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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. S ...
,
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 known ...
'' 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
, tributarie ...
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 identif ...
, up five percent from 2020, but far below pre-COVID attendance.
Nonetheless, the Louvre still topped the
list of most-visited art museums
This article lists the most-visited art museums in the world in 2021. The primary source is '' The Art Newspaper'' annual survey of the number of visitors to major art museums in 2021, published 28 March 2022.
Total attendance in the top one hu ...
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 Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Ga ...
, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under
Philip II. Remnants of the
Medieval Louvre
The Louvre Castle (french: Château fort du Louvre), also known as the Medieval Louvre (french: Louvre médiéval, links=no), was a castle (french: château fort, links=no) built by King Philip II of France on the right bank of the Seine, to rei ...
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 monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions.
Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the first ...
. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682,
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Vers ...
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, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
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 ( epig ...
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 abol ...
, 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 considere ...
, 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 repre ...
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 who ...
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 Loui ...
, and during the
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Empire, Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the French Second Republic, Second and the French Third Republic ...
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 __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
** Etrusca ...
, and
Roman Antiquities
Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς,
; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary styl ...
;
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 sc ...
;
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 usual ...
; 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 Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Ga ...
, 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 commercial mall.
Before the Grand Louvre
The Grand Louvre refers to the decade-long project initiated by French President François Mitterrand in 1981 of expanding and remodeling the Louvre – both the building and the museum – by moving the French Finance Ministry, which had been ...
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, 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
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 Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Ga ...
, 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 1 ...
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
The Louvre Castle (french: Château fort du Louvre), also known as the Medieval Louvre (french: Louvre médiéval, links=no), was a castle (french: château fort, links=no) built by King Philip II of France on the right bank of the Seine, to rei ...
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
Burgundofara (died 643 or 655), also Saint Fara or Fare, was the founder and first Abbess of the Abbey of Faremoutiers.
Life
Her family is knowns as the Faronids, named after her brother Saint Faro. Her name may mean: 'She who moves the Burgundi ...
(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
The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define th ...
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
The term House of France refers to the branch of the Capetian dynasty which provided the Kings of France following the election of Hugh Capet. The House of France consists of a number of branches and their sub-branches. Some of its branches ha ...
. 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, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
'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 known ...
''.
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 Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...
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
Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne (born 1688 in Lyon, died 1771 in Paris) was a French art critic
An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art ...
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
The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the ...
. 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
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. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
; 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 consid ...
; 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
Charles Claude Flahaut, Count of Angiviller (1730–1809) was the director of the Bâtiments du Roi, a forerunner of a minister of fine arts in charge of the royal building works, under Louis XVI of France, from 1775. Through Flahaut, virtually ...
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
* C ...
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 "obj ...
''). 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 gr ...
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
Laocoön (; grc, , Laokóōn, , gen.: ), is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest. He and his two young sons were attacked by giant serpents, sent by the gods. The story of Laocoön has been the s ...
'' 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 Hadrianic ...
'', 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
The Galerie d'Apollon is a large and iconic room of the Louvre Palace, on the first (upper) floor of a wing known as the Petite Galerie. Its current setup was first designed in the 1660s. It has been part of the Louvre Museum since the 1790s, was ...
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 unti ...
'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, ...
, painter Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
, 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 cl ...
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
Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...
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 treat ...
was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl
Johann Philipp, Graf von Cobenzl (28 May 1741 – 30 August 1810) was a statesman of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire.
Life
Cobenzl was born in Ljubljana, Duchy of Carniola, Carniola, the son of treasurer Count Guidobald 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 French First Republic, France against Ki ...
. 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-horse ...
, 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 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
The transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana (also called the marriage at Cana, wedding feast at Cana or marriage feast at Cana) is the first miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John.
In the Gospel account, Jesus Chris ...
'' 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 who ...
's time to the Second Empire Second Empire may refer to:
* Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783
* Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396)
* Second French Empire (1852–1870)
** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...
, 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 (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 Loui ...
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.
Cons ...
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.
Cons ...
. 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 th ...
, 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
Edmé-Antoine Durand (1768-1835) was a French diplomat and art collector.
Life
The son of a rich businessman, Durand acquired a wide variety of objects, both locally on his travels (especially in central Italy) and also by buying items from existi ...
