[7] In 1692, the building was occupied by the Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Acadmie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. [29][13]:68-69 To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000livres per year. The two nearest Mtro stations are Louvre-Rivoli and Palais Royal-Muse du Louvre, the latter having a direct underground access to the Carrousel du Louvre commercial mall. [14][15] 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,[16] even though it is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly to the present site of the Louvre. This led president Francois Mitterrand to propose the renovation that would give the building the main lobby. WebAside from being one of the most frequently visited art museums in history, you may ask yourself, What was the Louvre before it was an art museum? The answer to that [102] By 2006, government funds had dipped from 75percent of the total budget to 62percent. This is 20% less than the 9.6 million people who went in 2019, but 173% more than in 2021. If you've ever been to the Louvre, you recognize not only the statue, but the room as well. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet). Its foundations can still be visited since the new entrance tunnels to the Louvre Museum include the basement levels of all the The Baroque collection includes Giambattista Pittoni's The Continence of Scipio, Susanna and the Elders, Bacchus and Ariadne, Mars and Venus, and others Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and Death of the Virgin. 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.[73]. [24] Under Louis XVI, the idea of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition. [22], The Cabinet du Roi consisted of seven rooms west of the Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of the remodeled Petite Galerie. [citation needed], As of 2002, the Louvre's visitor count had doubled from its pre-Grand-Louvre levels.[59]. In 1546, FrancisI started its rebuilding in French Renaissance style.
[81] 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. [13]:52-54 In the 1860s, Lefuel also led the creation of the pavillon des Sessions with a new Salle des Etats closer to Napoleon III's residence in the Tuileries Palace, with the effect of shortening the Grande Galerie by about a third of its previous length. 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 Jacques Kerchache[fr]. [80], The Pyxis of al-Mughira; 10th century (maybe 968); ivory; 15 x 8cm, Iranian tile with bismillah; turn of the 13th-14th century; molded ceramic, luster glaze and glaze, The Baptistre de Saint Louis; by Muhammad ibn al-Zayn; 13201340; hammering, engraving, inlay in brass, gold, and silver; 50.2 x 22.2cm, Door; 15th-16th century; sculpted, painted and gilded walnut wood, The sculpture department consists of works created before 1850 not belonging in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department. The Louvre Museum is a museum that is praised as a hall of beauty in Paris, France. WebWelcome to the Louvre. French curators had worked for a decade to prepare a major exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated". For its display, he created another new section within the Louvre named Muse Napolon III, occupying a number of rooms in various parts of the building. Meanwhile, the Louvre's gallery of Antiquity sculpture (muse 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. [42] 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 Carre's East (Colonnade) Wing,[43] but the collection remained his personal property. [29] On 15 August 1797, the Galerie d'Apollon was opened with an exhibition of drawings. [130], In February 1926, the Muse de Cluny, whose creation dates back to the 19th century, was brought under the aegis of the Louvre's department of decorative arts (Objets d'Art). [143] 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 Privs. [10]:37 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 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. [111][112] The 98.5million expansion of the Islamic Art galleries in 2012 received state funding of 31million, as well as 17million from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. [2], The department, comprising over 50,000pieces,[13]:74 includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000BC to the 4thcentury AD. 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.[81]. 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. 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[85], Louis XIV style cabinet on stand; by Andr Charles Boulle; circa 16901710; oak frame, resinous wood and walnut, ebony veneer, tortoiseshell, brass and pewter marquetry, and ormolu, Louis XVI style commode of Madame du Barry; 1772; oak frame, veneer of pearwood, rosewood and kingwood, soft-paste Svres porcelain, gilded bronze, white marble, and glass; height: 0.87 m, width: 1.19 m, depth: 0.48 m[86], Louis XVI style barometer-thermometer; circa 1776; soft-paste Svres porcelain, enamel, and ormolu; height: 1 m, width: 0.27 m[87], The painting collection has more than 7,500works[10]:229 from the 13thcentury to 1848 and is managed by 12curators who oversee the collection's display. 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The Louvre-Lens has been successful at attracting around 500,000 visitors per year until the COVID-19 pandemic. Lens, an old mining town in northern France, which suffered heavily during both world wars was chosen as the ideal location. Among the works are the Pyxide d'al-Mughira, a 10thcentury ivory box from Andalusia; the Baptistery of Saint-Louis, an engraved brass basin from the 13thor14thcentury Mamluk period; and the 10thcentury Shroud of Saint-Josse from Iran. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display. WebHome Philosophy & Religion Humanities museum The Louvre Louvre Museum It was a matter of public concern in France that the royal collections were inaccessible to the It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns.
