal legitimacy. In 1861, he bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection. For its display, he created another new section within the Louvre named , occupying a number of rooms in various parts of the building. Between 1852 and 1870, the museum added 20,000 new artefacts to its collections. The main change of that period was to the building itself. In the 1850s architects
Louis Visconti Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti (Rome February 11, 1791 – December 29, 1853) was an Italian-born French architect and designer. Life Son of the Italian archaeologist and art historian Ennio Quirino Visconti, Visconti designed many Pa ...
and
Hector Lefuel Hector-Martin Lefuel (14 November 1810 – 31 December 1880) was a French architect, best known for his work on the Palais du Louvre, including Napoleon III's Louvre expansion and the reconstruction of the Pavillon de Flore. Biography He wa ...
created massive new spaces around what is now called the
Cour Napoléon The expansion of the Louvre under Napoleon III in the 1850s, known at the time and until the 1980s as the Nouveau Louvre or Louvre de Napoléon III, was an iconic project of the Second French Empire and a centerpiece of its ambitious transforma ...
, some of which (in the South Wing, now Aile Denon) went to the museum. In the 1860s, Lefuel also led the creation of the with a new closer to Napoleon III's residence in the
Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...
, with the effect of shortening the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
by about a third of its previous length. A smaller but significant Second Empire project was the decoration of the below the Salon carré. File:Musée Napoléon III.jpg, Entrance to a section of the ''Musée Napoléon III'' from the ''salle des séances'', then a double-height space File:Galerie Daru - Musée du Louvre.jpg, ''Galerie Daru'', part of the New Louvre building program under Napoleon III File:Paris - Musée du Louvre (30612872064).jpg, ''Salle Daru'' above the ''galerie Daru'', also created under Napoleon III File:LOUVRE Museum (interior) Paris (1).jpg, ''Escalier Mollien'' in the New Louvre File:P1080712 Louvre salle romaine rwk.JPG, ''Salle des Empereurs''


From 1870 to 1981

The Louvre narrowly escaped serious damage during the suppression of the
Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...
. On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of ''Communards'' led by set fire to the adjoining
Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...
. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the Tuileries and spreading to the north west wing of the museum next to it. The emperor's Louvre library (''Bibliothèque du Louvre'') and some of the adjoining halls, in what is now the Richelieu Wing, were separately destroyed. But the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees led by curator Henry Barbet de Jouy. Following the end of the monarchy, several spaces in the Louvre's South Wing went to the museum. The Salle du Manège was transferred to the museum in 1879, and in 1928 became its main entrance lobby. The large Salle des Etats that had been created by Lefuel between the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
and Pavillon Denon was redecorated in 1886 by , Lefuel's successor as architect of the Louvre, and opened as a spacious exhibition room. Edomond Guillaume also decorated the first-floor room at the northwest corner of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
, on the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by
Carolus-Duran Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France. Biograph ...
, ''The Triumph of
Marie de' Medici Marie de' Medici (french: link=no, Marie de Médicis, it, link=no, Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingdom ...
'' originally created in 1879 for the Luxembourg Palace. Meanwhile, during the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new artefacts mainly via donations, gifts, and sharing arrangements on excavations abroad. The 583-item , donated in 1869 by Louis La Caze, included works by
Chardin Chardin is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, (1699–1779), French painter noted for his still life works * Jean Chardin, (1643–1713), French jeweller and traveller, author of ''The Trave ...
; Fragonard,
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...
and Watteau. In 1883, the ''
Winged Victory of Samothrace The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the be ...
'', which had been found in the Aegean Sea in 1863, was prominently displayed as the focal point of the Escalier Daru. Major artifacts excavated at
Susa Susa ( ; Middle elx, 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, translit=Šušen; Middle and Neo- elx, 𒋢𒋢𒌦, translit=Šušun; Neo- Elamite and Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, translit=Šušán; Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼, translit=Šušá; fa, شوش ...
in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, including the massive ''Apadana capital'' and glazed brick decoration from the Palace of Darius there, accrued to the Oriental (Near Eastern) Antiquities Department in the 1880s. The
Société des amis du Louvre The Société des amis du Louvre ("Society of Friends of the Louvre") is a voluntary association created in 1897 whose objective is to buy objects with an artistic, archeological, or historical value for the Louvre museum. History The Society ...
was established in 1897 and donated prominent works, such as the '' Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon''. The expansion of the museum and its collections slowed after World War I, however, despite some prominent acquisitions such as
Georges de La Tour Georges de La Tour (13 March 1593 – 30 January 1652) was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648. He painted mostly religious chia ...
's ''Saint Thomas'' and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books. From the late 19th century, the Louvre gradually veered away from its mid-century ambition of universality to become a more focused museum of French, Western and Near Eastern art, covering a space ranging from
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
to the Atlantic. The collections of the Louvre's musée mexicain were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1887. As the was increasingly constrained to display its core naval-themed collections in the limited space it had in the second-floor
attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
of the northern half of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
, many of its significant holdings of non-Western artefacts were transferred in 1905 to the Trocadéro ethnography museum, the National Antiquities Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the Chinese Museum in the
Palace of Fontainebleau Palace of Fontainebleau (; ) or Château de Fontainebleau, located southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence ...
. The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the
Palais de Chaillot The Palais de Chaillot () is a building at the top of the in the Trocadéro area in the 16th ''arrondissement'' of Paris, France. For the Exposition Internationale of 1937, the old 1878 Palais du Trocadéro was partly demolished and partly ...
in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art were moved to the
Guimet Museum The Guimet Museum (full name in french: Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet; MNAAG; ) is an art museum located at 6, place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. Literally translated into English, its full name is the Nation ...
in 1945. Nevertheless, the Louvre's first gallery of
Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...
opened in 1922. In the late 1920s, Louvre Director Henri Verne devised a master plan for the rationalization of the museum's exhibitions, which was partly implemented in the following decade. In 1932–1934, Louvre architects and Albert Ferran redesigned the Escalier Daru to its current appearance. The in the South Wing was covered by a glass roof in 1934. Decorative arts exhibits were expanded in the first floor of the North Wing of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
, including some of France's first
period room A period room is a display that represents the interior design and decorative art of a particular historical social setting usually in a museum. Though it may incorporate elements of an individual real room that once existed somewhere, it is usually ...
displays. In the late 1930s, The La Caze donation was moved to a remodeled above the , with reduced height to create more rooms on the second floor and a sober interior design by Albert Ferran. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the Louvre conducted an elaborate plan of evacuation of its art collection. When Germany occupied the
Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...
, many important artworks such as the ''
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
'' were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord. When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as ''
Winged Victory of Samothrace The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the be ...
'' and the ''
Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...
'' were sent to the Château de Valençay. On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings hatwere left in the basement". In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre. New arrangements after the war revealed the further evolution of taste away from the lavish decorative practices of the late 19th century. In 1947, Edmond Guillaume's ceiling ornaments were removed from the , where the ''
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
'' was first displayed in 1966. Around 1950, Louvre architect streamlined the interior decoration of the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
. In 1953, a new ceiling by
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he play ...
was inaugurated in the , next to the . In the late 1960s, seats designed by Pierre Paulin were installed in the
Grande Galerie The Grande Galerie, in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest ...
. In 1972, the 's museography was remade with lighting from a hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect with assistance from designers ,
Joseph-André Motte Joseph-André Motte (6 January 1925 – 1 June 2013) was a French furniture designer and interior designer and ranks among the most influential and innovative figures of post-war French design. Joseph-André Motte was born in Saint-Bonnet-en-C ...
and Paulin. In 1961, the Finance Ministry accepted to leave the
Pavillon de Flore The Pavillon de Flore, part of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, France, stands at the southwest end of the Louvre, near the Pont Royal. It was originally constructed in 1607–1610, during the reign of Henry IV, as the corner pavilion betw ...
at the southwestern end of the Louvre building, as Verne had recommended in his 1920s plan. New exhibition spaces of sculptures (ground floor) and paintings (first floor) opened there later in the 1960s, on a design by government architect Olivier Lahalle.