, Henry Salt and the second collection of Bernardino Drovetti
Bernardino Michele Maria Drovetti (January 7, 1776 – March 5, 1852) was an Italian antiquities collector, diplomat, and politician. He is best remembered for having acquired the Turin Royal Canon and for his questionable behavior in collec ...
(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 Ferdinand ...
to form the core of the present Museo Egizio
The Museo Egizio (Italian language, Italian for Egyptian Museum) is an archaeological museum in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, specializing in Art of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses List of museums of Egyptian antiquitie ...
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.
Cons ...
, 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, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
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
Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (20 July 1700, Paris13 August 1782, Paris), was a French physician, naval engineer and botanist.
Biography
Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau was born in Paris in 1700, the son of Alexandre Duhamel, lord of Denai ...
. This collection, renamed in 1833 and later to develop into the Musée national de la Marine
The Musée national de la Marine (National Navy Museum) is a maritime museum located in the Palais de Chaillot, Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It has annexes at Brest, Port-Louis, Rochefort ( Musée National de la Marine de ...
, 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.
Cons ...
'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 the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...
, King Louis Philippe 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, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
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 Mesopotam ...
works brought to Paris by Paul-Émile Botta, 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.
Cons ...
. The Assyrian Museum opened on 1 May 1847. Separately, Louis-Philippe had his Spanish gallery
The Spanish gallery, also called Spanish museum was a gallery of Spanish painting created by French King Louis Philippe I in 1838, shown in the Louvre, then dismantled in 1853.
Historical context
Until the French Revolution, Spanish art was seldo ...
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 curv ...
) 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
The Galerie d'Apollon is a large and iconic room of the Louvre Palace, on the first (upper) floor of a wing known as the Petite Galerie. Its current setup was first designed in the 1660s. It has been part of the Louvre Museum since the 1790s, was ...
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 (P ...
) 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
The ''musée mexicain'', later ''musée américain'' (Mexican Museum / American Museum), was a section of the Louvre that was dedicated to pre-Columbian art, with an initial emphasis on Mexican archaeology. It opened in 1850, and closed in 1887 w ...
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 nephew ...
was transformational for the Louvre, both the building and the museum. In 1852, he created the Musée des Souverains
The ''Musée des Souverains'' (''Museum of Sovereigns'') was a history-themed museum of objects associated with former French monarchs. It was created by the future Napoleon III as a separate section within the Louvre Palace, with the aim to glor ...
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 Par ...
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 was ...
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
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, from ...
, 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
The Salon Carré is an iconic room of the Louvre Palace, created in its current dimensions during a reconstruction of that part of the palace following a fire in February 1661. It gave its name to the longstanding tradition of exhibitions of cont ...
.
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 defended ...
. 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, from ...
. 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
Joseph-Henry Barbet de Jouy (16 July 1812, Canteleu – 26 May 1896, Paris) was a French archaeologist, art historian, and curator.
Biography
His father was the industrialist, . From 1832 to 1840, he studied at both the Faculty of Law of Paris ...
.
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.
Cons ...
, 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
The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the ...
.[
]
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
Louis La Caze (6 May 1798 – 28 September 1869) was a successful French physician and collector of paintings whose bequest of 583 paintings to the Musée du Louvre was one of the largest the museum has ever received. Among the paintings, the most ...
, included works by Chardin; 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 consid ...
and Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as ...
. 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
The Escalier Daru (Daru Staircase), also referred to as Escalier de la Victoire de Samothrace, is one of the largest and most iconic interior spaces of the Louvre Palace in Paris, and of the Louvre Museum within it. Named after Pierre, Count D ...
. 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 w ...
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
Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...
'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
The ''musée mexicain'', later ''musée américain'' (Mexican Museum / American Museum), was a section of the Louvre that was dedicated to pre-Columbian art, with an initial emphasis on Mexican archaeology. It opened in 1850, and closed in 1887 w ...
were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
The Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadéro, also called simply the Musée du Trocadéro) was the first Anthropology, anthropological museum in Paris, founded in 1878. It closed in 1935 when the building that hous ...
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.
Cons ...
, 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
Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris.
Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint-Ge ...
, 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, 16th ''arrondissement'' of Paris, France.
For the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937) ...
in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art
The history of Asian art includes a vast range of arts from various cultures, regions, and religions across the continent of Asia. The major regions of Asia include Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia.
