La Louvre

La Louvre Mohammed Al-Thani 8C

Museums in Paris
Centre Pompidou - National modern art
Musée national des Arts asiatiques Guimet
Musée des Arts décoratifs
Musée de la Mode et du Textile
Musée de la Publicité
Musée Nissim de Camondo
Musée des Arts et Métiers
Musée de l’ Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
Musée du quai Branly (new)
Chapelle expiatoire
La Cinémathèque française - Musée du Cinéma
Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie - La Villette
Conciergerie
Musée national Eugène Delacroix
Musée des Égouts de Paris
Musée Galliera, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris
Musée de l’Institut du monde arabe
Musée du Louvre

How to get to 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.

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 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 Particularly significant additions to the collection were the masterpieces from Italy (including the Laocoon and his sons 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. The building was redecorated and inaugurated in 1800, and renamed the "Musée Napoléon" in 1803. It continued to grow (led by Vivant Denon) through purchases and spoliation (e.g. 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 - 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.

Construction
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.

Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa , or La Gioconda (La Joconde) is a 16th-century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel by Leonardo Da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. It is arguably the most famous painting in the world, and few other works of art have been subject to as much scrutiny, study, mythologizing and parody. It is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo . The painting, a half-length portrait, depicts a woman whose gaze meets the viewer's with an expression often described as enigmatic. It is considered by many to be Leonardo's magnum opus.

Picture Gallery

La Louvre

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