Paris, France: The Magnificent Louvre

The Louvre

The Louvre Palace and the Pyramid (by day).

-Paris, France: The Magnificent Louvre:



Once the biggest palace for the ultimate King, the Louvre now houses the world's grandest art gallery with over 300,000 works of art. First open to the pubic after the French Revolution in 1793, the Louvre is one of the oldest museums in the world. Subscribe tohttp://www.youtube.com/ricksteves for weekly updates on more European destinations. For more information on the Rick Steves' Europe TV series — including episode descriptions, scripts, participating stations, travel information on destinations and more 

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Aerial view of the Louvre Palace

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The Louvre or Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre, pronounced: [myze dy luvʁ]) is one of the world's largest museums and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, France, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (district). Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet). With more than 8 million visitors each year, the Louvre is the world's most visited museum.

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre), originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose thePalace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.

The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed the Musée Napoléon. After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns ofLouis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic. As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss was commissioned in 1787, donated in 1824


The Venus de Milo was added to the Louvre's collection during the reign of Louis XVIII.


Human-headed winged bull (shedu), Assyria, limestone, 8th century BC.


The Nike of Samothrace(winged Victory), marble, circa 190 BC

The Mona Lisa, (Leonardo da Vinci), oil on panel, 1503–19, probably completed while the artist was at the court of Francis I.

French Rococo, Diana bathing, Boucher, 1742


French Romantic art,Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix, 1830


French Classicism, The Shepherds of Arcadia,Poussin, c.1640

Courtyard of the Louvre Museum, with the Pyramid

France - Paris, Louvre

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The Louvre Museum Main Entrance The main entrance through the pyramids. 2011-04-03 Show on map

The Louvre Museum Main Entrance Fullscreen

Artemis_was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.The Diana of Versailles, a Roman copy of a Greek sculpture by Leochares

Venus de Milo_Aphrodite of Milos (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη τῆς Μήλου, Aphroditē tēs Mēlou), better known as the Venus de Milo, is an ancient Greekstatue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. Created sometime between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty (Venus to the Romans). It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at 203 cm (6 ft 8 in) high. The arms and original plinth were lost following its discovery. From an inscription that was on its plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch; earlier, it was mistakenly attributed to the master sculptor Praxiteles. It is currently on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The Galerie d'Apollon is a part of the Louvre, famous for its high vaulted ceilings with painted decorations.







-Liberty Leading the People in Louvre,Paris,France.




-Liberty Leading the People (French: La Liberté guidant le peuple) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France. A woman personifying the concept and the goddess of Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the flag of the French Revolution – the tricolor flag which is still France's flag today – in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne.

The Raft of the Medusa (French: Le Radeau de la Méduse) is an oil painting of 1818–1819 by the FrenchRomantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. At 491 cm × 716 cm (193.3 in × 282.3 in),^[1] it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced cannibalism. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain perceived to be acting under the authority of the recently restored French monarchy. In reality, King Louis XVIII had no say in the captain's appointment, since monarchs were not directly involved in appointments made to vessels like a naval frigate. The appointment of the vicomte de Chaumareys as captain of the Méduse would have been a routine naval appointment, made within the Ministry of the Navy

'Raft of the Medusa' in Salle Mollien The Salle Mollien was created and decorated in 1863 for the imperial museum, as conveyed by its red and gold decor. It houses large French Romantic paintings such as The Raft of the Medusa, July 28. Liberty Leading the People and The Death of Sardanapalus are on display here. 2011-04-03 Show on map

'Raft of the Medusa' in Salle Mollien Fullscreen

The Intervention of the Sabine Women is a 1799 painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David.The painting depicts Romulus's wife Hersilia – the daughter of Titus Tatius, leader of the Sabines – rushing between her husband and her father and placing her babies between them. A vigorous Romulus prepares to strike a half-retreating Tatius with his spear, but hesitates.

Joséphine kneels before Napoléon during his coronation at Notre Dame. Detail from the oil painting (1806-7) by David and Rouget

The coronation of Napoleon Ion 2 December 1804 at Notre-Dame in an 1807 painting byJacques-
Louis David

The Salle Daru The Salle Daru was created and decorated in 1863 for the imperial museum, as conveyed by its red and gold decor (the French imperial colors). In this section of the Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre) you can see Davids masterpiece The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine along other large-scale French Neoclassical paintings. 2011-04-03 Show on map

The Salle Daru Fullscreen

Oath of the Horatii (French: Le Serment des Horaces), is a large painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 and now on display in the Louvre in Paris. The painting immediately became a huge success with critics and the public, and remains one of the best known paintings in the Neoclassical style.