Central Asian art primarily c ...
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
Henri Jean François Joseph Verne (21 September 1880, Cannes – 11 February 1949, Paris) was a French museum director and curator.
Biography
He held degrees in literature and law. In 1906, he became a document editor at the Ministry of Trade ...
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
The Escalier Daru (Daru Staircase), also referred to as Escalier de la Victoire de Samothrace, is one of the largest and most iconic interior spaces of the Louvre Palace in Paris, and of the Louvre Museum within it. Named after Pierre, Count D ...
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.
Cons ...
, 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 usuall ...
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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, 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 known ...
'' were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord
The Château de Chambord () in Chambord, Centre-Val de Loire, France, is one of the most recognisable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with cla ...
. 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
Château de Valençay is a château in the commune of Valençay, in the Indre department of France. It was a residence of the d'Estampes and Talleyrand-Périgord families. Although it is part of the province of Berry, its architecture invit ...
. 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 hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
were 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 known ...
'' 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 List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...
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 between ...
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
Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...
, 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.
Cons ...
, 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
Jean-Michel Wilmotte (born 1948 in Soissons) is a French architect.
Biography
Jean-Michel Wilmotte studied interior design at the Camondo school of interior design in Paris. Just two years after graduating, he founded his own agency in Paris in ...
. 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 I. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...
'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, quadrilat ...
in its center, at dusk.
21st century
President Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a 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 1988, as well as Ma ...
, 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
Alwaleed Philanthropies (formerly the "Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation") is a charitable and philanthropic organization founded by Al-Waleed bin Talal
Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud ( ar, الوليد بن طلال آل سعود; born 7 March 195 ...
and on a design by Mario Bellini
Mario Bellini (born February 1, 1935 in Milan) is an Italian architect, critic, and designer. He received a degree in architecture from Milan Polytechnic in 1959 and began working as an architect in the early 1960s. Like many other Italia ...
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 Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Twombly is said to have influenced you ...
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.
Cons ...
's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment.
The Louvre, like many other museums and galleries, felt the . 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 objects[Rapport d'activité 2019 du musée du Louvre](_blank)
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 language, 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 ...
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 an ...
, 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 letter ...
, Ptolemaic Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to:
Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty
* Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter
* Ptolemaic Kingdom
Pertaining ...
, 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
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
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 ...
, 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 th ...
translated the Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle te ...
, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edmé-Antoine Durand
Edmé-Antoine Durand (1768-1835) was a French diplomat and art collector.
Life
The son of a rich businessman, Durand acquired a wide variety of objects, both locally on his travels (especially in central Italy) and also by buying items from existi ...
, Henry Salt, and Bernardino Drovet
Bernardino is a name of Italian, Hispanic, or Portuguese origin, which can refer to:
Given name
* Bernardino Baldi (1533–1617), Italian mathematician and writer
*Bernardino Bertolotti (born 1547), Italian composer and instrumentalist
*Bernard ...
; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, 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
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
, sent back crates of archaeological finds including ''The Seated Scribe
The sculpture of the ''Seated Scribe'' or ''Squatting Scribe'' is a famous work of ancient Egyptian art. It represents a figure of a seated scribe at work. The sculpture was discovered at Saqqara, north of the alley of sphinxes leading to the Se ...
''.
Guarded by the Great Sphinx of Tanis
The Great Sphinx of Tanis is a granite sculpture of a sphinx, whose date may be as early as the 26th century BC. It was discovered in the ruins of the Temple of Amun-Ra in Tanis, Egypt's capital during the 21st Dynasty and the 23rd Dynasty. It wa ...
, 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 a ...
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 B ...
'' 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 o ...
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
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 B ...
''; 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
The sculpture of the ''Seated Scribe'' or ''Squatting Scribe'' is a famous work of ancient Egyptian art. It represents a figure of a seated scribe at work. The sculpture was discovered at Saqqara, north of the alley of sphinxes leading to the Se ...
''; 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 form ...
; height: 53.7 cm
Sphinx, Louvre 15 June 2014.jpg, The ''Great Sphinx of Tanis
The Great Sphinx of Tanis is a granite sculpture of a sphinx, whose date may be as early as the 26th century BC. It was discovered in the ruins of the Temple of Amun-Ra in Tanis, Egypt's capital during the 21st Dynasty and the 23rd Dynasty. It wa ...