Attendance in 2022 was 7.8 million visitors, up 170 percent from 2021, but still below the 10.8 million visitors in 2018 before the COVID-19 pandemic.[5]. Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Brun, La Tour, Watteau, Fragonard, Ingres, Corot, and Delacroix are well represented.[92]. This department is one of the museum's oldest; it began with appropriated royal art, some of which was acquired under Francis I. Meanwhile, the French Navy created an exhibition of ship models in the Louvre in December 1827, initially named muse dauphin in honor of Dauphin Louis Antoine,[40] building on an 18th-century initiative of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau. [31] On Denon's suggestion in July 1803, the museum itself was renamed Muse Napolon. 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. There is no doubt that it is a valuable opportunity to see such an exhibition in In 1861, he bought 11,835artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. [71][77] After the 4thcenturyBC, focus on the human form increased, exemplified by the Borghese Gladiator. [133], The gypsothque (plaster cast gallery) of the Louvre is a collection of plaster casts that was formed in 1970 by the reunion of the corresponding inventories of the Louvre, the Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Art and Archaeology Institute of the Sorbonne University, the latter two following depredations during the May 68 student unrest. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000pieces. When Germany occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Chteau de Chambord. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Other refurbished galleries, of Italian sculptures and Egyptian antiquities, opened in 1994. [100][101][102][103] Since 2003, the museum has been required to generate funds for projects. The Louvre Palace has been subject to numerous renovations since its construction. [8] During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The origins of the name "Louvre" are somewhat disputed. [citation needed], 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. [119][120] The event included over a hundred items: paintings, drawings and notebooks. Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's The Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox. Laborde developed the medieval section and purchased the first such statues and sculptures in the collection, King Childebert and stanga door, respectively. In 2022, the Louvre said it had 7,726,321 visitors. The museum is open daily except Tuesdays. [34] 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. [citation needed], During the Bourbon Restoration (18141830), Louis XVIII and Charles X added to the collections. [53], New arrangements after the war revealed the further evolution of taste away from the lavish decorative practices of the late 19th century.
The museum closed in 1796 because of structural problems with the building. [146], They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (19501954) 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. There is no doubt that it is a valuable opportunity to see such an exhibition in Japan. The Louvre Museum is a museum that is praised as a hall of beauty in Paris, France. Many design proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, without a final decision being made on them. The government pays for operating costs (salaries, safety, and maintenance), while the rest new wings, refurbishments, acquisitions is up to the museum to finance. In 1986, these collections were transferred to the newly created Muse d'Orsay. [71][72], The Gebel el-Arak Knife; 3300-3200 BC; handle: elephant ivory, blade: flint; length: 25.8cm, The Seated Scribe; 26132494BC; painted limestone and inlaid quartz; height: 53.7cm, The Great Sphinx of Tanis; circa 2600 BC; rose granite; height: 183cm, width: 154cm, thickness: 480cm, Akhenaten and Nefertiti; 1345 BC; painted limestone; height: 22.2cm, width: 12.3cm, thickness: 9.8cm, 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. [51] On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edm-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt, and Bernardino Drovet; these additions added 7,000works. [13]:199, Exemplifying the French School are the early Avignon Piet of Enguerrand Quarton; the anonymous painting of King Jean le Bon (c. 1360), possibly the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era;[13]:201 Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; Thodore Gricault's The Raft of the Medusa; and Eugne Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. 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. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. [13]:397-401 The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptors like Alfred Barye and mile Guillemin. ", National Museums Recovery, MNR works at the muse du Louvre, "Rapport Matteoli, Le pillage de l'art en France pendant l'occupation et la situation des 2000 oeuvres confies aux Muses nationaux, pp. [26], The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the monarchy's demise, as Musum central des arts de la Rpublique. 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. [13]:70-71 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. Web1793 August 10 Louvre Museum opens After more than two centuries as a royal palace, the Louvre is opened as a public museum in Paris by the French revolutionary government. [13]:66, The open spaces surrounding the pyramid were inaugurated on 15 October 1988, and its underground lobby was opened on 30 March 1989. [52] In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre. [65], On 6 June 2014, the Decorative Arts section on the first floor of the Cour Carre's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment. [13]:76-77[72], Guarded by the Great Sphinx of Tanis, the collection is housed in more than 20rooms. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including The Seated Scribe. The first organized body to receive a private collection, erect a building to house it, and make it publicly available was the University of Oxford; the resulting Ashmolean Museum opened in 1683. In 2013, his successor Aurlie Filippetti announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of art[108] held in a 20,000 square metres (220,000sqft) basement storage area in Livin; the cost of the project, estimated at 60million, will be split between the region (49%) and the Louvre (51%). [82][13]:451-454 Among the budding collection's most prized works were pietre dure vases and bronzes. The Napoleon Courtyard and I. M. Pei's pyramid in its center, at dusk. Holdings include art, papyrus scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200are Northern European. 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. [24] 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 Laocon and Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty".[29][30]. [64], That same year, the Louvre commissioned French artist Franois Morellet to create a work for the Lefuel stairs, on the first floor. [13]:496 The origins of the collection were the 8,600works in the Royal Collection (Cabinet du Roi), which were increased via state appropriation, purchases such as the 1,200works from Fillipo Baldinucci's collection in 1806, and donations. 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. Three quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated migrs and Church property (biens nationaux). 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 Republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated in total 26million. In addition, the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is supposed to provide 400million over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum's brand. As a historical monument with more than 35,000 works of art and over eight million tourists a year, visiting The Louvre can certainly feel daunting. [101], The Louvre employs a staff of 2,000 led by Director Jean-Luc Martinez,[107] who reports to the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. La collection La Caze". Initially, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access, a feature that only disappeared in the 1850s. [105][106] In 2008, the French government provided $180million of the Louvre's yearly $350million budget; the remainder came from private contributions and ticket sales. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13thcentury under PhilipII. The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. [96], 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. [136], 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 (antenne) of the Louvre.
