Louvre Museum, The Most Famous Museum in France

Europe / France / Western Europe
3 Jun, 2016
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Louvre Museum Pictures

The Louvre Museum or Musée du Louvre, a former French royal palace that is now one of the largest museums in the world and also the most famous museum in Paris. This museum became the most visited museum in the world, with a visit of more than 8 million people per year. Louvre Museum contains more than 380 thousand exhibits objects and displaying more than 35 thousand works of art. One of the artworks that are excellent course is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Two other masterpiece, the Louvre Pyramid and the Inverted Pyramid is now also becoming increasingly popular as the location setting in the novel The Da Vinci Code and the film is also equally successful. Want to know what are the contents of this museum?

Louvre Museum is located in the heart of Paris, exactly at the right edge of the river Seine in the first district of Paris, France. Louvre Palace which is now the Louvre Museum, once started as a fortress built in the late 12th century. The building was later modified and expanded numerous times and used as a royal palace as the building now.

Louvre Palace began not occupied by the monarch since King Louis XIV prefer the Palace of Versailles as a place of residence, making the Louvre Palace just be a place to display artwork and antiques royal collection. During the French Revolution, the Louvre Palace finally designated as a national art museum and opened officially on August 10, 1793 with 537 exhibiting paintings.

Louvre Museum Photo

Louvre Museum Courtyard Paris

Currently, the Louvre Museum contains more than 380 thousand exhibits objects and displaying more than 35 thousand works of art. These works are divided into 8 departments and dispersed in the third wing of the museum building. The most famous works in the Louvre Museum is certainly a portrait of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, who seemed to have become an icon of this museum. Some other works are also the most famous was Michelangelo’s Dying Slave and the statue Venus of Milo.

To get into the Louvre Museum, we can choose to enter through the Pyramid (the Louvre Pyramid, the main entrance), Carrousel du Louvre (underground mall), or Porte des Lions (near the west end of the Denon Wing. If you want to see the other masterpiece that became an icon of the Louvre Museum, go through the main door, namely through the Louvre Pyramid. there we can see the Louvre Pyramid and Inverted Pyramid (La Pyramide Inversee), the icon once another attraction of the Louvre Museum which doubled the number of visits to the museum.

Louvre Pyramid is a pyramid-shaped building made of glass and be the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Glass pyramid is made by a world renowned American architect, I.M. Pei, in 1989. The modern building in the Louvre Museum is used to receive mixed reviews considering the design contrasts with classical architectural style of the museum building.

Mona Lisa Painting at Louvre Museum

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Nonetheless, the glass pyramid is now considered as being the smart solution to create comprehensive museum entrance without touching and fiddling with the museum buildings of historical value. In addition, a transparent glass pyramid also allows light to enter the basement museums. Even five years later, in 1993, made its partner, the Inverted Pyramid.

After entering through the Louvre Pyramid, we have access to 8 departments in the Louvre that Egyptian antiquities; Near Eastern antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings. The 8 departments are spread over three wings of the Louvre Museum building, which Sully, Richelieu and Denon Wing.