''; 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 Dy ...
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 whic ...
''; 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 religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
. 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 eq ...
, 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 F ...
(Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-Émile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad
Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon"; ar, دور شروكين, Syriac: ܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mo ...
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 general ...
'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 c ...
and the city of Akkad Akkad may refer to:
*Akkad (city), the capital of the Akkadian Empire
*Akkadian Empire, the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia
*Akkad SC, Iraqi football club
People with the name
*Abbas el-Akkad, Egyptian writer
*Abdulrahman Akkad, Syrian LGBT act ...
, 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 after ...
'' from 2450 BC and the stele
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
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 Zāgro ...
. 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, con ...
s 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
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 eq ...
, including the ''Eshmunazar II sarcophagus
The Eshmunazar II sarcophagus is a 6th-century BC sarcophagus unearthed in 1855 in the "Phoenician Necropolis", a hypogeum (underground tomb) complex in the southern area of the city of Sidon in modern-day Lebanon. The sarcophagus was discov ...
'' 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 influe ...
'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 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''; 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 drywall. ...
, 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 o ...
, 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 mines, ...
; 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 aphanite, 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 planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
; 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 parts ...
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 Hadrianic ...
'' 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 vir ...
.
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 vot ...
, 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 ''Borghese Gladiator'' is a Hellenistic life-size marble sculpture portraying a swordsman, created at Ephesus about 100 BC, now on display at the Louvre.
Sculptor
The sculpture is signed on the pedestal by Agasias, son of Dositheus, who i ...
''. 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 Agrippa may refer to:
People Antiquity
* Agrippa (mythology), semi-mythological king of Alba Longa
* Agrippa (astronomer), Greek astronomer from the late 1st century
* Agrippa the Skeptic, Skeptic philosopher at the end of the 1st century
* Agri ...
and Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino
The Apollo of Piombino or the Piombino Boy is a famous Greek bronze statuette in late Archaic style that depicts the god as a ''kouros'' or youth, or it may be a worshipper bringing an offering. The bronze is inlaid with copper for the boy's lips, ...
.
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
A krater or crater ( grc-gre, , ''kratēr'', literally "mixing vessel") was a large two-handled shape of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water.
Form and function
At a Greek symposium, krat ...
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 communities of Spain, 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 ...
; 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 50,00 ...
'', an epic book of poems by Ferdowsi
Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi ( fa, ; 940 – 1019/1025 CE), also Firdawsi or Ferdowsi (), was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a sin ...
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 The Pyxis (vessel), pyxis made in 968 CE/357AH for Prince al-Mughira (15 cm x 8 cm) is a portable ivory carved container that dates from Medieval Islam's Umayyad conquest of Hispania, Spanish Umayyad period. It is in the collection of the ...
''; 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 insp ...
'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 sc ...
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'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
The ''Bust of Cardinal Richelieu'' is a marble sculpture by the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, situated at the Louvre in Paris.
Richelieu had hoped to commission Bernini to make a full-length sculpture, through his friend Jules Mazarin a ...
, Étienne Maurice Falconet
Étienne Maurice Falconet (1 December 1716 – 24 January 1791) was a French baroque, rococo and Neoclassical sculpture, neoclassical sculptor, best-known for his equestrian statue of Peter the Great, the ''Bronze Horseman'' (1782), in St. Pete ...
's ''Woman Bathing'' and ''Amour menaçant'', and François Anguier
François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis.
People with the given name
* Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of Letters"
* Francis II of France, Kin ...
'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 cl ...
's ''Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss
''Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss'' ( it, Amore e Psiche ; french: Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l'Amour; russian: Амур и Психея, Amúr i Psikhéja) is a sculpture by Italian artist Antonio Canova first commissioned in 1787 by Colo ...
'' (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
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 Di ...
''; 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 Boxing the compass, west-northwest o ...
marble; height: 3.15 m, width: 2.91 m, depth: 1.28 m
File:Louvre seine marne mr1801.jpg, Group sculpture; by Nicolas Coustou
Nicolas Coustou (9 January 1658 – 1 May 1733) was a French sculptor and academic.
Biography
Born in Lyon, Coustou was the son of a woodcarver, François Coustou, who gave him his first instruction in art, and Claudine Coysevox. When he w ...
