Musée Napoléon

The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward) and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the ''Mona Lisa,'' ''Venus de Milo,'' and ''Winged Victory''. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, 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 converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.

The building was redesigned and extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles 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 and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, 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 National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The palace and exhibition space was expanded in the 19th century and again in the 20th.

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 from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon, after the Napoleonic looting of art in Europe, Egypt, and Syria, 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 and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire 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; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

The Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects 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. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of , making it the largest museum in the world. It received 8.7 million visitors in 2024, 200,000 less than 2023, due largely to competition from the 2024 Paris Olympics. In 2023 it was the most-visited museum in the world, ahead of the Vatican Museums.

Location and visiting

The Louvre museum is located inside the Louvre Palace, in the center of Paris, adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens. 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 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, or ''Hall Napoléon'', which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorized visitors) from the connecting to the nearby rue de Rivoli. 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. Prior to the 1850s, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-day "weeks" (), 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 week, 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 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.

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

The upgraded 2013 Louvre guide was also announced in a special Nintendo Direct featuring Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrating it at the museum, and 3DS XLs pre-loaded with the guide are available to rent at the museum. The 3DS Louvre guide is scheduled to be retired in September 2025 and will be replaced by a different guide system. As of August 2023, there are virtual tours through rooms and galleries accessible online.

History

Before the museum

The Louvre Palace, 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 still held Normandy 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 name derives from an association with a wolf hunting 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 given 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, Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including Leonardo da Vinci's ''Mona Lisa''.

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 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 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 for public viewing of the "king's paintings" (''Tableaux du Roy'') on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Luxembourg gallery included Andrea del Sarto's ''Charity'' and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck. It closed in 1780 as a result of the royal gift of the Luxembourg palace to the Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778. Under Louis XVI, 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 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 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 property ('' biens nationaux''). To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000  livres per year.Nora, p. 278 In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as the ''Laocoön'' and ''Apollo Belvedere'', 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 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's former summer apartment, located on the ground floor just below the Galerie d'Apollon.

Napoleonic era

On 19 November 1802, Napoleon appointed Vivant Denon, a scholar and polymath who had participated in the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, as the museum's first director, in preference to alternative contenders such as antiquarian Ennio Quirino Visconti, painter Jacques-Louis David, sculptor Antonio Canova 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. At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of the Austrian Monarchy. This treaty marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the end of the first phase of the French Revolutionary Wars. 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, which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris where they were placed atop Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1797. Under the Treaty of Tolentino, 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, 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 finally concluded agreements with the Austrian 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's time to the Second Empire, the Louvre and other national museums were managed under the monarch's civil list and thus depended much on the ruler's personal involvement. Whereas the most iconic collection remained that of paintings in the , 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 (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X added to the collections. The Greek and Roman sculpture gallery on the ground floor of the southwestern side of the Cour Carrée was completed on designs by Percier and Fontaine. In 1819 an exhibition of manufactured products was opened in the first floor of the Cour Carrée's southern wing and would stay there 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 Egyptian collection, initially curated by Jean-François Champollion, 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 to form the core of the present Museo Egizio in Turin). 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, many of whose artefacts came from the Palace of Versailles and from Alexandre Lenoir's Musée des Monuments Français following its closure in 1816. Meanwhile, the French Navy 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's North Wing, and in 1838 moved up one level to the 2nd-floor attic, 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, King Louis Philippe focused his interest on the repurposing of the Palace of Versailles 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 works brought to Paris by Paul-Émile Botta, in the ground-floor gallery north of the eastern entrance of the Cour Carrée. 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) 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) and of the Grande Galerie. 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.

Second Empire

The rule of Napoleon III 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 and Hector Lefuel created massive new spaces around what is now called the Cour Napoléon, 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, with the effect of shortening the 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:Escalier Mollien in 2010 (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. 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 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 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, on the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by Carolus-Duran, ''The Triumph of Marie de' Medici'' 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; Fragonard, Rembrandt and Watteau. In 1883, the ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', 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 in Iran, 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 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'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 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 of the northern half of the Cour Carrée, 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. The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the Palais de Chaillot in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art were moved to the Guimet Museum in 1945. Nevertheless, the Louvre's first gallery of Islamic art opened in 1893.

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, including some of France's first period room 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, the Louvre conducted an elaborate plan of evacuation of its art collection. When Germany occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such as the ''Mona Lisa'' 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'' and the ''Venus de Milo'' 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'' was first displayed in 1966. Around 1950, Louvre architect streamlined the interior decoration of the . In 1953, a new ceiling by Georges Braque was inaugurated in the , next to the . In the late 1960s, seats designed by Pierre Paulin were installed in the . 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 and Paulin.