Grand Louvre

In 1981, French President
François Mitterrand François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he ...
proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, the Grand Louvre plan to relocate the
Finance Ministry A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...
, until then housed in the North Wing of the Louvre, and thus devote almost the entire Louvre building (except its northwestern tip, which houses the separate Musée des Arts Décoratifs) to the museum which would be correspondingly restructured. In 1984 I. M. Pei, the architect personally selected by Mitterrand, proposed a master plan including an underground entrance space accessed through a glass pyramid in the Louvre's central ''Cour Napoléon''. The open spaces surrounding the pyramid were inaugurated on 15 October 1988, and its underground lobby was opened on 30 March 1989. New galleries of early modern French paintings on the 2nd floor of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
, for which the planning had started before the ''Grand Louvre'', also opened in 1989. Further rooms in the same sequence, designed by
Italo Rota Italo Rota (Milan, 2 October 1953) is an Italian architect. Biography Born in Milan in 1953, he obtained a degree in Architecture at Milan Polytechnic University in 1982. Before that, he had started off in the architecture firms of Franco Alb ...
, opened on 15 December 1992. On 18 November 1993, Mitterrand inaugurated the next major phase of the Grand Louvre plan: the renovated North (Richelieu) Wing in the former Finance Ministry site, the museum's largest single expansion in its entire history, designed by Pei, his French associate Michel Macary, and Jean-Michel Wilmotte. Further underground spaces known as the
Carrousel du Louvre The Carrousel du Louvre is an underground shopping mall in Paris, France, managed by Unibail-Rodamco. The name refers to two nearby sites, the Louvre museum and the Place du Carrousel. The mall contains a famous skylight, ''La Pyramide Inversée'' ...
, centered on the Inverted Pyramid and designed by Pei and Macary, had opened in October 1993. Other refurbished galleries, of Italian sculptures and Egyptian antiquities, opened in 1994. The third and last main phase of the plan unfolded mainly in 1997, with new renovated rooms in the Sully and Denon wings. A new entrance at the ''porte des Lions'' opened in 1998, leading on the first floor to new rooms of Spanish paintings. As of 2002, the Louvre's visitor count had doubled from its pre-Grand-Louvre levels. File:Louvre Courtyard, Looking West.jpg, The Napoleon Courtyard and I. M. Pei's
pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilate ...
in its center, at dusk.


21st century

President
Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a Politics of France, French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to ...
, who had succeeded Mitterrand in 1995, insisted on the return of non-Western art to the Louvre, upon a recommendation from his friend the art collector and dealer . On his initiative, a selection of highlights from the collections of what would become the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac was installed on the ground floor of the and opened in 2000, six years ahead of the Musée du Quai Branly itself. The main other initiative in the aftermath of the Grand Louvre project was Chirac's decision to create a new department of Islamic Art, by executive order of 1 August 2003, and to move the corresponding collections from their prior underground location in the Richelieu Wing to a more prominent site in the Denon Wing. That new section opened on 22 September 2012, together with collections from the Roman-era Eastern Mediterranean, with financial support from the Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation and on a design by Mario Bellini and
Rudy Ricciotti Rudy Ricciotti (born 22 August 1952) is a French architect and publisher.Lanie GoodmanGround Breaker ''The New York Times'', September 17, 2012
.Gareth Harris (13 September 2012)
Islamic art, covered
''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
''.
In 2010, American painter
Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...
completed a new ceiling for the (the former ), a counterpoint to that of Braque installed in 1953 in the adjacent . The room's floor and walls were redesigned in 2021 by Louvre architect Michel Goutal to revert the changes made by his predecessor Albert Ferran in the late 1930s, triggering protests from the Cy Twombly Foundation on grounds that the then-deceased painter's work had been created to fit with the room's prior decoration. On 6 June 2014, the Decorative Arts section on the first floor of the
Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Const ...
's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment. The Louvre, like many other museums and galleries, felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage. It was closed for six months during French coronavirus lockdowns and saw visitor numbers plunge to 2.7 million in 2020, from 9.6 million in 2019 and 10.2 million in 2018, which was a record year. File:Pavillon des Sessions 01.jpg, The 's display of non-Western art from the Musée du Quai Branly, opened in 2000 File:Cour Visconti (Louvre) D201512a.jpg, The 's ground floor covered to host the new Islamic Art Department in 2012 File:Les arts de lIslam au Louvre (8055981963).jpg, Islamic art display in the covered , 2012 File:Louvre, dipartimento di arte islamica, 01.JPG, Underground display of the Islamic Art Department, 2012


Collections

The Musée du Louvre owns 615,797 objectsRapport d'activité 2019 du musée du Louvre
p. 29, website www.louvre.fr.
of which 482,943 are accessible online since 24 March 2021 and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments.


Egyptian antiquities

The department, comprising over 50,000 pieces, includes artifacts from the
Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...
civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century AD. The collection, among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the
New Kingdom New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
,
Coptic art Coptic art is the Christian art of the Byzantine- Greco-Roman Egypt and of Coptic Christian Churches. Coptic art is best known for its wall-paintings, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and metalwork, much of which survives in monasteries ...
, and the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
, Ptolemaic, and
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
periods.Nave, pp. 42–43 The department's origins lie in the royal collection, but it was augmented by Napoleon's 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Vivant, the future director of the Louvre. After
Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in t ...
translated the
Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Anci ...
, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt, and Bernardino Drovet; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by
Auguste Mariette François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette (11 February 182118 January 1881) was a French scholar, archaeologist and Egyptologist, and the founder of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, the forerunner of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Early ...
, founder of the
Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...
in Cairo. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including '' The Seated Scribe''. Guarded by the Great Sphinx of Tanis, the collection is housed in more than 20 rooms. Holdings include art,
papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...
scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons. Pieces from the ancient period include the ''
Gebel el-Arak Knife The Gebel el-Arak Knife, also Jebel el-Arak Knife, is an ivory and flint knife dating from the Naqada II period of Egyptian prehistory (3500—3200 BC), showing Mesopotamian influence. The knife was purchased in 1914 in Cairo by Georges Aaron Bén ...
'' from 3400 BC, ''The Seated Scribe'', and the ''Head of King Djedefre''. Middle Kingdom art, "known for its gold work and statues", moved from realism to idealization; this is exemplified by the
schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes ...
statue of
Amenemhatankh Amenemhatankh (his name means “Amenemhat lives”) was an ancient Egyptian prince of the 12th Dynasty, son of Amenemhat II. Attestations Amenhemhatankh is mentioned on a false door which was originally in his tomb but was found reused in the ...
and the wooden ''Offering Bearer''. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess
Nephthys Nephthys or Nebet-Het in ancient Egyptian ( grc-gre, Νέφθυς) was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion. A member of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis in Egyptian mythology, she was a daughter of Nut and Geb. Nephthys was typically paire ...
and the limestone depiction of the goddess
Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth. Gebel el-Arak knife mp3h8783-cropped.jpg, The ''
Gebel el-Arak Knife The Gebel el-Arak Knife, also Jebel el-Arak Knife, is an ivory and flint knife dating from the Naqada II period of Egyptian prehistory (3500—3200 BC), showing Mesopotamian influence. The knife was purchased in 1914 in Cairo by Georges Aaron Bén ...
''; 3300-3200 BC; handle: elephant ivory, blade: flint; length: 25.8 cm File:The seated scribe-E 3023-IMG 4267-gradient.jpg, '' The Seated Scribe''; 2613–2494 BC; painted limestone and inlaid
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...
; height: 53.7 cm Sphinx, Louvre 15 June 2014.jpg, The '' Great Sphinx of Tanis''; circa 2600 BC; rose granite; height: 183 cm, width: 154 cm, thickness: 480 cm Akhenathon and Nefertiti E15593 mp3h8771-gradient.jpg, ''
Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...
and
Nefertiti Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in which ...
''; 1345 BC; painted limestone; height: 22.2 cm, width: 12.3 cm, thickness: 9.8 cm


