Louvre

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This article is about the museum. For building history, see Palais du Louvre. For higher education, see École du Louvre.
Musée du Louvre
Established 1793
Location Palais Royal, Musée du Louvre,
75001 Paris, France
Visitor figures 8,300,000 (2006)[1]
Director Henri Loyrette
Curator Marie-Laure de Rochebrune
Website www.louvre.fr

The (French: Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is the most visited and one of the oldest, largest, and most famous art galleries and museums in the world.

The Louvre has a long history of artistic and historic conservation, inaugurated in the Capetian dynasty and continuing to this day. The building was previously a royal palace and holds some of the world's most famous works of art, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Madonna of the Rocks, Jacques Louis David's Oath of the Horatii, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People and Alexandros of Antioch's Venus de Milo. Located in the centre of the city of Paris, between the Rive Droite of the Seine and the rue de Rivoli in the Ier arrondissement, it is accessed by the Palais Royal — Musée du Louvre Metro station. The equestrian statue of Louis XIV constitutes the starting point of the "axe historique", but the palace is not aligned on this axis.

With 8.3 million visitors in 2006,[1] the Louvre is the most visited art museum in the world.

View of Musée du Louvre from Jardin des Tuileries
View of Musée du Louvre from Jardin des Tuileries[2]
Musée du Louvre, Pavillon Richelieu
Musée du Louvre, Pavillon Richelieu

Contents

[edit] History

Upon the French Revolution, the royal Louvre collection (supplemented by the collections of the French Academy and confiscations from the Church and from émigrés[citation needed]) became the "Muséum central des Arts" and opened as such in 1793. From 1794 onwards, France's victorious revolutionary armies brought back increasing numbers of artworks from across Europe, aiming to establish it as a major European museum[citation needed]. A particularly significant addition was the masterpieces from Italy (including the Laocoon and his sons[1] and the Apollo Belvedere, both from the papal collection) which arrived in Paris in July 1798 with much pomp and ceremony (a special Sèvres vase was commissioned for the occasion).

The sheer number of these statues forced the museum's curators into reorganising the displays[citation needed]. The building was redecorated, augurated in 1800, and renamed the "musée Napoléon" in 1803. It continued to grow (led by Vivant Denon) through purchases and spoliation (eg the forced purchase of part of the Borghese collection) and was an attempt at creating a universal museum of art, with all the best sculptures[citation needed].[2] - indeed, most of the art Napoleon directed his commissioners to take was sculpture rather than old-master paintings[citation needed]. For a short period, this allowed north Europeans to see the finest of classical sculpture without organising an expensive Grand Tour to Italy itself[citation needed]. The collections shrank again when almost all wartime acquisitions had to be returned after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

[edit] Construction and architecture

Main article: Palais du Louvre
The Richelieu Wing of the Louvre at night
The Richelieu Wing of the Louvre at night

The first royal "Castle of the Louvre" was founded in what was then the western edge of Paris by Philip Augustus in 1190, as a fortified royal palace to defend Paris on its west against Plantagenêt attacks. The first building in the existing Louvre was begun in 1535, after demolition of the old Castle. The architect Pierre Lescot introduced to Paris the new design vocabulary of the Renaissance, which had been developed in the châteaux of the Loire.

During his reign (1589 – 1610), King Henry IV added the Grande Galerie. Henry IV, a promoter of the arts, invited hundreds of artists and craftsmen to live and work on the building's lower floors. This huge addition was built along the bank of the River Seine and at the time was the longest edifice of its kind in the world.

Louis XIII (1610 – 1643) completed the Denon Wing, which had been started by Catherine Medici in 1560. Today it has been renovated, as a part of the Grand Louvre Renovation Programme.

The Richelieu Wing was also built by Louis XIII. It was part of the Ministry of Economy of France, which took up most of the north wing of the palace. The Ministry was moved and the wing was renovated and turned into magnificent galleries which were inaugurated in 1993, the 200th anniversary of parts of the building first being opened to the public as a museum on November 8, 1793 during the French Revolution.