; 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 List of Solar System objects by size, 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 ...
; 1731; probably marble; height: 1.95 m, width: 1.20 m, depth: 68 cm
Decorative arts
The Objets d'art
In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...
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 Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...
, 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 c ...
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 ideas ...
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, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
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 rema ...
'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 i ...
vase collection and 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 nephew ...
's apartments.
In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the 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 Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy.
Armoire Louvre OA 6968.jpg, Henry II style
The Henry II style was the chief artistic movement of the sixteenth century in France, part of Northern Mannerism. It came immediately after High Renaissance and was largely the product of Italian influences. Francis I and his daughter-in-law, Cath ...
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 officia ...
cabinet on stand; by André Charles Boulle; 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; 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 it ...
, 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. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
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 insp ...
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 considere ...
, 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 art ...
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 '' 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 Netherland ...
; 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
Jacint Rigau-Ros i Serra (; 18 July 1659 – 29 December 1743), known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud (), was a Catalan-French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.
Biography
Rigaud ...
's ''Louis XIV''; Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
'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 m ...
''; Théodore Géricault's ''The Raft of the Medusa
''The Raft of the Medusa'' (french: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791 ...
''; 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
''Liberty Leading the People'' (french: La Liberté guidant le peuple ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the conc ...
''. 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 ( , , #Pronunciation of name, see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period Painting, painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class, middle-class life. ...
'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.
P ...
'' 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 landscape ...
's ''The Tree of Crows
''The Tree of Crows'' (also known as ''Raven Tree'') is an oil painting of 1822 by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. Acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 1975 (its first by the artist, followed by '' Seaside by Moonlight'' in 2000 ...
''; 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 consid ...
's ''The Supper at Emmaus'', ''Bathsheba at Her Bath
Bathsheba ( or ; he, בַּת־שֶׁבַע, ''Baṯ-šeḇaʿ'', Bat-Sheva or Batsheva, "daughter of Sheba" or "daughter of the oath") was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, according to the Hebrew Bible. She was the mother of ...
'', 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 order ...
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 father ...
'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, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
'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 known ...
'', '' Virgin and Child with St. Anne'', '' St. John the Baptist'', and '' Madonna of the Rocks''. The Baroque collection includes Giambattista Pittoni's ''The Continence of Scipio
The Continence of Scipio, or The Clemency of Scipio, is an episode recounted by Livy of the Roman general Scipio Africanus during his campaign in Spain during the Second Punic War. He refused a generous ransom for a young female prisoner, returni ...
'', ''Susanna and the Elders
Susanna (; : "lily"), also called Susanna and the Elders, is a narrative included in the Book of Daniel (as chapter 13) by the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, plac ...
'', ''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 hi ...
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
Louis La Caze (6 May 1798 – 28 September 1869) was a successful French physician and collector of paintings whose bequest of 583 paintings to the Musée du Louvre was one of the largest the museum has ever received. Among the paintings, the most ...
, 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
Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, a ...
'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
''The Money Changer and His Wife'' is a 1514 oil on panel painting by the Flemish renaissance artist Quentin Matsys.
Painting
A man, who is weighing the jewels and pieces of gold on the table in front of him sits next to his wife who is reading ...
''; by Quentin Massys
Quentin Matsys ( nl, Quinten Matsijs) (1466–1530) was a Flemish painter in the Early Netherlandish tradition. He was born in Leuven. There is a tradition alleging that he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter. Matsys was activ ...
; 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 w ...
; 1573; oil on canvas; 76 × 64 cm
Suzanne et les vieillards - Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Q18573893.jpg, ''Susanna and the Elders
Susanna (; : "lily"), also called Susanna and the Elders, is a narrative included in the Book of Daniel (as chapter 13) by the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, plac ...
''; by Giambattista Pittoni; 1720; oil on panel; 37 × 46 cm
La Continence de Scipion - Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Q18573892.jpg, ''The Continence of Scipio
The Continence of Scipio, or The Clemency of Scipio, is an episode recounted by Livy of the Roman general Scipio Africanus during his campaign in Spain during the Second Punic War. He refused a generous ransom for a young female prisoner, returni ...