Near Eastern antiquities

Near Eastern antiquities, the second newest department, dates from 1881 and presents an overview of early Near Eastern civilization and "first settlements", before the arrival of
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
. The department is divided into three geographic areas: the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
,
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
(Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as
Paul-Émile Botta Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 – 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Shar ...
's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of
Sargon II Sargon II ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is gener ...
's palace. These finds formed the basis of the Assyrian museum, the precursor to today's department. The museum contains exhibits from
Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's ''
Stele of the Vultures The Stele of the Vultures is a monument from the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2600–2350 BC) in Mesopotamia celebrating a victory of the city-state of Lagash over its neighbour Umma. It shows various battle and religious scenes and is named aft ...
'' from 2450 BC and the
stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek language, Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ...
erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the
Zagros Mountains The Zagros Mountains ( ar, جبال زاغروس, translit=Jibal Zaghrus; fa, کوه‌های زاگرس, Kuh hā-ye Zāgros; ku, چیاکانی زاگرۆس, translit=Çiyakani Zagros; Turkish: ''Zagros Dağları''; Luri: ''Kuh hā-ye Zāgr ...
. The
Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hamm ...
, discovered in 1901, displays
Babylonian Law Babylonian law is a subset of cuneiform law that has received particular study due to the large amount of archaeological material that has been found for it. So-called "contracts" exist in the thousands, including a great variety of deeds, co ...
s prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the ''
Investiture of Zimrilim The ''Investiture of Zimri-Lim'' is a large colorful mural discovered at the Royal Palace of the ancient city-state of Mari in eastern Syria. The fresco, which dates back to the 18th century BC, depicts Zimri-Lim, king of Mari, receiving the rod ...
'' and the 25th-century BC ''
Statue of Ebih-Il The ''Statue of Ebih-Il'' is a 25th-century BC statue of the praying figure of Ebih-Il (, EN-TI-IL, ''e-bih-il''), superintendent of the ancient city-state of Mari in modern eastern Syria. The statue was discovered at the Temple of Ishtar in Mar ...
'' found in the ancient city-state of Mari are also on display at the museum. A significant portion of the department covers the ancient
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
, including the '' Eshmunazar II sarcophagus'' discovered in 1855, which catalyzed
Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...
's 1860 '' Mission de Phénicie''. It contains one of the world's largest and most comprehensive collections of
Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may oc ...
. The section also covers North African Punic antiquities (Punic = Western Phoenician), given the significant French presence in the region in the 19th century, with early finds including the 1843 discovery of the
Ain Nechma inscriptions The Ain Nechma inscriptions, also known as the Guelma inscriptions are a number of Punic language inscriptions, first found in the 1837 in the necropolis of Ain Nechma, in the Guelma Province of Algeria (ancient Calama). By the early 20th centur ...
. The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the ''Funerary Head'' and the Persian ''Archers of Darius I''. This section also contains rare objects from
Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...
which were also lent to the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005. Cup Idalion Louvre N3455.jpg,
Phoenician metal bowls Phoenician metal bowls are approximately 90 decorative bowls made in the 7th–8th centuries BCE from bronze, silver and gold (often in the form of electrum), found since the mid-19th century in the Eastern Mediterranean and Iraq. They were histor ...
from Cyprus Ebih-Il Louvre AO17551 n01.jpg, The ''
Statue of Ebih-Il The ''Statue of Ebih-Il'' is a 25th-century BC statue of the praying figure of Ebih-Il (, EN-TI-IL, ''e-bih-il''), superintendent of the ancient city-state of Mari in modern eastern Syria. The statue was discovered at the Temple of Ishtar in Mar ...
''; circa 2400 BC;
gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywa ...
,
schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes ...
, shells and
lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mine ...
; height: 52.5 cm P1050763 Louvre code Hammurabi face rwk.JPG, The ''
Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hamm ...
''; 1755–1750 BC;
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...
; height: 225 cm, width: 79 cm, thickness: 47 cm Human headed winged bull profile.jpg,
Assyria Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n
lamassu ''Lama'', ''Lamma'', or ''Lamassu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian: lammař; later in Akkadian: ''lamassu''; sometimes called a ''lamassus'') is an Assyrian protective deity. Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called ''La ...
(Human-headed winged bull); circa 713–716 BC; 4.2 x 4.4 x 1 m Immortels - dynamosquito.jpg, Frieze of archers, from the Palace of Darius at
Susa Susa ( ; Middle elx, 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, translit=Šušen; Middle and Neo- elx, 𒋢𒋢𒌦, translit=Šušun; Neo- Elamite and Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, translit=Šušán; Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼, translit=Šušá; fa, شوش ...
; circa 510 BC; bricks


Greek, Etruscan, and Roman

The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...
to the 6th century. The collection spans from the Cycladic period to the decline of the Roman Empire. This department is one of the museum's oldest; it began with appropriated royal art, some of which was acquired under
Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to: * Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407) * Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450 * Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547 * Francis I, Duke of Saxe-Lau ...
. Initially, the collection focused on marble sculptures, such as the ''
Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...
. Works such as the ''
Apollo Belvedere The ''Apollo Belvedere'' (also called the ''Belvedere Apollo, Apollo of the Belvedere'', or ''Pythian Apollo'') is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. The ''Apollo'' is now thought to be an original Roman creation of Hadri ...
'' arrived during the Napoleonic Wars, but these pieces were returned after Napoleon I's fall in 1815. In the 19th century, the Louvre acquired works including vases from the Durand collection, bronzes such as the
Borghese Vase The Borghese Vase is a monumental bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens from Pentelic marble in the second half of the 1st century BC as a garden ornament for the Roman market; it is now in the Louvre Museum. Original Iconography Standing 1. ...
from the
Bibliothèque nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...
. The archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone
Lady of Auxerre The relatively small (75 cm high) limestone Cretan sculpture called the Lady of Auxerre (or Kore of Auxerre), at the Louvre Museum in Paris depicts an archaic Greek goddess of c. 650 - 625 BCE. It is a '' Kore'' ("maiden"), perhaps a vo ...
, from 640 BC; and the cylindrical ''
Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she ...
of Samos'', c. 570–560 BC. After the 4th century BC, focus on the human form increased, exemplified by the '' Borghese Gladiator''. The Louvre holds masterpieces from the
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
era, including The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'' (190 BC) and the Venus de Milo, symbolic of classical art. The long ''Galerie Campana'' displays an outstanding collection of more than one thousand Greek potteries. In the galleries paralleling the Seine, much of the museum's Roman sculpture is displayed. The Roman portraiture is representative of that genre; examples include the portraits of Agrippa and Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino. Head figurine Spedos Louvre Ma2709.jpg,
Cycladic The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...
head of a woman; 27th century BC; marble; height: 27 cm Crater Actaeon Louvre CA3482.jpg,
Volute A volute is a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals. Four are normally to be found on an Ion ...
krater that depicts
Actaeon Actaeon (; grc, Ἀκταίων ''Aktaion''), in Greek mythology, son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero. Like Achilles in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to ...
's death; circa 450–440 BC; ceramic; height: 51 cm, diameter: 33.1 cm Victoire de Samothrace - vue de trois-quart gauche, gros plan de la statue (2).JPG, The ''
Winged Victory of Samothrace The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the be ...
''; 200–190 BC;
Parian marble Parian marble is a fine-grained semi translucent pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures. Some of the ...
; 244 cm Front views of the Venus de Milo.jpg, ''
Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...
''; 130–100 BC; marble; height: 203 cm


Islamic art

The Islamic art collection, the museum's newest, spans "thirteen centuries and three continents". These exhibits, of ceramics, glass, metalware, wood, ivory, carpet, textiles, and miniatures, include more than 5,000 works and 1,000 shards.Ahlund, p. 24 Originally part of the decorative arts department, the holdings became separate in 2003. Among the works are the '' Pyxide d'al-Mughira'', a 10th century ivory box from
Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The ...
; the ''Baptistery of Saint-Louis'', an engraved brass basin from the 13th or 14th century
Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
period; and the 10th century '' Shroud of Saint-Josse'' from Iran. The collection contains three pages of the ''
Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 5 ...
'', an epic book of poems by
Ferdowsi , image = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran 3 (cropped).jpg , image_size = , caption = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus by Abolhassan Sadighi , birth_date = 940 , birth_place = Tus, Samanid Empire , death_date = 1019 or 1025 (87 years old) , d ...
in Persian, and a Syrian metalwork named the ''Barberini Vase''. In September 2019, a new and improved Islamic art department was opened by Princess
Lamia bint Majed Al Saud Lamia bint Majid Al Saud, Arabic: is a philanthropist from Saudi Arabia, who is a member of the Saudi royal family, as well as Secretary General of Alwaleed Philanthropies and a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. Biography Princess Lamia is ...
. The new department exhibits 3,000 pieces were collected from Spain to India via the Arabian peninsula dating from the 7th to the 19th centuries. Spagna, cordoba, pisside col nome di al-mughina, avorio, X sec. 04.JPG, The '' Pyxis of al-Mughira''; 10th century (maybe 968); ivory; 15 x 8 cm Tile with bismillah Louvre AD28001a.jpg, Iranian tile with bismillah; turn of the 13th-14th century; molded ceramic, luster glaze and glaze Siria, bacile detto battistero di s.luigi, 1320-40 ca, firmato muhammad ibn al-zayn, con restauri del 1821, ottone incr. d'oro, arge e pasta nera 01.JPG, The '' Baptistère de Saint Louis''; by Muhammad ibn al-Zayn; 1320–1340; hammering, engraving, inlay in brass, gold, and silver; 50.2 x 22.2 cm Door Louvre AA320 n01.jpg, Door; 15th-16th century; sculpted, painted and gilded walnut wood