Napoleon I built the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1805 to commemorate his victories and the Jardin du Carrousel. In those times this garden was the entrance to the Palais des Tuileries.

The Louvre was still being added to by Napoleon III. The new wing of 1852 – 1857, by architects Visconti and Hector Lefuel, represents the Second Empire's version of Neo-baroque, full of detail and laden with sculpture. Work continued until 1876.

Panoramic view of the Louvre in 1908
Panoramic view of the Louvre in 1908


Panoramic view of the Louvre in 2006
Panoramic view of the Louvre in 2006

[edit] Louvre Pyramid

Main article: Louvre Pyramid
View of the outside from inside the Louvre Pyramid
View of the outside from inside the Louvre Pyramid

The central courtyard of the museum, on the axis of the Champs-Élysées, is occupied by the Louvre Pyramid, built in 1989, which serves as the main entrance to the museum.

The Louvre Pyramid is a glass pyramid commissioned by then French president François Mitterrand, designed by I. M. Pei and was inaugurated in 1989. This was the first renovation of the Grand Louvre Project. The Carre Gallery, where the Mona Lisa was exhibited, was also renovated. The pyramid covers the Louvre entresol and forms part of the new entrance into the museum.

[edit] Le Louvre-Lens

Since many of the works in the Louvre are viewed only in distinct departments — for example, French Painting, Near Eastern Art or Sculpture — established some 200 years ago, it was decided that a satellite building would be created outside of Paris, to experiment with other museological displays and to allow for a larger visitorship outside the confines of the Paris Palace. Sourced from the Louvre's core holdings, and not from long-lost or stored works in the basement of the Louvre, as widely thought, the new satellite will show works side-by-side, cross-referenced and juxtaposed from all periods and cultures, creating an entirely new experience for the museum visitor. The project completion is planned for late 2010; the building will be capable of receiving between 500 and 600 major works, with a core gallery dedicated to the human figure over several millennia. This new building should receive about 500,000 visitors per year. There were originally six city candidates for this project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. On November 29, 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens, Pas-de-Calais to be the site of the new Louvre building. Le Louvre-Lens was the name chosen for the museum.

The new satellite museum, funded by the local regional government, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, will have 22,000 square meters of usable space built on two levels, with semi-permanent exhibition space covering at least 5000 m². There will also be space set aside for rotating temporary exhibitions. The project will also feature a multi-purpose theatre and visitable conservation spaces. The building is comprised of a series of low-laying volumes clad in glass and stainless steel in the middle of a 60 acres former mining site, largely reclaimed by nature. The estimated cost for this building is 70 million euro, or 96.6 million US dollars (at July 2007). The new satellite building was selected after an international architectural competition in 2005. The architectural joint-venture team of SANAA of Tokyo and the New York-based IMREY CULBERT LP were awarded the project on September 26, 2005. SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa with Tim Culbert and Celia Imrey / IMREY CULBERT LP [3]). SANAA is a widely recognized Japanese architectural firm, noted for their ethereal designs. IMREY CULBERT is a US/French architectural firm, specializing in museum and exhibit designs, with offices in New York and Paris. Tim Culbert, project architect that lead the team's submission for the Louvre-Lens project, was previously an associate-partner of I.M. Pei, architect of the Pyramid of the Louvre.

[edit] Access

Map of the Louvre
Map of the Louvre

The Louvre can be accessed by the Palais Royal — Musée du Louvre Métro station. The station is named after the nearby Palais Royal and the Louvre. Until the 1990s its name was Palais Royal; it was renamed when a new access was built from the station to the underground portions of the redeveloped Louvre museum.

[edit] Management

Long managed by the French state under the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Louvre has recently acquired powers of self-management as an Établissement Public Autonome (Government-Owned Corporation) in order better to manage its growth.

