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The Louvre (English: / ˈ l uː v (r ə)/ LOOV(-rə)), or the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] ⓘ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world.
- Louvre Palace
The Louvre Palace (French: Palais du Louvre, [palɛ dy...
- Louvre Palace
- Overview
- History of the building
- New locations in the 21st century
- Collection
Louvre, national museum and art gallery of France, housed in part of a large palace in Paris that was built on the right-bank site of the 12th-century fortress of Philip Augustus. It is the world’s most-visited art museum, with a collection that spans work from ancient civilizations to the mid-19th century.
(Read Sister Wendy’s Britannica essay on art appreciation.)
In 1546 Francis I, who was a great art collector, had this old castle razed and began to build on its site another royal residence, the Louvre, which was added to by almost every subsequent French monarch. Under Francis I, only a small portion of the present Louvre was completed, under the architect Pierre Lescot. This original section is today the southwestern part of the Cour Carrée. In the 17th century, major additions were made to the building complex by Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Cardinal de Richelieu, the chief minister of Louis XIII, acquired great works of art for the king. Louis XIV and his minister, Cardinal Mazarin, acquired outstanding art collections, including that of Charles I of England. A committee consisting of the architects Claude Perrault and Louis Le Vau and the decorator and painter Charles Le Brun planned that part of the Louvre which is known as the Colonnade.
The Louvre ceased to be a royal residence when Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles in 1682. The idea of using the Louvre as a public museum originated in the 18th century. The comte d’Angiviller helped build and plan the Grande Galerie and continued to acquire major works of art. In 1793 the revolutionary government opened to the public the Musée Central des Arts in the Grande Galerie. Under Napoleon the Cour Carrée and a wing on the north along the rue de Rivoli were begun. In the 19th century two major wings, their galleries and pavilions extending west, were completed, and Napoleon III was responsible for the exhibition that opened them. The completed Louvre was a vast complex of buildings forming two main quadrilaterals and enclosing two large courtyards.
In 2012 a satellite location of the Louvre in the northern French town of Lens opened to the public. The museum, designed by the Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, was intended to boost the economy of the region and to alleviate crowds at the Paris site. Five years later, after nearly a decade of delays, the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened in a building designed by French architect Jean Nouvel on Saadiyat Island, the emirate’s planned cultural hub. The new institution was the result of a controversial agreement between the governments of France and the United Arab Emirates, wherein the Louvre leased its name, parts of its collection, and its expertise to the nascent museum for a period of 30 years.
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(Read Glenn Lowry’s Britannica essay on "Art Museums & Their Digital Future.")
The Louvre’s painting collection is one of the richest in the world, representing all periods of European art up to the Revolutions of 1848. Works painted after that date that the Louvre once housed were transferred to the Musée d’Orsay upon its opening in 1986. The Louvre’s collection of French paintings from the 15th to the 19th century is unsurpassed in the world, and it also has many masterpieces by Italian Renaissance painters, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19), and works by Flemish and Dutch painters of the Baroque period.
The department of decorative arts displays the treasures of the French kings—bronzes, miniatures, pottery, tapestries, jewelry, and furniture—while the department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities features architecture, sculpture, mosaics, jewelry, and pottery. The department of Egyptian antiquities was established in 1826 to organize the collections acquired during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. The department of Near Eastern antiquities is most important for its collection of Mesopotamian art.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Louvre Palace (French: Palais du Louvre, [palɛ dy luvʁ]), 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 the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.
By the 19th century, the Louvre had been transformed into a museum, open to the public. The Louvre Museum is now home to more than 35,000 of the world’s most famous works of art, including the “Mona Lisa,” the “Venus de Milo,” and the “Great Sphinx of Tanis.”.
Mar 4, 2018 · Here, we look at the history of the Louvre Museum, from its medieval roots as the Louvre Palace to its present-day role as the world's most visited museum. We present a timeline of its history, including Louvre facts and information about the famous Louvre Pyramid.
Aug 10, 2017 · Like the paintings that now inhabit it, the building itself has a long history. Here are three things to know about the Louvre’s past: It was originally a defensive fort. The Louvre was...
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The Louvre receives more than eight million visitors a year, making it the most visited art museum in the world. History of the Louvre and the art collection. The original Castle of the Louvre was built under Philip Augustus in 1190 to defend Paris against Viking attacks.