It depicts a scene from a Roman legend about a dispute between two warring cities; Rome and Alba Longa, when three brothers from a Roman family, the Horatii, agree to end the war by fighting three brothers from a family of Alba Longa, the Curiatii. The three brothers, all of whom appear willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of Rome, are shown saluting their father who holds their swords out for them. The principal sources for the story behind David's Oath are the first book of Livy (sections 24-6) which was elaborated by Dionysius in book 3 of his Roman Antiquities. However, the moment depicted in David's painting is his own invention.

It grew to be considered a paradigm of neoclassical art. The painting increased David's fame, allowing him to take on his own students

The Mona Lisa (Monna Lisa or La Gioconda in Italian; La Joconde in French) is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italianartist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world."

The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a white Lombardy poplarpanel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506, although Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at The Louvre museum in Paris since 1797.

The ambiguity of the subject's expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modeling of forms and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work.

The Mona Lisa Room In this room you will find the most famous portrait painting of the world, Mona Lisa (by Leonardo da Vinci). Anybody that visits the Louvre Museum for the first time, wants to see this lady if this is the only work that has to be seen. But this is not the only masterpiece in the room. Opposite to Mona Lisa you can see The Wedding Feast at Cana (by Veronese), a huge (6.77 x 9.94 m) painting, which depicts Jesus 1st miracle, where he turns water to wine. This room is full of wonderful Italian paintings, but these 2 paintings steal the most of the attention. 2011-04-03 Show on map

The Mona Lisa Room Fullscreen

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The Wedding at Cana :

Artist	Paolo Veronese
Year	1563
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	666 cm × 990 cm (262 in × 390 in)
Location	Louvre, Paris

The painting depicts the Wedding Feast at Cana, a miracle story from the Christian New Testament. In the story, Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding celebration in Cana in the Galilee. Towards the end of the feast, when the wine was running out, Jesus commanded servants to fill jugs with water, which he then turned into wine (his first miracle of seven, as recounted in the Gospel according to John).

The piece was commissioned in 1562 by the Benedictine Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy, and completed in fifteen months by the year 1563. It hung in the refectory of the monastery for 235 years, until it was plundered by Napoléon in 1797 and shipped to Paris. The painting was cut in half for the journey and stitched back together in Paris. It was not returned in the post-Napoléonic conciliation treaties which pursued some restitution of looted artworks, and in its stead a feebleCharles Le Brun painting (now at the Gallerie dell'Accademia) was shipped to Venice.

The painting was taken to Brest and stored in a box during the Franco-Prussian War and rolled up and moved around France in a truck during World War II.

In 1989, the Louvre began a $1 million renovation, comparable to the work done on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. A group of artists calling themselves the Association to Protect the Integrity of Artistic Heritage protested and demanded a review of the restoration. In June 1992, with the restoration incomplete, the Louvre was embarrassed when the painting suffered damage in two separate incidents. In the first, the canvas was spattered by water from a leaking air vent. In the second, two days later, curators were raising the 1.5 ton painting to a higher position on the wall when one of the supports gave way, and the entire painting toppled to the floor. The metal framework tore five holes in the canvas, one of them four feet long; architectural and background areas of the painting were affected, but no faces. The museum was criticized for keeping the incident private for an entire month while rumors swirled.

On 11 September 2007, the 210th anniversary of the looting of the painting by Napoleon's troops, a facsimile of the original was hung in its original place in the Palladian Refectory. The computerized facsimile was commissioned by the Giorgio Cini Foundation of Venice with the collaboration of the Musée du Louvre, Paris, where the original remains, and made by Factum Arte, a Madrid-based team of artists and conservators, founded and directed by the British artist Adam Lowe. It consists of 1,591 computer graphic files. (See Returning "Les Noces de Cana").

The Wedding at Cana (or The Wedding Feast at Cana) is a massive painting by the late-Renaissance or Mannerist Italian painter Paolo Veronese. It is on display in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, where it is the largest painting in that museum's collection.

AUDREY HEPBURN

The Winged Victory of Samothrace_The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace,is a 2nd-century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory). Since 1884, it has been prominently displayed at the Louvre and is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world. H.W. Janson described it as "the greatest masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture."

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