Louvre Museum

The Louvre Museum in Paris, France, is the largest art museum in the world, displaying more than thirty-five thousand pieces of art in about 650,000 square feet (60,386 square meters) of space. The museum's collection contains artifacts, paintings, and sculptures ranging from ancient times to the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the most well-known works of art from around the world are housed at the Louvre. These include the ancient Egyptian Seated Scribe sculpture, the ancient Greek statue the Venus de Milo, and the Renaissance painting Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The Louvre, an immense former royal palace featuring a large glass pyramid in its central courtyard, is one of the most famous landmarks in Paris. The museum receives more than eight million visitors every year.

Background

The Louvre was originally a fortress constructed in 1190 on the orders of King Philip II of France. The structure was an imposing castle located on the outskirts of Paris's western border to protect the city from invasion. Paris continued to expand its boundaries over the next few centuries, and by the fourteenth century, Philip's citadel was no longer strategically located to defend the city.

The castle fell into disrepair over the next two centuries. In 1527, King Francis I had it destroyed so it could be replaced with a new royal palace built in the Renaissance style. Francis enthusiastically supported the arts, and he filled his ever-expanding palace with paintings and sculptures over the course of his reign. Successive French kings continued adding new wings and buildings to the royal palace into the seventeenth century. The various structures were eventually connected by additional art galleries, and the exteriors of the sprawling palace were given uniform façades.

King Louis XIV moved the royal French residence to the Palace of Versailles in 1682. The Louvre was used to display certain royal artworks over the next hundred years, but it ceased to be royal property in the early years of the French Revolution (1789–1799). The French people had long lobbied for a national art museum to be established for public enjoyment. This was finally done after the deposition of King Louis XVI at the start of the revolution, when the new National Assembly declared that the Louvre would become an art museum.

The Louvre Museum opened in 1793. Its first exhibit contained five hundred paintings and other artworks that had been acquired from the ousted French aristocracy. The museum's collection grew quickly over the next two decades, as the French army pillaged artworks from its defeated foes in the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). The pieces included statues and various ancient artifacts taken by French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte from such locations as Germany, Italy, and Egypt. Some of this art was returned to these countries after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, although most of the Egyptian works remained at the Louvre.

The Louvre gained two more museum wings in the nineteenth century, and the museum was finally completed in the late 1850s. Early in World War II (1939–1945), many artworks were removed from the Louvre and hidden throughout France to keep them safe from the German army that would soon occupy the country. Nazi German officials later used the Louvre to sort art taken from the European countries they had conquered and ship it to Germany.

The Louvre was expanded and renovated in the 1980s and 1990s. It was during this period that Chinese American architect I.M. Pei designed a glass and steel pyramid for the museum's main courtyard. The pyramid, which sat above a new underground lobby, later became a globally recognizable symbol of the Louvre.

Overview

In the twenty-first century, the Louvre's works span from prehistoric times to about 1900 and are categorized into eight collections: Egyptian antiquities; Near Eastern antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities; Islamic art; sculptures; decorative arts; paintings; and prints and drawings.

The Mona Lisa painting is widely considered the Louvre's most famous artwork. Completed in 1506 by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, the painting is a portrait of a woman smiling slightly and gazing to her left. King Francis I, who built the royal palace that later became the Louvre, was rumored to have first acquired the Mona Lisa after da Vinci's death in 1519. It was housed in various royal residences until it became part of the Louvre's permanent collection in 1797. The Mona Lisa was stolen from a wall of the Louvre in 1911 and returned in 1913. The painting was later shielded by bulletproof glass and monitored by guards to protect it from damage and further theft. Other famous paintings displayed in the Louvre include The Moneylender and His Wife (1514) by Quentin Matsys; The Coronation of Napoleon (1807) by Jacques-Louis David; and Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Eugène Delacroix.

The Louvre also houses a range of sculptures. The Seated Scribe, for example, is an ancient Egyptian statue dating to about 2500 BCE. It depicts an Egyptian scribe seated on the ground and writing on a roll of papyrus. Meanwhile, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, also known as the Nike of Samothrace, is an ancient Greek sculpture dating to about 190 BCE. The sculpted woman is Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, bearing angelic wings as she inspires armies to triumph in battle. The sculpture is missing its head and arms. The ancient Greek sculpture the Venus de Milo, created between 130 and 100 BCE, depicts the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, known to the Romans as Venus. Like the Nike of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo is missing its arms.

Along with paintings and sculptures, the museum houses a range of antiquities and jewels. The Coffre des pierreries de Louis XIV, a chest intended for the jewels of Louis XIV, is housed at the Louvre. Made of gold and oak, the chest was created in 1677 by Jakob Blanck. One of the most treasured pieces of the Louvre is the Regent Diamond. This 140-carat diamond was once part of the French Crown Jewels and is regarded as one of the finest diamonds in the world.

The Louvre's immense size generally prevents visitors from viewing every item on display in one visit. The museum is almost continuously crowded, however; between eight million and nine million people visit the Louvre every year. Lines to enter the museum are generally longest at the pyramid entrance. Once inside, many visitors congregate at famous artworks such as the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, which are among the most viewed pieces in the museum.

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