A full 11 of the fewer than 20 paintings that Da Vinci completed in his lifetime were displayed. During Nazi occupation, thousands of artworks were stolen. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of FrancisI and LouisXIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era, and some were bought. [25] The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed to convert the Grande Galerie 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". The Louvre holds masterpieces from the Hellenistic era, including The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190BC) and the Venus de Milo, symbolic of classical art. Since the 1990s, its management and governance have been made more independent. In the Rotonde d'Apollon, a carved marble panel lists a number of such campaigns, led by: 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: 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. [13]:496, Three lion-like heads; by Charles Le Brun; circa 1671; black chalk, pen and ink, brush and gray wash, white gouache on paper; 21.7 32,7cm, Bacchus; by Antoine Coypel; black chalk, white highlights, and sanguine; 42.7 37.7cm, 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 38.1cm, Danseuse sur la scne; by Edgar Degas; pastel; 58 42cm, Portrait of elderly woman, by Matthias Grnewald, Portrait of a young woman by Hans Holbein, The Louvre is owned by the French government. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 19471949 has been accessible online and completed. He stated that the main issue then remaining was the recruitment fees charged to workers by agents who recruit them. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. "[152] He encouraged the TDIC to build additional worker housing and proposed that the contractor cover the cost of the recruitment fees. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Louvre has launched a platform where most of its works, including those that are not on display, can be seen. Vitruvian Man, however, was on display, after a successful legal battle with its owner, the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice. The medieval collection contains the coronation crown of LouisXIV, CharlesV's sceptre, and the 12thcentury porphyry vase. The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-mile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of Sargon II's palace. This collection, renamed muse naval in 1833 and later to develop into the Muse national de la Marine, was initially located on the first floor of the Cour Carre's North Wing, and in 1838 moved up one level to the 2nd-floor attic, where it remained for more than a century.[41].
[97], The Money Changer and His Wife; by Quentin Massys; 1514; oil on panel; 70.5 67cm, Spring; by Giuseppe Arcimboldo; 1573; oil on canvas; 76 64cm, Susanna and the Elders; by Giambattista Pittoni; 1720; oil on panel; 37 46cm, The Continence of Scipio; by Giambattista Pittoni; 1733; oil on panel; 96 56cm, Diana after the Bath; by Franois Boucher; 1742; oil on canvas; 73 56cm, Oath of the Horatii; by Jacques-Louis David; 1784; oil on canvas; height: 330cm, width: 425cm, The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, The prints and drawings department encompasses works on paper. [79] Originally part of the decorative arts department, the holdings became separate in 2003. The Louvre had over In 19321934, Louvre architects Camille Lefvre and Albert Ferran redesigned the Escalier Daru to its current appearance. The museum is expecting huge crowds. 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. The despoilment of Italian churches and palaces outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities.[36]. La Caze gave 584 paintings of his personal collection to the museum. [84] The Renaissance art holdings include Giambologna's bronze Nessus and Deianira and the tapestry Maximillian's Hunt. [56] In 1972, the Salon Carr's museography was remade with lighting from a hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect Marc Saltet[fr] with assistance from designers Andr Monpoix[fr], Joseph-Andr Motte and Paulin. In 1947, it became the exhibition space for the Louvre's collections of late 19th and early 20th paintings, most prominently Impressionism, as the Louvre Palace was lacking space to display them, and was consequently brought under direct management by the Louvre's Dpartement des Peintures. [67], The Louvre, like many other museums and galleries, felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage.
But, with the right information, you can get the most out of your visit to the renowned museum.