Sculptures

The sculpture department consists of works created before 1850 not belonging in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department. The Louvre has been a repository of sculpted material since its time as a palace; however, only ancient architecture was displayed until 1824, except for
Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...
's ''
Dying Slave The ''Dying Slave'' is a sculpture by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Created between 1513 and 1516, it was to serve with another figure, the '' Rebellious Slave'', at the tomb of Pope Julius II. It is a marble figure 2.15 metres (7' ...
'' and ''Rebellious Slave''. Initially the collection included only 100 pieces, the rest of the royal sculpture collection being at Versailles. It remained small until 1847, when Léon Laborde was given control of the department. Laborde developed the medieval section and purchased the first such statues and sculptures in the collection, '' King Childebert'' and ''stanga door'', respectively. The collection was part of the Department of Antiquities but was given autonomy in 1871 under Louis Courajod, a director who organized a wider representation of French works. In 1986, all post-1850 works were relocated to the new Musée d'Orsay. The Grand Louvre project separated the department into two exhibition spaces; the French collection is displayed in the Richelieu Wing, and foreign works in the Denon Wing. The collection's overview of French
sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
contains Romanesque works such as the 11th-century ''Daniel in the Lions' Den'' and the 12th-century ''Virgin of Auvergne''. In the 16th century, Renaissance influence caused French sculpture to become more restrained, as seen in
Jean Goujon Jean Goujon (c. 1510 – c. 1565)Thirion, Jacques (1996). "Goujon, Jean" in ''The Dictionary of Art'', edited by Jane Turner; vol. 13, pp. 225–227. London: Macmillan. Reprinted 1998 with minor corrections: . was a French Renaissance sculpt ...
's bas-reliefs, and
Germain Pilon Germain Pilon (c. 1525 – 3 February 1590)Connat & Colombier 1951; Thirion 1996. was a French Renaissance sculptor. Biography He was born in Paris and trained with his father, Andre Pilon. Documents show that he and his father executed sever ...
's ''Descent from the Cross'' and ''Resurrection of Christ''. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by
Gian Lorenzo Bernini Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...
's 1640–1 Bust of Cardinal Richelieu,
Étienne Maurice Falconet Étienne Maurice Falconet (1 December 1716 – 24 January 1791) was a French baroque, rococo and neoclassical sculptor, best-known for his equestrian statue of Peter the Great, the ''Bronze Horseman'' (1782), in St. Petersburg, Russia, and for ...
's ''Woman Bathing'' and ''Amour menaçant'', and François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassical works includes
Antonio Canova Antonio Canova (; 1 November 1757 – 13 October 1822) was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists,. his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the cla ...
's '' Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss'' (1787). The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptors like
Alfred Barye Alfred Barye "Le Fils" or Alf Barye (Paris, France, 21 January 1839 – Paris, France, 1882) was a French sculptor, of the Belle Époque, pupil of his father the artist Antoine-Louis Barye. In cooperation with Émile-Coriolan Guillemin, Barye ...
and Émile Guillemin. Tomb of Philippe Pot, Right Side - Louvre, Room 10.jpg, The ''
Tomb of Philippe Pot The Tomb of Philippe Pot is a life-sized 15th-century funerary monument commissioned in 1477 by Philippe Pot, some 13 years before his death, to stand over his planned burial place in the chapel of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Cîteaux Abbey, near Dij ...
''; 1477 and 1483; limestone, paint, gold and lead; height: 181 cm, width: 260 cm, depth: 167 cm Fame riding Pegasus Coysevox Louvre MR1824.jpg, ''The King's Fame Riding Pegasus''; by
Antoine Coysevox Charles Antoine Coysevox ( or ; 29 September 164010 October 1720), was a French sculptor in the Baroque and Louis XIV style, best known for his sculpture decorating the gardens and Palace of Versailles and his portrait busts. Biography Coysevo ...
; 1701–1702;
Carrara Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence. Its mot ...
marble; height: 3.15 m, width: 2.91 m, depth: 1.28 m File:Louvre seine marne mr1801.jpg, Group sculpture; by Nicolas Coustou; 1701–1712; marble; height: 2.44 m File:Louis XV Coustou Louvre MR1811.jpg,
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
as
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...
; 1731; probably marble; height: 1.95 m, width: 1.20 m, depth: 68 cm


Decorative arts

The Objets d'art collection spans the time from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. The department began as a subset of the sculpture department, based on royal property and the transfer of work from the Basilique Saint-Denis, the burial ground of French monarchs that held the ''Coronation Sword of the Kings of France''. Among the budding collection's most prized works were
pietre dure ''Pietra dura'' () or ''pietre dure'' () ( see below), called parchin kari or parchinkari ( fa, ) in the Indian Subcontinent, is a term for the inlay technique of using cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images. It is ...
vases and bronzes. The Durand collection's 1825 acquisition added "ceramics, enamels, and stained glass", and 800 pieces were given by Pierre Révoil. The onset of
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
rekindled interest in
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
and
Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
artwork, and the Sauvageot donation expanded the department with 1,500 middle-age and
faïence Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ...
works. In 1862, the Campana collection added gold jewelry and maiolicas, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries. The works are displayed on the Richelieu Wing's first floor and in the Apollo Gallery, named by the painter Charles Le Brun, who was commissioned by Louis XIV (the Sun King) to decorate the space in a solar theme. The medieval collection contains the coronation crown of Louis XIV, Charles V's sceptre, and the 12th century ''porphyry vase''. The Renaissance art holdings include
Giambologna Giambologna (1529 – 13 August 1608), also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small ...
's bronze ''Nessus and Deianira'' and the tapestry ''Maximillian's Hunt''.Nave, p. 130 From later periods, highlights include
Madame de Pompadour Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (, ; 29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764), commonly known as Madame de Pompadour, was a member of the French court. She was the official chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, and rem ...
's
Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for ...
vase collection and Napoleon III's apartments. In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the
Gilbert Chagoury Gilbert Ramez Chagoury (born 1946) is a Nigerian billionaire businessman, diplomat and philanthropist, who lives in Paris, France. Early life Gilbert Chagoury is a Lebanese Nigerian who was born to Lebanese immigrant parents in Lagos, Nigeria. ...
and Rose-Marie Chagoury Gallery to display tapestries donated by the Chagourys, including a 16th-century six-part tapestry suite, sewn with gold and silver threads representing sea divinities, which was commissioned in Paris for Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy. Armoire Louvre OA 6968.jpg, Henry II style wardrobe; circa 1580; walnut and oak, partially gilded and painted; height: 2.06 m, width: 1.50 m, depth: 0.60 m Musée du Louvre - Département des Objets d'art - Salle 34 -2.JPG,
Louis XIV style The Louis XIV style or ''Louis Quatorze'' ( , ), also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official ...
cabinet on stand; by
André Charles Boulle André-Charles Boulle (11 November 164229 February 1732), ''le joailler du meuble'' (the "furniture jeweller"), became the most famous French cabinetmaker and the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry, also known as " inlay". Boulle was " ...
; circa 1690–1710; oak frame, resinous wood and walnut, ebony veneer, tortoiseshell, brass and pewter marquetry, and
ormolu Ormolu (; from French ''or moulu'', "ground/pounded gold") is the gilding technique of applying finely ground, high-carat gold– mercury amalgam to an object of bronze, and for objects finished in this way. The mercury is driven off in a kiln le ...
Commode de la comtesse du Barry (Louvre, OA 11293).jpg,
Louis XVI style Louis XVI style, also called ''Louis Seize'', is a style of architecture, furniture, decoration and art which developed in France during the 19-year reign of Louis XVI (1774–1793), just before the French Revolution. It saw the final phase of t ...
commode of
Madame du Barry Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry (19 August 1743 – 8 December 1793) was the last '' maîtresse-en-titre'' of King Louis XV of France. She was executed, by guillotine, during the French Revolution due to accounts of treason—particularly bei ...
; 1772; oak frame, veneer of pearwood, rosewood and kingwood, soft-paste
Sèvres porcelain Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for i ...
, gilded bronze, white marble, and glass; height: 0.87 m, width: 1.19 m, depth: 0.48 m Baromètre - thermomètre (Louvre, OA 10545).jpg, Louis XVI style barometer-thermometer; circa 1776; soft-paste Sèvres porcelain, enamel, and ormolu; height: 1 m, width: 0.27 m


