The Louvre ( ) is a national art museum in Paris, France. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district) and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre 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 converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.
The building was redesigned and extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures. In 1692, the building was occupied by the and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, 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 National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The palace and exhibition space was expanded in the 19th century and again in the 20th.
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 from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon, after the Napoleonic looting of art in Europe, Egypt, and Syria, 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 and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided into eight departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.
The Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than dedicated to the permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of , making it the largest museum in the world. It received 9.0 million visitors in 2025.france.info.fr It is ranked as the most-visited art museum, and most-visited museum of any category.
Location and visiting
The Louvre Museum is located inside the Louvre Palace, in the centre of Paris, adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens. 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 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, or Hall Napoléon, which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorised visitors) from the connecting to the nearby rue de Rivoli. 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. Prior to the 1850s, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-day "weeks" (), 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 week, 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 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.
Beginning in 2012, Nintendo 3DS portable video game systems were used as the official museum audio guides. The following year, the museum contracted Nintendo to create a 3DS-based audiovisual visitor guide. Entitled Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre, it contains over 30 hours of audio and over 1,000 photographs of artwork and the museum itself, including 3D views, and also provides navigation thanks to differential GPS transmitters installed within the museum.
The upgraded 2013 Louvre guide was also announced in a special Nintendo Direct featuring Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrating it at the museum, and 3DS XLs pre-loaded with the guide are available to rent at the museum. The 3DS Louvre guide was scheduled to be retired in September 2025 and will be replaced by a different guide system.
History Before the museum
The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, was begun by King Philip II in the late 12th century to protect the city from attack from the west, as the Kingdom of England still held Normandy at the time. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre 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 name derives from an association with a wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).Edwards, pp. 193–94In Larousse Nouveau Dictionnaire étymologique et historique, Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1971, p. 430: ***loup 1080, Roland (leu, forme conservée dans à la queue leu leu, Saint Leu, etc.); du lat. lupus; loup est refait sur le fém. louve, où le *v* a empêché le passage du *ou* à *eu* (cf. Louvre, du lat. pop. lupara)*** the etymology of the word louvre is from lupara, feminine (pop. Latin) form of lupus. In the 7th century, Burgundofara (also known as Saint Fare), abbess in Meaux, is said to have given part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery,In Lebeuf (Abbé), Fernand Bournon, Histoire de la ville et de tout le diocèse de Paris par l'abbé Lebeuf, Vol. 2, Paris: Féchoz et Letouzey, 1883, p. 296: "Louvre". even though it is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly to the present site of the Louvre. However, linguistically it would be sounder to derive the word from the French verb louer (to let, rent), with the Old French noun-building suffix -re appended (like in oeuvre, genre, ogre, bougre etc.), signifying something which is let or rented. According to DuCange's medieval Latin glossary, louvagium in medieval France was a kind of fee or rent paid for the use of something.
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 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.Nore, p. 274 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. At the Palace of Fontainebleau, Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
The Cabinet du Roi consisted of seven rooms west of the Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of the remodelled 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 in 1686.
By the mid-18th century there were proposals to create a public gallery in the Louvre. Art critic Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne in 1747 published a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV decided on a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. 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's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck. It closed in 1780 as a result of the royal gift of the Luxembourg palace to the Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778. Under Louis XVI, the idea of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition.Carbonell, p. 56 The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed to convert the 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 urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display.Oliver, pp. 21–22
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 access on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated".Oliver, p. 35 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 property (biens nationaux). To expand and organise the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 livres per year.Nora, p. 278 In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty".McClellan, p. 7