''; by Giambattista Pittoni; 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
''Oath of the Horatii'' (french: Le Serment des Horaces), is a large painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 and now on display in the Louvre in Paris. The painting immediately became a huge success with critics and the p ...
''; by Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
; 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 m ...
by Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
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, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
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 conserve ...
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
Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...
, 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
Sanguine () or red chalk is chalk of a reddish-brown colour, so called because it resembles the colour of dried blood. It has been popular for centuries for drawing (where white chalk only works on coloured paper). The word comes via French fr ...]
; 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
Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, a ...
; 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 Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...
; 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
__NOTOC__
Francesco Francia, whose real n ...
Management, administration, partnerships
![Paris - Restoration workshops in the Louvre - 2408](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Paris_-_Restoration_workshops_in_the_Louvre_-_2408.jpg)
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 Langdon ...
'' 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 curato ...
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
A culture minister or a heritage minister is a common cabinet position in governments. The culture minister is typically responsible for cultural policy, which often includes arts policy (direct and indirect support to artists and arts organizati ...
Frédéric Mitterrand
Frédéric Mitterrand (born 21 August 1947) is a French politician who served as Minister of Culture and Communication of France from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. Throughout his career, he has been an actor, screenwriter, tele ...
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 art ...
; the plan was later scrapped. In 2013, his successor
Aurélie Filippetti
Aurélie Filippetti ( ; born 17 June 1973) is a French people, French politician and novelist. She served as Minister of Culture (France), French Minister of Culture and Communications from 2012 until 2014, first in the government of Jean-Marc ...
announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of art
[Vincent 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 but ...
; 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
Mohammed VI ( ar, محمد السادس; born 21 August 1963) is the King of Morocco. He belongs to the 'Alawi dynasty and acceded to the throne on 23 July 1999, upon the death of his father, King Hassan II.
Upon ascending to the throne, Moham ...
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. ...
. Following its time in Tehran, the exhibition is set to be held in the
Khorasan Grand Museum in
Mashhad
Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, 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 R ...
, 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 known ...
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
Laurence des Cars (born Laurence Élisabeth de Pérusse des Cars on 13 June 1966) is a French general curator of heritage and art historian, since September 2021 Director of the Louvre Museum after having headed the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de ...
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 identif ...
, 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
![Louvre Excavations](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Louvre_Excavations.jpg)
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 Archaeology ...
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 th ...
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 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 peri ...
in Greece (1829)
* in Algeria (1842-1845)
*
Paul-Émile Botta 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 in Egypt (1850-1854)
*
Victor Langlois
Victor Langlois (20 March 1829 – 14 May 1869) was a French historian, archaeologist, professor, numismatist, and orientalist who specialized in the study of the Middle Ages. Langlois was particularly known for his work on Armenian history and cu ...
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 coa ...
(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 influe ...
with the
Mission de Phénicie following the
1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus (1860-1861)
*
Léon Heuzey
Léon Heuzey (1 December 1831, Rouen – 8 February 1922, Paris) was a noted French archaeologist and historian.
Life and career
In 1855 Heuzey went to Greece as a member of the École française d'Athènes, and for the next two years traveled ex ...
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 reque ...
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 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 Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...
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 re ...
(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 Ionian ...
(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 Clermo ...
in
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
(1873)
* in Algeria and Tunisia (1874)
*
Ernest de Sarzec
Ernest Choquin de Sarzec (1832–1901) was a French archaeologist, to whom is attributed the discovery of the civilization of ancient Sumer. He was in the French diplomatic service; on being transferred to Basra in 1872 as a vice-consul, he bec ...
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 sign ...
,
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 F ...
(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 Pottery of Anc ...
,
Salomon Reinach Salomon Reinach (29 August 1858 – 4 November 1932) was a French archaeologist, religious historian and was a major figure in the Franco-Jewish establishment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was vice president of the mo ...
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 modern ...
(1872-1873)
*
Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy
Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy (; 3 August 1844 - 25 February 1920) was a French archaeologist, noted for his excavations at Susa (modern-day Shush, Iran) in 1885 and for his work, ''L'Art antique de la Perse.''
Early life
Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy wa ...
and
Jane Dieulafoy
Jane Dieulafoy (29 June 1851 – 25 May 1916) was a French archaeologist, explorer, novelist, feminist and journalist. She was the wife of Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy. She and her husband excavated the Ancient Persian city of Susa and made various d ...