Painting

The painting collection has more than 7,500 works from the 13th century to 1848 and is managed by 12 curators who oversee the collection's display. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200 are Northern European. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of Francis I and Louis XIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era, and some were bought. The collection began with Francis, who acquired works from Italian masters such as
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...
and
Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...
and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court. After the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the ''d'Orsay'' train station was converted into the
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French a ...
in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the
1848 Revolution The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...
were moved to the new museum. French and Northern European works are in the Richelieu Wing and ''Cour Carrée''; Spanish and Italian paintings are on the first floor of the Denon Wing. Exemplifying the French School are the early '' Avignon Pietà'' of
Enguerrand Quarton Enguerrand Quarton (or Charonton) ( 1410 – 1466) was a French painter and manuscript illuminator whose few surviving works are among the first masterpieces of a distinctively French style, very different from either Italian or Early Netherlan ...
; the anonymous painting of ''King Jean le Bon'' ( 1360), possibly the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era; Hyacinthe Rigaud's ''Louis XIV'';
Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away f ...
's ''
The Coronation of Napoleon ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
''; Théodore Géricault's '' The Raft of the Medusa''; and
Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
's '' Liberty Leading the People''. Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Brun, La Tour, Watteau, Fragonard, Ingres, Corot, and Delacroix are well represented. Northern European works include
Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...
's ''
The Lacemaker ''The Lacemaker'' (french: La Dentellière) is a 1977 French drama film directed by Claude Goretta and starring Isabelle Huppert and Yves Beneyton. It is based on the 1974 Prix Goncourt winning novel '' La Dentellière'' by Pascal Lainé. ...
'' and '' The Astronomer'';
Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landsca ...
's '' The Tree of Crows'';
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...
's ''The Supper at Emmaus'', '' Bathsheba at Her Bath'', and ''The Slaughtered Ox''. The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. The works include
Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, , ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g. by lowering the horizon in orde ...
and
Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his fath ...
's ''Calvary''s, which reflect realism and detail "meant to depict the significant events of a greater spiritual world". The High Renaissance collection includes
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...
's ''
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
'', '' Virgin and Child with St. Anne'', '' St. John the Baptist'', and '' Madonna of the Rocks''. The Baroque collection includes
Giambattista Pittoni Giambattista Pittoni or Giovanni Battista Pittoni (6 June 1687 – 6 November 1767) was a Venetian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He was among the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, of which in 1758 he became the ...
's '' The Continence of Scipio'', '' Susanna and the Elders'', ''
Bacchus and Ariadne ''Bacchus and Ariadne'' (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in ...
'', '' Mars and Venus'', and others
Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of h ...
is represented by '' The Fortune Teller'' and ''
Death of the Virgin The Death of the Virgin Mary is a common subject in Western Christian art, the equivalent of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Eastern Orthodox art. This depiction became less common as the doctrine of the Assumption gained support in the Roma ...
''. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
's ''Le Concert Champetre'', ''The Entombment,'' and ''The Crowning with Thorns''. The La Caze Collection, a bequest to the Musée du Louvre in 1869 by Louis La Caze, was the largest contribution of a person in the history of the Louvre. La Caze gave 584 paintings of his personal collection to the museum. The bequest included Antoine Watteau's Commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot ("Gilles"). In 2007, this bequest was the topic of the exhibition "1869: Watteau, Chardin... entrent au Louvre. La collection La Caze". Some of the best known paintings of the museum have been digitized by the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France. Quentin Massys 001.jpg, '' The Money Changer and His Wife''; by Quentin Massys; 1514; oil on panel; 70.5 × 67 cm Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Spring, 1573.jpg, ''Spring''; by
Giuseppe Arcimboldo Giuseppe Arcimboldo (; also spelled ''Arcimboldi'') (1526 or 1527 – 11 July 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish and books. These wo ...
; 1573; oil on canvas; 76 × 64 cm Suzanne et les vieillards - Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Q18573893.jpg, '' Susanna and the Elders''; by
Giambattista Pittoni Giambattista Pittoni or Giovanni Battista Pittoni (6 June 1687 – 6 November 1767) was a Venetian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He was among the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, of which in 1758 he became the ...
; 1720; oil on panel; 37 × 46 cm La Continence de Scipion - Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Q18573892.jpg, '' The Continence of Scipio''; by
Giambattista Pittoni Giambattista Pittoni or Giovanni Battista Pittoni (6 June 1687 – 6 November 1767) was a Venetian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He was among the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, of which in 1758 he became the ...
; 1733; oil on panel; 96 × 56 cm François boucher, diana che esce dal bagno, 1742, 01.jpg, ''Diana after the Bath''; by
François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...
; 1742; oil on canvas; 73 × 56 cm Jacques-Louis David, Le Serment des Horaces.jpg, '' Oath of the Horatii''; by
Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away f ...
; 1784; oil on canvas; height: 330 cm, width: 425 cm Jacques-Louis David 006.jpg,
The Coronation of Napoleon ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
by
Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away f ...
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...
purchased by François I"> Virgin of the Rocks (Louvre).jpg, Leonardo da Vinci - Virgin and Child with St Anne C2RMF retouched.jpg,


Prints and drawings

The
prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserved ...
and drawings department encompasses works on paper. The origins of the collection were the 8,600 works in the Royal Collection (''Cabinet du Roi''), which were increased via state appropriation, purchases such as the 1,200 works from Fillipo Baldinucci's collection in 1806, and donations. The department opened on 5 August 1797, with 415 pieces displayed in the Galerie d'Apollon. The collection is organized into three sections: the core ''Cabinet du Roi'', 14,000 royal copper printing-plates, and the donations of Edmond de Rothschild, which include 40,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 5,000 illustrated books. The holdings are displayed in the Pavillon de Flore; due to the fragility of the paper medium, only a portion are displayed at one time. Trois têtes d'hommes en relation avec le lion.jpg, Three lion-like heads; by
Charles Le Brun Charles Le Brun (baptised 24 February 1619 – 12 February 1690) was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. As court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist of ...
; circa 1671; black chalk, pen and ink, brush and gray wash, white gouache on paper; 21.7 × 32,7 cm Antoine Coypel - Bacchus.jpg, ''
Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...
''; by
Antoine Coypel Antoine Coypel (11 April 16617 January 1722) was a French painter, pastellist, engraver, decorative designer and draughtsman.sanguine; 42.7 × 37.7 cm WATTEAU Antoine - Huit études de têtes de femme, et une tête d'homme.jpg, ''Studies of Women's Heads and a Man's Head''; by Antoine Watteau; first half of the 18th century; sanguine, black chalk and white chalk on gray paper; 28 × 38.1 cm Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas 018.jpg, ''Danseuse sur la scène''; by
Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Printmaking, prints ...
;
pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...
; 58 × 42 cm Matthias Grünewald - Smiling Woman - WGA10822.jpg, Portrait of elderly woman, by
Matthias Grünewald Matthias Grünewald ( – 31 August 1528) was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. His first name is also given ...
Hans Holbein d. J. - Head of a Woman - WGA11590.jpg, Portrait of a young woman، by Hans Holbein Andrea del Sarto - Head of a Young Man - WGA0384.jpg, Head of a man, by
Andrea del Sarto Andrea del Sarto (, , ; 16 July 1486 – 29 September 1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. He was known as an outstanding fresco decorator, painter of altar-pieces ...
Biagio Pupini - Vierge à l'Enfant.jpg, Virgin and Child, by
Biagio Pupini Biagio Pupini was an Italian painter of the Renaissance period, active mainly in his native city of Bologna. He was known to be active mainly during 1530–1540. He was a disciple of Francesco Francia. He completed paintings for the church of ...


