Welcome to the
Musée du Louvre
Explore eight centuries of history and over 35,000 masterpieces — from ancient civilizations to the pinnacle of 19th-century art.
Explore the CollectionEight Centuries of History
From Fortress to Museum
Royal Fortress
King Philip II of France ordered the construction of a fortress on the Right Bank of the Seine to defend Paris against attack from the west. This medieval stronghold, the Louvre's earliest incarnation, featured a massive keep surrounded by protective walls and a moat.
Renaissance Palace
King Francis I demolished the old fortress and commissioned architect Pierre Lescot to build a new Renaissance-style royal palace. Over the following centuries, successive monarchs — Henry IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV — expanded and embellished the palace into one of the grandest residences in Europe.
Birth of the Museum
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre would be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The Muséum Central des Arts opened on August 10, 1793, with 537 paintings on display, marking the birth of one of the world's first great public museums.
Napoleonic Expansion
Napoleon Bonaparte renamed the museum the Musée Napoléon and dramatically expanded its collection through acquisitions and spoils from his military campaigns across Europe and Egypt. Though many works were returned after his defeat, the museum's stature as a world-class institution was firmly established.
The Glass Pyramid
President François Mitterrand commissioned architect I.M. Pei to design a modernization of the Louvre as part of the Grand Louvre project. Pei's iconic glass and metal pyramid, completed in 1989, serves as the museum's main entrance and has become one of the most recognizable landmarks in Paris.
World's Greatest Museum
The Louvre is the world's largest and most visited art museum, spanning 72,735 square meters of exhibition space. Its collection encompasses over 35,000 works from antiquity to the mid-19th century, attracting nearly 9 million visitors annually from every corner of the globe.
Masterpieces