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 Me ...
, Arabia (1885)
*
Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher (1865–1952), was a French scholar, who argued that the Buddha image has Greek origins. He has been called the "father of Gandhara studies", and is a much-cited scholar on ancient Buddhism in northwest Indian subconti ...
in India and present-day Pakistan (1895-1897)
*
Arthur Engel 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 people, French mining engineer, geologist, and archaeologist. He was the director of antiquities in Khedivate of Egypt, Egypt during the 19th ...
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
Colonel Marie Augstin Gaston Cros (known as Gaston Cros) (6 October 1861 – 10 May 1915) was a French army officer and archaeologist. He was born in Alsace and was displaced when that territory was incorporated into the German Empire. He ...
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 sign ...
(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 caree ...
in
Chinese Turkestan
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
(1907-1909)
*
Maurice Pézard in Northern Palestine (1923)
*
Georges Aaron Bénédite 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 ...
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 in ...
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 s ...
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 people, French mining engineer, geologist, and archaeologist. He was the director of antiquities in Khedivate of Egypt, Egypt during the 19th ...
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
Bernard Bruyère (10 November 1879 – 4 December 1971) was a French Egyptologist.
Born in Besançon, Bruyère devoted a large part of his career to archaeological excavations of Deir el-Medina and the scientific publication of his findings at t ...
in Egypt (1920-1951)
*
Raymond Weill
Raymond Weill (28 January 1874 – 13 July 1950) was a French archaeologist specialized in Egyptology.
Biography
Born on 28 January 1874 in Elbeuf, 28 January 1874 in Elbeuf began his career in the military before starting a career with Gaston ...
in Egypt (1952)
*
Pierre Montet
Jean Pierre Marie Montet (27 June 1885 – 19 June 1966) was a French Egyptologist.
Biography
Montet was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône, Rhône, and began his studies under Victor Loret at the University of Lyon.
He excavated at Byblos ...
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 i ...
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 = F ...
, Syria (1929-1970)
*
Roman Ghirshman
Roman Ghirshman (, ''Roman Mikhailovich Girshman''; October 3, 1895 – 5 September 1979) was a Russian-born French archeologist who specialized in ancient Persia. Ghirshman spent nearly thirty years excavating ancient Persian archeological ...
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 Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Ga ...
. 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 but ...
, 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, Fr ...
, 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 (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
, 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 art ...
.
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 – p ...
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 Sorbon ...
, 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
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 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
Jean-Jacques Aillagon (born 2 October 1946, Metz) is a French politician, a close confidant of Jacques Chirac and member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) political party. From 1972 to 1976 he was a high school teacher in the Corrèze ...
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. Howeve ...
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 (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
on , the Louvre-Lens is run by the
Hauts-de-France
Hauts-de-France (; pcd, Heuts-d'Franche; , also ''Upper France'') is the northernmost Regions of France, region of France, created by the territorial reform of French regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its Prefectu ...
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
The Louvre Abu Dhabi ( ar, اللوفر أبوظبي; french: Louvre Abou Dabi) is an art museum located on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It runs under an agreement between the UAE and France, signed in March 2007, that a ...
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 ob ...
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 art ...
,
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 ...
, 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
The Musée Rodin ( en, Rodin Museum) in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919, primarily dedicated to the works of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It has two sites: the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds in central Paris, as ...
, 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
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...
, 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 coun ...
initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by
Jean Mattéoli
Jean Mattéoli (December 20, 1922 in Montchanin, Saône-et-Loire – January 27, 2008 in Paris) was a French politician. He was the Minister of Social Affairs during the Raymond Barre administration from 1979 to 1981 and also served as president ...
, 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
Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals. Since the 1960s, he has made notab ...
, 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 Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle te ...
, 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 specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
'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 w ...
'' 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 accounting ...
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
The National Centre for Research and Restoration in French Museums (C2RMF, ''Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France'') is the national Research institute, research centre in France responsible for the Documentation (field), ...
* List of museums in Paris
There are around 130 museums in Paris, France, within city limits. This list also includes suburban museums within the "Grand Paris" area, such as the Air and Space Museum.
The sixteen :fr: Musées de la Ville de Paris, museums of the City of Pari ...
* 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 fr ...
References
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External links
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Digital Collection
Louvre'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