In 1961, the Finance Ministry accepted to leave the Pavillon de Flore 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 proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, the Grand Louvre plan to relocate the Finance Ministry, 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, for which the planning had started before the ''Grand Louvre'', also opened in 1989. Further rooms in the same sequence, designed by Italo Rota, 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, 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 Ieoh Ming Pei's pyramid in its center, at dusk.
File:Paris July 2011-27a.jpg, The Louvre Palace and the pyramid (by day)

21st century

President Jacques Chirac, 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.Gareth Harris (13 September 2012)
Islamic art, covered
''Financial Times''.

In 2007, German painter Anselm Kiefer was invited to create a work for the North stairs of the Perrault Colonnade, ''Athanor''. This decision announces the museum's reengagement with contemporary art under the direction of Henri Loyrette, fifty years after the institution's last order to a contemporary artists, George Braque.

In 2010, American painter Cy Twombly 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.

That same year, the Louvre commissioned French artist François Morellet to create a work for the Lefuel stairs, on the first floor. For ''L'esprit d'escalier'' Morellet redesigned the stairscase's windows, echoing their original structures but distorting them to create a disturbing optical effect.

On 6 June 2014, the Decorative Arts section on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment.

In January 2020, under the direction of Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum inaugurated a new contemporary art commission, ''L'Onde du Midi'' by Venezuelan kinetic artist Elias Crespin. The sculpture hovers under the Escalier du Midi, the staircase on the South of the Perrault Colonnade.

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.

In preparation for the 2024 Olympics, the Louvre staged an exhibit about the Games' history that links their ancient beginnings to the modern era.

Attendance rose to 8.9 million in 2023, 14 percent above 2022, but still short of the record of 10.2 million in 2018.

In January 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for a renovation and expansion of the Louvre, including a room solely for the Mona Lisa. The planned renovation and expansion was a result of the increasing number of visitors each year to the Louvre. On 16 June 2025, the museum's employees went on strike in protest against chronic issues such as overcrowding, understaffing and "untenable" working conditions.

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.

The Louvre is home to one of the world's most extensive collections of art, including works from diverse cultures and time periods. Visitors can view iconic works like the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, as well as pieces from ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The museum also features collections of decorative arts, Islamic art, and sculptures.

Egyptian antiquities

The department, comprising over 50,000 pieces, includes artifacts from the Nile 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, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine 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 translated the Rosetta Stone, 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 Drovetti; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum 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 scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons. Pieces from the ancient period include the '' Gebel el-Arak Knife'' 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 statue of Amenemhatankh and the wooden ''Offering Bearer''. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess Nephthys and the limestone depiction of the goddess Hathor demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth.

Gebel el-Arak knife mp3h8783-cropped.jpg, The '' Gebel el-Arak Knife''; 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; 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 and Nefertiti''; 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. The department is divided into three geographic areas: the Levant, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-Émile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of Sargon II's palace. These finds formed the basis of the Assyrian museum, the precursor to today's department.

The museum contains exhibits from Sumer and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's ''Stele of the Vultures'' from 2450 BC and the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains. The Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901, displays Babylonian Laws prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the '' Investiture of Zimrilim'' and the 25th-century BC '' Statue of Ebih-Il'' 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, including the '' Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II'' discovered in 1855, which catalyzed Ernest Renan's 1860 '' Mission de Phénicie''. It contains one of the world's largest and most comprehensive collections of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions. 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 Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the ''Funerary Head'' and the Persian ''Archers of Darius I'', and rare objects from Persepolis.

Eshmunazar II sarcophagus (cleaned up).jpg, Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, one of only three Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi found outside Egypt, and the first Phoenician inscription discovered in Phoenicia
Cup Idalion Louvre N3455.jpg, Phoenician metal bowls from Cyprus
Ebih-Il Louvre AO17551 n01.jpg, The '' Statue of Ebih-Il''; circa 2400 BC; gypsum, schist, shells and lapis lazuli; height: 52.5 cm
P1050763 Louvre code Hammurabi face rwk.JPG, The ''Code of Hammurabi''; 1755–1750 BC; basalt; height: 225 cm, width: 79 cm, thickness: 47 cm
Human headed winged bull profile.jpg, Assyrian lamassu (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; circa 510 BC; bricks
Sidon Mithraeum 'Collection Péretié', Louvre (2014-02-02a).jpg, Statues from the Sidon Mithraeum

Greek, Etruscan, and Roman

The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the Neolithic 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, and contains works acquired by Francis I. Initially, the collection focused on marble sculptures, such as the ''Venus de Milo''. Works such as the ''Apollo Belvedere'' arrived during the Napoleonic Wars, of which some were returned after Napoleon I's fall in 1815. Other works, such as the Borghese Vase, were bought by Napoleon. Later in the 19th century, the Louvre acquired works including vases from the Durand collection and bronzes.

The archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre, from 640 BC; and the cylindrical ''Hera of Samos'', –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 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 pottery, 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 Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Agrippa and Marcus Annius Verus (disambiguation), Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino.

