The Louvre Museum

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The Louvre Museum in Paris is immense, and one could spend a week exploring its exhibits. Unfortunately, most of us don't have that kind of time. Find out how to get the most out of one of the world's top art museums, the Louvre Museum.

Housed in the Palais du Louvre (Louvre Palace), the former seat of French royalty, the Louvre emerged in the 12th century as a medieval fortress, slowly evolving toward its status as a public arts museum during the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Since then, it has become the globe's most-visited museum, and an enduring symbol of French excellence in the arts.

The paintings, sculptures and artefacts on display in the Louvre Museum have been assembled by French governments over the past five centuries. Among them are works of art and artisanship from all over Europe and important collections of Assyrian, Etruscan, Greek, Coptic and Islamic art and antiquities. Traditionally the Louvre’s raison d’être is to present Western art from the Middle Ages to about the year 1848 (at which point the Musée d’Orsay takes over), as well as the works of ancient civilisations that informed Western art.

When the museum opened in the late 18th century, it contained 2500 paintings and objets d’art; today some 35,000 are on display. The ‘Grand Louvre’ project, inaugurated by the late President Mitterrand in 1989, doubled the museum’s exhibition space, and new and renovated galleries have opened in recent years devoted to objets d’art such as Sèvres porcelain and the crown jewels of Louis XV (room 66, 1st floor, Apollo Gallery, Denon Wing).

The Louvre may be the most actively avoided museum in the world. Daunted by the richness and sheer size of the place (the side facing the Seine is some 700m long, and it is said that it would take nine months just to glance at every piece of art here), both local people and visitors often find the prospect of an afternoon at a smaller museum far more inviting. Eventually, most people do their duty and come, but many leave overwhelmed, unfulfilled, exhausted and frustrated at having got lost on their way to da Vinci’s La Joconde, better known as Mona Lisa (room 6, 1st floor, Salle de la Joconde, Denon Wing). Your best bet – after checking out a few works you really want to see – is to choose a particular period or section of the Louvre and pretend that the rest is in another museum somewhere across town.

The most famous works from antiquity include the Seated Scribe (room 22, 1st floor, Sully Wing), the Code of Hammurabi (room 3, ground floor, Richelieu Wing) and that armless duo, the Venus de Milo (room 7, ground floor, Denon Wing) and the Winged Victory of Samothrace (opposite room 1, 1st floor, Denon Wing). From the Renaissance, don’t miss Michelangelo’s The Dying Slave (ground floor, Michelangelo Gallery, Denon Wing) and works by Raphael, Botticelli and Titian (1st floor, Denon Wing). French masterpieces of the 19th century include Ingres’ The Turkish Bath (room 60, 2nd floor, Sully Wing), Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (room 77, 1st floor, Denon Wing) and works by Corot, Delacroix and Fragonard (2nd floor, Denon Wing).

The main entrance and ticket windows in the Cour Napoléon are covered by the 21m-high Pyramide du Louvre, a glass pyramid designed by the Chinese-born American architect IM Pei. You can avoid the queues outside the pyramid or at the Porte des Lions entrance by entering the complex via the Carrousel du Louvre shopping centre entrance, at 99 rue de Rivoli, or by following the ‘Musée du Louvre’ exit from the Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre metro station.

You can also buy your tickets in advance from the ticket machines in the Carrousel du Louvre or from the billetteries (ticket offices) of Fnac or Virgin Megastores for an extra €1 to €1.60, and walk straight in without queuing. Tickets are valid for the whole day, so you can come and go as you please.