Management, administration, partnerships

The Louvre is owned by the French government. Since the 1990s, its management and governance have been made more independent. Since 2003, the museum has been required to generate funds for projects. By 2006, government funds had dipped from 75 percent of the total budget to 62 percent. Every year, the Louvre now raises as much as it gets from the state, about €122 million. The government pays for operating costs (salaries, safety, and maintenance), while the rest – new wings, refurbishments, acquisitions – is up to the museum to finance.Farah Nayeri (20 January 2009)
Banks compete to manage Louvre's endowment
''
International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
''.
A further €3 million to €5 million a year is raised by the Louvre from exhibitions that it curates for other museums, while the host museum keeps the ticket money. As the Louvre became a point of interest in the book ''
The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Lang ...
'' and the 2006 film based on the book, the museum earned $2.5 million by allowing filming in its galleries. In 2008, the French government provided $180 million of the Louvre's yearly $350 million budget; the remainder came from private contributions and ticket sales. The Louvre employs a staff of 2,000 led by Director Jean-Luc Martinez, who reports to the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. Martinez replaced
Henri Loyrette Henri Loyrette (born 31 May 1952 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris) was the chairman of Admical, a French organisation dedicated to corporate philanthropy., and the former director of the Louvre Museum (2001–2013). He became first curator ...
in April 2013. Under Loyrette, who replaced
Pierre Rosenberg Pierre Max Rosenberg (born 13 April 1936) is a French art historian, curator, and professor. Rosenberg is the honorary president a director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and since 1995, he has held the 23rd seat of the Académie Française. ...
in 2001, the Louvre has undergone policy changes that allow it to lend and borrow more works than before. In 2006, it loaned 1,300 works, which enabled it to borrow more foreign works. From 2006 to 2009, the Louvre lent artwork to the
High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...
in Atlanta, Georgia, and received a $6.9 million payment to be used for renovations. In 2009, Minister of culture Frédéric Mitterrand approved a plan that would have created a storage facility northwest of Paris to hold objects from the Louvre and two other national museums in Paris's flood zone, the Musée du Quai Branly and the
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French a ...
; the plan was later scrapped. In 2013, his successor
Aurélie Filippetti Aurélie Filippetti ( ; born 17 June 1973) is a French politician and novelist. She served as French Minister of Culture and Communications from 2012 until 2014, first in the government of Jean-Marc Ayrault and then in the government of Manu ...
announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of artVincent Noce (13 July 2015)
Louvre's superstore to go ahead despite protests
''
The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
''.
held in a basement storage area in
Liévin Liévin (; pcd, Lévin; ) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The inhabitants are called ''Liévinois''. Overview The town of Liévin is an old mining area of Pas-de-Calais. Near Lens, this town is of modest size bu ...
; the cost of the project, estimated at €60 million, will be split between the region (49%) and the Louvre (51%). The Louvre will be the sole owner and manager of the store. In July 2015, a team led by British firm
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...
was selected to design the complex, which will have light-filled work spaces under one vast, green roof. In 2012, the Louvre and the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...
announced a five-year collaboration on exhibitions, publications, art conservation and educational programming. The €98.5 million expansion of the Islamic Art galleries in 2012 received state funding of €31 million, as well as €17 million from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. The Republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated in total €26 million. In addition, the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is supposed to provide €400 million over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum's brand. Loyrette has tried to improve weak parts of the collection through income generated from loans of art and by guaranteeing that "20% of admissions receipts will be taken annually for acquisitions". He has more administrative independence for the museum and achieved 90 percent of galleries to be open daily, as opposed to 80 percent previously. He oversaw the creation of extended hours and free admission on Friday nights and an increase in the acquisition budget to $36 million from $4.5 million. In March 2018, an exhibition of dozens of artworks and relics belonging to France's Louvre Museum was opened to visitors in
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
, as a result of an agreement between Iranian and French presidents in 2016. In the Louvre, two departments were allocated to the antiquities of the Iranian civilization, and the managers of the two departments visited Tehran. Relics belonging to Ancient Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia as well as French royal items were showcased at the Tehran exhibition. Iran's
National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...
building was designed and constructed by French architect
André Godard André Godard (21 January 1881 – 31 July 1965) was an archaeologist, architect and historian of French and Middle Eastern Art. He served as the director of the Iranian Archeological Service for many years. Life Godard was born in Chaumont. A ...
. Following its time in Tehran, the exhibition is set to be held in the
Khorasan Grand Museum Khorasan may refer to: * Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan * Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
in
Mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province and has a po ...
, northeastern Iran in June 2018. On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death, the Louvre held the largest ever single exhibit of his work, from 24 October 2019 to 24 February 2020. The event included over a hundred items: paintings, drawings and notebooks. A full 11 of the fewer than 20 paintings that Da Vinci completed in his lifetime were displayed. Five of them are owned by the Louvre, but the
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best kno ...
was not included because it is in such great demand among visitors to the Louvre museum; the work remained on display in its gallery.
Salvator Mundi , Latin for Saviour of the World, is a subject in iconography depicting Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding an orb (frequently surmounted by a cross), known as a . The latter symbolizes the Earth, and the wh ...
was also not included since the Saudi owner did not agree to move the work from its hiding place.
Vitruvian Man The ''Vitruvian Man'' ( it, L'uomo vitruviano; ) is a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to . Inspired by the writings by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, the drawing depicts a nude man in two s ...
, however, was on display, after a successful legal battle with its owner, the
Galleria dell'Accademia The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze, or "Gallery of the Academy of Florence", is an art museum in Florence, Italy. It is best known as the home of Michelangelo's sculpture ''David''. It also has other sculptures by Michelangelo and a large ...
in Venice. In 2021, a Renaissance era ceremonial helmet and breastplate stolen from the museum in 1983 were recovered. The museum noted that the 1983 theft had "deeply troubled all the staff at the time." There are few publicly accessible details on the theft itself. In May 2021, it was announced that Laurence des Cars has been picked by French president Emmanuel Macron as the next leader of the Louvre. For the first time in its 228-year history, the Louvre will be directed by a woman. During the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, the Louvre has launched a platform where most of its works, including those that are not on display, can be seen. The new platform, collections.louvre.fr, already has more than 482,000 illustrated records – representing 75% of its rich and varied collections.