[edit] Directors

The director of the Louvre has in the past been known as its "Conservateur", and is now known as its "président directeur général". These have included:

[edit] Departments & collections

Khorsabad - Human Headed Winged Bulls and Reliefs
Khorsabad - Human Headed Winged Bulls and Reliefs

The Musée du Louvre's collections number over 380,000 objects[3], though not one of worlds largest collections, arguably one of the finest.

The Louvre displays 35,000 works of art drawn from eight curatorial departments, displayed in over 60,600 square meters of exhibition space dedicated to the permanent collections[4]. According to the most recent Annual Report, published in 2005[5], the museums holdings are as follows:

  • Near Eastern Antiquities
  • Egyptian Antiquities
  • Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities
  • Islamic Art
  • Sculptures
  • Decorative Arts
  • Paintings
  • Prints and Drawings
  • 100,000
  • 50,000
  • 45,000
  • 10,000
  • 6,550
  • 20,704
  • 11,900
  • 183,500
Canova - Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss
Canova - Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss

The hallmark of the museums collection is its 11,900 paintings (6,000 on permanent display and 5,900 in deposit), representing the second largest holding of western pictoral art in the world, after the State Hermitage, Russia. There are large holdings from such artists as Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Van Dyck, Poussin, and David. Among the well-known sculptures in the collection are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo.

The collection of Prints and Drawings were significantly supplemented with the donation of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845 – 1934) collection in 1935, containing more than 40,000 engravings, nearly 3,000 drawings and 500 illustrated books.

Besides art, the Louvre displays a host of other exhibits, including archaeology, sculpture's and objet d'art. The permanent galleries showcase large holdings of furniture, whose most spectacular item was the Bureau du Roi, completed by Jean Henri Riesener in the 18th century, now returned to the Palace of Versailles.

[edit] Notable paintings

13th to 15th century
16th century
Leonardo Da Vinci - Mona Lisa
Leonardo Da Vinci - Mona Lisa
17th century
Nicolas Poussin - Et in Arcadia ego
Nicolas Poussin - Et in Arcadia ego
18th century
19th century
v • d • e
Museums with major collections of Paintings (mid-13th century to 20C)
  1. State Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia
    16,783 paintings [4]
  2. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
    11,900 paintings [8]
  3. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
    8,600 paintings [5]
  4. Royal Collection, London, UK
    7,000 paintings [6]
  5. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    5,500 paintings [7]
  6. Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France
    5,033 paintings [8]
  7. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
    4,800 paintings [9]
  8. Tate Collection, London, UK
    4,442 paintings [10]
  9. Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
    4,000 paintings [11]
  10. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium
    3,200 paintings [12]
  11. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary
    3,000 paintings [13]
  12. Das Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
    2,700 paintings [14]
  13. National Gallery, London, UK
    2,300 paintings [15]
  14. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
    2,200 paintings [16]
  15. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
    2,000 paintings [17]
  16. Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA
    1,900 paintings [18]
  17. Accademia Carrara di Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
    1,800 paintings [19]
  1. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
    1697 paintings (inc. 200 paintings from Christ Church Picture Gallery) [20] [21]
  2. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
    1,600 paintings [22]
  3. Gräflich Lambergsche Gemählde-Gallerie, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna, Austria
    1,600 paintings [23]
  4. Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, Austria
    1,500 paintings [24]
  5. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
    1,400 paintings [25]
  6. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA
    1,200 paintings [26]
  7. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK
    1,181 paintings [27]
  8. Fogg Art Museum, Massachusetts, USA
    1,100 paintings [28]
  9. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, USA
    1,011 paintings [29]
  10. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain
    1,000 paintings [30]
  11. Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway
    1,000 paintings [31]
  12. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Connecticut, USA
    900 paintings [32]
  13. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, USA
    900 paintings [33]
  14. Le Musée Condé, Chantilly, France
    850 paintings [34]
  15. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
    800 paintings [35]
  16. Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands
    800 paintings [36]
  1. Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome, Italy
    800 paintings [37]
  2. Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, USA
    800 paintings [38]
  3. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany
    750 paintings [39]
  4. Wallace Collection, London, UK
    650 paintings [40]
  5. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK
    644 paintings [41]
  6. Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK
    530 paintings [42]
  7. Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy
    500 paintings [43]
  8. Vatican Museums, Vatican City
    460 Paintings (ex. Raphael Stanze, Sistine Chapel) [44]
  9. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
    450 paintings [45]
  10. Musée National Picass, Paris, France
    250 paintings (small selection of work by other artists) [46]
  11. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    200 paintings [47]
  12. Notable Exceptions (lack of information):
    Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
    The Phillips Collection, Washington, USA
    Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
    Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France
    Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, France
    Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris, France
    Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris, France
    Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel, Germany
    Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy
    Palazzo Spada, Rome, Italy
    n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only quantitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. (September 2007)
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items into other sections and removing inappropriate items.
The Louvre is a central location in the 1979 serial City of Death in the science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Film