Head figurine Spedos Louvre Ma2709.jpg, Cycladic art, Cycladic head of a woman; 27th century BC; marble; height: 27 cm
Crater Actaeon Louvre CA3482.jpg, Volute krater that depicts Actaeon'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''; 200–190 BC; Parian marble; 244 cm
Front views of the Venus de Milo.jpg, ''Venus de Milo''; 130–100 BC; marble; height: 203 cm
Las Incantadas (Louvre) 4.jpg, Las Incantadas, sculptures from a portico that adorned the Roman Forum (Thessaloniki), Roman Forum of Thessalonica, 150-230 AD

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 ''Pyxis of al-Mughira, Pyxide d'al-Mughira'', a 10th century ivory box from Andalusia; the ''Baptistery of Saint-Louis'', an engraved brass basin from the 13th or 14th century Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Mamluk period; and the 10th century ''Suaire de Saint-Josse, Shroud of Saint-Josse'' from Iran. The collection contains three pages of the ''Shahnameh'', an epic book of poems by Ferdowsi 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. 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 (painting technique), 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's ''Dying Slave'' 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, ''Childebert I, 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 contains Romanesque art, 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's bas-reliefs, and Germain Pilon's ''Descent from the Cross'' and ''Resurrection of Christ''. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1640–1 Bust of Cardinal Richelieu, Étienne Maurice Falconet's ''Woman Bathing'' and ''Amour menaçant'', and François and Michel Anguier, François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassicism, Neoclassical works includes Antonio Canova's ''Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss'' (1787). The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptors like Alfred Barye and Émile Guillemin.

Tomb of Philippe Pot, Right Side - Louvre, Room 10.jpg, The ''Tomb of Philippe Pot''; 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; 1701–1702; Carrara 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 as Jupiter (god), Jupiter; 1731; probably marble; height: 1.95 m, width: 1.20 m, depth: 68 cm

Decorative arts

The Objet d'art, 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 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 rekindled interest in Renaissance and Medieval artwork, and the Sauvageot donation expanded the department with 1,500 middle-age and faience, faïence 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 XV, Charles V of France, Charles V's sceptre, and the 12th century ''porphyry vase''. The Renaissance art holdings include Giambologna's bronze ''Nessus and Deianira'' and the tapestry ''Maximillian's Hunt''.Nave, p. 130 From later periods, highlights include Madame de Pompadour's Sèvres vase collection and Napoleon III of France, Napoleon III's apartments.

In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the Gilbert R. Chagoury, Gilbert Chagoury 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 Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay, Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy.

Armoire Louvre OA 6968.jpg, Henry II style wardrobe; ; 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 cabinet on stand; by André Charles Boulle; –1710; oak frame, resinous wood and walnut, ebony veneer, tortoiseshell, brass and pewter marquetry, and ormolu
Commode de la comtesse du Barry (Louvre, OA 11293).jpg, Louis XVI style commode of Madame du Barry; 1772; oak frame, veneer of pearwood, rosewood and kingwood, soft-paste Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, Sèvres porcelain, 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; ; 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 and Michelangelo and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court. After the French Revolution, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the ''d'Orsay'' train station was converted into the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the 1848 Revolution 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 ''Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, Avignon Pietà'' of Enguerrand Quarton; 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's ''The Coronation of Napoleon''; Théodore Géricault's ''The Raft of the Medusa''; and Eugène Delacroix'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's ''The Lacemaker (Vermeer), The Lacemaker'' and ''The Astronomer (Vermeer), The Astronomer''; Caspar David Friedrich's ''The Tree of Crows''; Rembrandt'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 and Giovanni Bellini'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's ''Mona Lisa'', ''The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (Leonardo da Vinci), Virgin and Child with St. Anne'', ''St. John the Baptist (Leonardo), St. John the Baptist'', and ''Madonna of the Rocks''. The Baroque collection includes Giambattista Pittoni's ''The Continence of Scipio'', ''Susanna and the Elders'', ''Bacchus and Ariadne'', ''Mars and Venus (Pittoni), Mars and Venus'', and others Caravaggio is represented by ''The Fortune Teller (Caravaggio), The Fortune Teller'' and ''Death of the Virgin (Caravaggio), Death of the Virgin''. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays Titian'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; 1573; oil on canvas; 76 × 64 cm
Suzanne et les vieillards - Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Q18573893.jpg, ''Susanna and the Elders''; by Giambattista Pittoni; 1720; oil on panel; 37 × 46 cm
La Continence de Scipion - Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Q18573892.jpg, ''The Continence of Scipio''; by Giambattista Pittoni; 1733; oil on panel; 96 × 56 cm
François boucher, diana che esce dal bagno, 1742, 01.jpg, ''Diana Bathing (Boucher), Diana after the Bath''; by François Boucher; 1742; oil on canvas; 73 × 56 cm
Jacques-Louis David, Le Serment des Horaces.jpg, ''Oath of the Horatii''; by Jacques-Louis David; 1784; oil on canvas; height: 330 cm, width: 425 cm
Jacques-Louis David 006.jpg, ''The Coronation of Napoleon'' by Jacques-Louis David

Leonardo da Vinci