Archaeological research

The Louvre's ancient art collections are to a significant extent the product of excavations, some of which the museum sponsored under various legal regimes over time, often as a companion to France's diplomacy and/or colonial enterprises. In the , a carved marble panel lists a number of such campaigns, led by: *
Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel Louis-François-Sebastien Fauvel (born 14 September 1753 in Clermont-en-Beauvaisis; died 12 March 1838 in Smyrna) was a French painter, diplomat and archaeologist who was long stationed in Athens. Fauvel has been called the "Father of Archaeolog ...
in Greece (1818) *
Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in t ...
in Egypt (1828-1829) *
Guillaume-Abel Blouet Guillaume-Abel Blouet (6 October 1795 – 7 May 1853) was a French architect who specialised in prison design. Biography Blouet was born at Passy. He won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1821 at the École des Beaux-Arts, entitling him to five years' ...
and
Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois (1780-1846) was a French illustrator and lithographer, also an archaeologist and curator at the Louvre museum. Life Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois studied fine arts and painting in the ateliers of painters Antoine-Jean Gros ...
with the
Morea expedition The Morea expedition (french: link=no, Expédition de Morée) is the name given to the land intervention of the French Army in the PeloponneseMorea is the name of the Peloponnese region in Greece, which was mainly used from the medieval per ...
in Greece (1829) * in Algeria (1842-1845) *
Paul-Émile Botta Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 – 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Shar ...
in the Nineveh Plains (1845) * in
Cyrenaica Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή ��παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
(1850) *
Auguste Mariette François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette (11 February 182118 January 1881) was a French scholar, archaeologist and Egyptologist, and the founder of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, the forerunner of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Early ...
in Egypt (1850-1854) * Victor Langlois in
Cilicia Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern co ...
(1852) *
Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...
with the Mission de Phénicie following the
1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus The 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus (also called the 1860 Syrian Civil War) was a civil conflict in Mount Lebanon during Ottoman rule in 1860–1861 fought mainly between the local Druze and Christians. Following decisive Druze ...
(1860-1861) * Léon Heuzey and
Honoré Daumet Pierre Jérôme Honoré Daumet (23 October 1826, Paris – 12 December 1911, Paris) was a French architect. Biography Daumet was the winner of the Prix de Rome in 1855, and in 1861 conducted a treasure-hunting expedition to Macedonia at the requ ...
in Macedonia (1861) *
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé Marie-Eugène-Melchior, vicomte de Vogüé (25 February 1848 – 29 March 1910) was a French diplomat, Orientalist, travel writer, archaeologist, philanthropist and literary critic. Biography Born in Nice, France, he served in the Franco-Pruss ...
and
Edmond Duthoit Edmond Clément Marie Duthoit (1837–1889) was a French 19th-century architect, originating from Amiens. He was the eldest son of Aimé Duthoit, the nephew of Louis Duthoit, both picard designers and sculptors, and the father of Louis Duthoit. ...
in Cyprus (1863-1866) * Charles Champoiseau in
Samothrace Samothrace (also known as Samothraki, el, Σαμοθράκη, ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a municipality within the Evros regional unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,859 (2011 ...
(1863) * in
Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
and
Thasos Thasos or Thassos ( el, Θάσος, ''Thásos'') is a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea. It is the northernmost major Greek island, and 12th largest by area. The island has an area of and a population of about 13,000. It forms a separate r ...
(1864-1865) * Olivier Rayet and Albert-Félix-Théophile Thomas in
Ionia Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionia ...
(1872-1873) *
Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (19 February 1846 – 15 February 1923) was a noted French Orientalist and archaeologist. Biography Clermont-Ganneau was born in Paris, the son of Simon Ganneau, a sculptor and mystic who died in 1851 when Clerm ...
in Palestine (1873) * in Algeria and Tunisia (1874) * Ernest de Sarzec in Tello / ancient
Girsu Girsu ( Sumerian ; cuneiform ) was a city of ancient Sumer, situated some northwest of Lagash, at the site of modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. History Girsu was possibly inhabited in the Ubaid period (5300-4800 BC), but ...
,
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
(1877-1900) * Paul Girard in Greece (1881) *
Edmond Pottier Edmond François Paul Pottier (13 August 1855, Saarbrücken – 4 July 1934, Paris) was an art historian and archaeologist who was instrumental in establishing the Corpus vasorum antiquorum. He was a pioneering scholar in the study of Ancient Greek ...
, Salomon Reinach and Alphonse Veyries in
Myrina (Aeolis) Myrina ( grc, Μυρίνα) was one of the Aeolian cities on the western coast of Mysia, about 40 stadia to the southwest of Gryneion. The former bishopric is now a Latin Catholic titular see. Its site is believed to be occupied by the mode ...
(1872-1873) * Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy and Jane Dieulafoy in
Susa Susa ( ; Middle elx, 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, translit=Šušen; Middle and Neo- elx, 𒋢𒋢𒌦, translit=Šušun; Neo- Elamite and Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, translit=Šušán; Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼, translit=Šušá; fa, شوش ...
, Persia (1884-1886) * Charles Huber in
Tayma Tayma ( Taymanitic: , vocalized as: ; ar, تيماء, translit=Taymāʾ) or Tema Teman/Tyeman (Habakkuk 3:3) is a large oasis with a long history of settlement, located in northwestern Saudi Arabia at the point where the trade route between ...
, Arabia (1885) * Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher in India and present-day Pakistan (1895-1897) *
Arthur Engel Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more w ...
and in Spain (1897) *
Jacques de Morgan Jean-Jacques de Morgan (3 June 1857, Huisseau-sur-Cosson, Loir-et-Cher – 14 June 1924) was a French mining engineer, geologist, and archaeologist. He was the director of antiquities in Egypt during the 19th century, and excavated in Memp ...
in
Susa Susa ( ; Middle elx, 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, translit=Šušen; Middle and Neo- elx, 𒋢𒋢𒌦, translit=Šušun; Neo- Elamite and Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, translit=Šušán; Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼, translit=Šušá; fa, شوش ...
(1897) * Gaston Cros in Tello / ancient
Girsu Girsu ( Sumerian ; cuneiform ) was a city of ancient Sumer, situated some northwest of Lagash, at the site of modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. History Girsu was possibly inhabited in the Ubaid period (5300-4800 BC), but ...
(1902) *
Paul Pelliot Paul Eugène Pelliot (28 May 187826 October 1945) was a French Sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and his discovery of many important Chinese texts such as the Dunhuang manuscripts. Early life and career ...
in Chinese Turkestan (1907-1909) * Maurice Pézard in Northern Palestine (1923) *
Georges Aaron Bénédite Georges Aaron Bénédite (10 August 1857 26 March 1926) was a French Egyptologist and curator at the Louvre. He was born at Nîmes, the son of Samuel Bénédite and Isabelle Bénédite born Lisbonne, whose second husband Georges Lafenestre, was ...
in Egypt (1926) *
François Thureau-Dangin François Thureau-Dangin (3 January 1872 in Paris – 24 January 1944 in Paris) was a French archaeologist, assyriologist and epigrapher. He played a major role in deciphering of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. He studied under Julius O ...
in Northern Syria (1929) *
Henri de Genouillac Henri Pierre Louis du Verdier de Genouillac, called Abbé Henri de Genouillac, (15 March 1881, Rouen – 20 November 1940, in his clergy house in Villennes-sur-Seine) was a French Roman catholic priest, epigrapher and archaeologist specializing i ...
in Mesopotamia (1912, 1929) * the
Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale The Institut français d'archéologie orientale (or IFAO), also known as the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, is a French research institute based in Cairo, Egypt, dedicated to the study of the archaeology, history and language ...
in Cairo, created in 1880 The rest of the plaque combines donors of archaeological items, many of whom were archaeologists themselves, and other archaeologists whose excavations contributed to the Louvre's collections: * in France (1899) *
Édouard Piette Édouard Louis Stanislas Piette (11 March 1827, Aubigny-les-Pothées – 5 June 1906, Rumigny) was a French archaeologist and prehistorian. Biography A magistrate by vocation, at around the age of 28 he developed an interest in geology. He stu ...
in France (1902) * in France (1899-1906) * Henri and
Jacques de Morgan Jean-Jacques de Morgan (3 June 1857, Huisseau-sur-Cosson, Loir-et-Cher – 14 June 1924) was a French mining engineer, geologist, and archaeologist. He was the director of antiquities in Egypt during the 19th century, and excavated in Memp ...
in Susa (1909-1910) * (1906-1920) and his daughter Germaine in France (1976) * in France (1929) * and his wife Suzanne in France (1935) * Fernand Bisson de la Roque in Egypt (1922-1950) * Bernard Bruyère in Egypt (1920-1951) * Raymond Weill in Egypt (1952) * Pierre Montet in Egypt (1921-1956) * in the
Indus Valley The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
and Afghanistan (1950-1973) * in France (1973) *
André Parrot André Charles Ulrich Parrot (15 February 1901 – 24 August 1980) was a French archaeologist specializing in the ancient Near East. He led excavations in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, and is best known for his work at Mari, Syria, where he led ...
in
Mari, Syria Mari (Cuneiform: , ''ma-riki'', modern Tell Hariri; ar, تل حريري) was an ancient Semitic city-state in modern-day Syria. Its remains form a tell 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates River western bank, some 120&n ...
(1931-1974) * Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer in
Ugarit ) , image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg , image_size=300 , alt = , caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit , map_type = Near East#Syria , map_alt = , map_size = 300 , relief=yes , location = Latakia Governorate, Syria , region = ...
, Syria (1929-1970) * Roman Ghirshman in Iraq and Iran (1931-1972)


Satellites and offshoots

Several museums in and outside France have been or are placed under the Louvre's administrative authority or linked to it through exclusive partnerships, while not being located in the
Louvre Palace The Louvre Palace (french: link=no, Palais du Louvre, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and t ...
. Since 2019, the Louvre has also maintained a large art storage and research facility in the Northern French town of
Liévin Liévin (; pcd, Lévin; ) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The inhabitants are called ''Liévinois''. Overview The town of Liévin is an old mining area of Pas-de-Calais. Near Lens, this town is of modest size bu ...
, the , which is not open to the public.


Musée de Cluny (1926-1977)

In February 1926, the
Musée de Cluny The Musée de Cluny ("Cluny Museum", ), also known as Musée national du Moyen Âge – Thermes et hôtel de Cluny ("National Museum of the Middle Ages – Cluny thermal baths and mansion"), is a museum of the Middle Ages in Paris, ...
, whose creation dates back to the 19th century, was brought under the aegis of the Louvre's department of decorative arts (). That affiliation was terminated in 1977.


Musée du Jeu de Paume (1947-1986)

The building in the
Tuileries Garden The Tuileries Garden (french: Jardin des Tuileries, ) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in ...
, initially intended as a sports venue, was repurposed from 1909 as an art gallery. In 1947, it became the exhibition space for the Louvre's collections of late 19th and early 20th paintings, most prominently
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...
, as the Louvre Palace was lacking space to display them, and was consequently brought under direct management by the Louvre's . In 1986, these collections were transferred to the newly created
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French a ...
.


Gypsothèque du Louvre (since 2001)

The (plaster cast gallery) of the Louvre is a collection of
plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...
s that was formed in 1970 by the reunion of the corresponding inventories of the Louvre, the
Beaux-Arts de Paris The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Sciences ...
and the Art and Archaeology Institute of the
Sorbonne University Sorbonne University (french: Sorbonne Université; la Sorbonne: 'the Sorbonne') is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sor ...
, the latter two following depredations during the
May 68 Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which h ...
student unrest. Initially called the from 1970 to 1978, the project was subsequently left unfinished and only came to fruition after being brought under the Louvre's management by ministerial decision in 2001. It is located in the , a dependency of Versailles Palace, and has been open to the public since 2012.


Musée Delacroix (since 2004)

The small museum located in
Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
's former workshop in central Paris, created in the 1930s, has been placed under management by the Louvre since 2004.


Louvre-Lens (since 2012)

The Louvre-Lens follows a May 2003 initiative by then culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon to promote cultural projects outside of Paris that would make the riches of major Parisian institutions available to a broader French public, including a satellite () of the Louvre. After several rounds of competition, a former mining site in the town of
Lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...
was selected for its location and announced by Prime Minister
Jean-Pierre Raffarin Jean-Pierre Raffarin (; born 3 August 1948) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005. He resigned after France's rejection of the referendum on the European Union draft constitution. Howev ...
on . Japanese architects
SANAA Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Gover ...
and landscape architect Catherine Mosbach were respectively selected in September 2005 to design the museum building and garden. Inaugurated by President
François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (France), First Secretary of the Socialist P ...
on , the Louvre-Lens is run by the
Hauts-de-France Hauts-de-France (; pcd, Heuts-d'Franche; , also ''Upper France'') is the northernmost region of France, created by the territorial reform of French regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its prefecture is Lille. The ...
region under a contract () with the Louvre for art loans and brand use. Its main attraction is an exhibition of roughly 200 artworks from the Louvre on a rotating basis, presented chronologically in a single large room (the or "gallery of time") that transcends the geographical and object-type divisions along which the Parisian Louvre's displays are organized. The Louvre-Lens has been successful at attracting around 500,000 visitors per year until the COVID-19 pandemic.