The Louvre, its art, particularly the art in the basement — not on display — is the subject of a scene in Kate & Leopold.
Scenes were filmed in the Louvre in both Martin Scorsese's 1993 The Age of Innocence and Merchant Ivory's 1990 Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.
The Louvre is destroyed (along with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe) during a counter-terrorism mission in the 2004 satirical film Team America: World Police.

The Da Vinci Code

The Louvre and many of its works of art are featured prominently in Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code and in the 2006 film adaptation. The Louvre is the main setting in the prologue and first few chapters of the book and parts of the movie. The museum is the homicide crime scene where curator Jacques Saunière is murdered by an Opus Dei member named Silas.

Film productions

The Louvre scenes of The Da Vinci Code were filmed on location. Originally, director Ron Howard was unable to obtain permission to film there, having already been denied access to Westminster Abbey and Saint-Sulpice (Paris). However, French President Jacques Chirac invited Howard to lunch at his home, where he informed the director that he would obtain clearance and Howard could contact him personally if there were any further problems.[6]

Gaming

The Louvre inspired a virtual setting of adventure in the video game Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, starring Lara Croft.

Radio

The Louvre is a frequent location in the British radio series The Goon Show, in particular the episodes "Napoleon's Piano" (11 October 1955) and "The Mountain Eaters" (1 December 1958).

Music

The Louvre was also the name of a Los Angeles-based rock band in the 1980s.

[edit] Abu Dhabi Louvre

In March 2007, the Louvre announced that a Louvre museum would be completed by 2012 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The thirty-year agreement, signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, will prompt the construction of a Louvre museum in downtown Abu Dhabi in exchange for $1.3 billion USD. It has been noted that the museum will showcase work from multiple French museums, including the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Center, the Musee d'Orsay and Versailles. However, Donnedieu de Vabres stated at the announcement that the Paris Louvre would not sell any of its 35,000-piece collection, on display.[7]

[edit] See also

[edit] Gallery

Medieval Fortress

Castle of the Louvre in the 15th century.

Model of the first royal "Castle of the Louvre"

Remains of the original, medieval foundations can still be seen underneath the museum.

The Gallery of 19th century French School

Paintings

Leonardo Da Vinci - The Virgin and Child with St. Anne

Anthony van Dyck - Charles I of England

Peter Paul Rubens - Coronation of Marie de' Medici in St. Denis

Jacques-Louis David - Oath of the Horatii

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Yahoo News. Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
  2. ^ http://www.flickr.com/photos/89297978@N00/sets/72157594515487122/
  3. ^ 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185
  4. ^ http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/alaune.jsp?bmLocale=fr_FR
  5. ^ 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185
  6. ^ TIME, April 2006
  7. ^ http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1596692,00.html
  8. ^ 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185

[edit] External links

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