Louvre

The Louvre is a national museum and historic palace located on the right bank of the Seine in Paris, France. It formally opened as a public museum in 1793 and today contains one of the world’s largest art collections.

Exhibition space totals roughly 72,700 square metres and the museum displays around 35,000 objects across painting, sculpture, antiquities and decorative arts. Highlights include iconic works such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and extensive collections of Egyptian, Near Eastern and European art. The building is organized into three main wings - Denon, Sully and Richelieu - each housing different departments and major galleries.

Originally built as a medieval fortress in the late 12th century for King Philip II, the complex was transformed into a royal palace over centuries. Following the French Revolution the building was converted into a public museum in 1793 and has been expanded and reconfigured repeatedly, including the addition of the glass pyramid entrance in 1989.

The museum sits in central Paris along the Seine, in the 1st arrondissement, immediately east of the Tuileries Garden and a short distance from landmarks such as the Musée d’Orsay and Place de la Concorde.

• Scale of the collection: The museum has roughly 72,700 square metres of exhibition space and displays about 35,000 objects from a total collection numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
• Entry and pyramid: Main entrance is through the glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, completed in 1989; security and queues can be long so timed tickets are common.

What to See #

• Denon Wing: Houses the largest number of visitors and many of the museum's most famous works including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Italian Renaissance painting collections.
• Sully Wing: Contains the medieval foundations of the original fortress, antiquities collections and access to the central Cour Carrée dating back to the Louvre's palace phase.
• Richelieu Wing: Hosts the museum's French sculpture, decorative arts and the 17th- to 19th-century French and Northern European collections, plus apartments and administrative rooms.