Louvre Abu Dhabi (since 2017)

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is a separate entity from the Louvre, but the two entities have a multifaceted contractual relationship that allows the Emirati museum to use the Louvre name until 2037, and to exhibit artworks from the Louvre until 2027. It was inaugurated on and opened to the public three days later. A 30-year agreement, signed in early 2007 by French Culture Minister
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres (born 13 March 1954 in Neuilly-sur-Seine), often known as RDDV, is a French politician, France's Minister of Culture from 2004 to 2007. He is a member of the UMP center-right party, and the grandson of Henri Donnedie ...
and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, establishes that Abu Dhabi shall pay €832,000,000 (US$1.3 billion) in exchange for the Louvre name use, managerial advice, art loans, and special exhibitions. The Louvre Abu Dhabi is located on
Saadiyat Island Saadiyat Island ( ar, جزيرة السعديات; ', for "Island of Happiness") is a natural island and a tourism-cultural project for nature and Emirati heritage and culture that is located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The project i ...
and was designed by the French architect
Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and '' Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has o ...
and engineering firm of
Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...
. It occupies and is covered by an iconic metallic dome designed to cast rays of light mimicking sunlight passing through
date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across northern Africa, the Middle Eas ...
fronds in an
oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
. The French art loans, expected to total between 200 and 300 artworks during a 10-year period, come from multiple museums, including the Louvre, the
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, the
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French a ...
,
Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...
, the
Guimet Museum The Guimet Museum (full name in french: Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet; MNAAG; ) is an art museum located at 6, place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. Literally translated into English, its full name is the Nation ...
, the Musée Rodin, and the Musée du quai Branly.


Controversy

The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property seized under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II by the Nazis. During Nazi occupation, thousands of artworks were stolen. But after the war, 61,233 articles on more than 150,000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Office des Biens Privés. In 1949, it entrusted 2,130 unclaimed pieces (including 1,001 paintings) to the Direction des Musées de France in order to keep them under appropriate conditions of conservation until their restitution and meanwhile classified them as MNRs (Musées Nationaux Recuperation or, in English, the National Museums of Recovered Artwork). Some 10% to 35% of the pieces are believed to come from Jewish spoliations and until the identification of their rightful owners, which declined at the end of the 1960s, they are registered indefinitely on separate inventories from the museum's collections. They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (1950–1954) in order to allow rightful claimants to identify their properties, then stored or displayed, according to their interest, in several French museums including the Louvre. From 1951 to 1965, about 37 pieces were restituted. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 1947–1949 has been accessible online and completed. In 1997, Prime Minister
Alain Juppé Alain Marie Juppé (; born 15 August 1945) is a French politician. A member of The Republicans, he was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac, during which period he faced major strikes that paralysed the cou ...
initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by Jean Mattéoli, to investigate the matter and according to the government, the Louvre is in charge of 678 pieces of artwork still unclaimed by their rightful owners. During the late 1990s, the comparison of the American war archives, which had not been done before, with the French and German ones as well as two court cases which finally settled some of the heirs' rights (Gentili di Giuseppe and Rosenberg families) allowed more accurate investigations. Since 1996, the restitutions, according sometimes to less formal criteria, concerned 47 more pieces (26 paintings, with 6 from the Louvre including a then displayed Tiepolo), until the last claims of French owners and their heirs ended again in 2006. According to Serge Klarsfeld, since the now complete and constant publicity which the artworks got in 1996, the majority of the French Jewish community is nevertheless in favour of the return to the normal French civil rule of ''prescription acquisitive'' of any unclaimed good after another long period of time and consequently to their ultimate integration into the common French heritage instead of their transfer to foreign institutions like during World War II. Napoleon's campaigns acquired Italian pieces by treaties, as war reparations, and Northern European pieces as spoils as well as some antiquities excavated in Egypt, though the vast majority of the latter were seized as war reparations by the British army and are now part of collections of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. On the other hand, the Dendera zodiac is, like the
Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Anci ...
, claimed by Egypt even though it was acquired in 1821, before the Egyptian Anti-export legislation of 1835. The Louvre administration has thus argued in favor of retaining this item despite requests by Egypt for its return. The museum participates too in arbitration sessions held via
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
's Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin. The museum consequently returned in 2009 five Egyptian fragments of frescoes (30 cm x 15 cm each) whose existence of the tomb of origin had only been brought to the authorities attention in 2008, eight to five years after their good-faith acquisition by the museum from two private collections and after the necessary respect of the procedure of ''déclassement'' from French public collections before the Commission scientifique nationale des collections des musées de France. In 2011, over 130 international artists urged a boycott of the new Guggenheim museum as well as Louvre Abu Dhabi, citing reports, since 2009, of abuses of foreign construction workers on Saadiyat Island, including the arbitrary withholding of wages, unsafe working conditions, and failure of companies to pay or reimburse the steep recruitment fees being charged to laborers. According to ''
Architectural Record ''Architectural Record'' is a US-based monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design. "The Record," as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is widely-recognized as an important historical record of the unfolding debates in a ...
'', Abu Dhabi has comprehensive labor laws to protect the workers, but they are not conscientiously implemented or enforced.Fixsen, Anna
:What Is Frank Gehry Doing About Labor Conditions in Abu Dhabi?"
''
Architectural Record ''Architectural Record'' is a US-based monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design. "The Record," as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is widely-recognized as an important historical record of the unfolding debates in a ...
'', September 25, 2014
In 2010, the Guggenheim Foundation placed on its website a joint statement with Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) recognizing the following workers' rights issues, among others: health and safety of the workers; their access to their passports and other documents that the employers have been retaining to guaranty that they stay on the job; using a general contractor that agrees to obey the labor laws; maintaining an independent site monitor; and ending the system that has been generally used in the Persian Gulf region of requiring workers to reimburse recruitment fees. In 2013, ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' reported that conditions for the workers at the Louvre and New York University construction sites on Saadiyat amounted to "modern-day slavery".Carrick, Glenn and David Batty
"In Abu Dhabi, they call it Happiness Island. But for the migrant workers, it is a place of misery"
''The Observer'', 22 December 2013, accessed 30 June 2014; Batty, David
"Conditions for Abu Dhabi's migrant workers 'shame the west'"
''The Observer'', 22 December 2013, accessed 1 December 2014; Batty, David
"Campaigners criticise UAE for failing to tackle exploitation of migrant workers"
''The Observer'', 22 December 2013, accessed 30 June 2014
In 2014, the Guggenheim's Director, Richard Armstrong, said that he believed that living conditions for the workers at the Louvre project were now good and that "many fewer" of them were having their passports confiscated. He stated that the main issue then remaining was the recruitment fees charged to workers by agents who recruit them.Kaminer, Ariel and Sean O'Driscoll
"Workers at N.Y.U.’s Abu Dhabi Site Faced Harsh Conditions"
''The New York Times'', 18 May 2014
Later in 2014, the Guggenheim's architect, Gehry, commented that working with the Abu Dhabi officials to implement the law to improve the labor conditions at the museum's site is "a moral responsibility." He encouraged the TDIC to build additional worker housing and proposed that the contractor cover the cost of the recruitment fees. In 2012, TDIC engaged
PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounti ...
as an independent monitor required to issue reports every quarter. Labor lawyer Scott Horton told ''Architectural Record'' that he hoped the Guggenheim project will influence the treatment of workers on other Saadiyat sites and will "serve as a model for doing things right."Rosenbaum, Lee
"Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Still Stalled, as Monitoring Report Is Issued on Saadiyat Island Labor Conditions"
CultureGrrl, ArtsJournal.com, February 4, 2016


See also

* Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France * List of museums in Paris *
Musée de la mode et du textile The Musée de la mode et du textile (Museum of Fashion and Textiles) was a museum located in the Louvre at, 107, rue de Rivoli, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. It is now a department of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Works f ...


References


Works cited

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External links

*
Digital CollectionLouvre's 360x180 degree panorama virtual tour
{{Good article 1793 establishments in France Archaeological museums in France Art museums and galleries in Paris Art museums established in 1793 Egyptological collections in France History museums in France Institut de France Louvre Palace Museums in Paris Museums of ancient Greece in France Museums of Ancient Near East in France Museums of ancient Rome in France National museums of France Order of Arts and Letters of Spain recipients