Louvre

Introduction

A little bit of history

Louvre figures and vandals

Schedules, prices, passes

Fast Louvre

Oriental antiquities

Greek, Etruscan, Roman

French painting section

Flemish painting section

More foreign paint section

Italian painting section

Sculpture section

Paris-Louvre figures and vandals

Paris main page

Paris dining world!!!!

Book a Paris hotel on line

More than 1800 employees run the Louvre day and night. One of the most popular, vastest (the Richelieu wing alone is larger than the Musée d’Orsay!!), one of the most visited: in 1999 more than 5.5 million visitors of which 70 % foreigners, went to see the smile of the Mona Lisa. Since the opening of the Louvre pyramid, on 30th of March 1989, the Louvre received about 60 million visitors. It’s like the total population of France would have marched through the “hall Napoleon”.
Beyond its records, the Louvre stays a unique spot. Incomparable. A museum in a medieval fortress that turned into a royal palace.  With its galleries, its courtyards, its salons, its wainscoted walls, its frescoes and staircases. Decorated by world famous artists: Delacroix, Meynier, sculptors Jean Groujon and Girardon. Designed by the greatest architects: Lescot, Le Vau…

The pyramid with its 675 diamond shape glass panels, competes with the Eiffel tower, andbecame an unavoidable landmark of Parisian landscape. And the Louvre museum is also in complete immersion with the city. More than 60,000 square meters of permanent exhibition surfaces, 34,000 art works open for public viewand more than 720 millions FF of budget per year. A city in a city! With its quarters (here they say regions), its districts, its papers, cafes and  restaurants, its boutiques and ateliers, its technical installations, its cultural and medical service, its small people and its stars. A genuine community of craftsmen and scientists, professions and specialists: architects, marble workers, gilders, etchers, wood workers, directors, ticket controllers, guards, cashiers, even some street performers for the waiting lines! Everybody has his job. To keep, maintain and animate this art city, to make you love it and want to stay or return, enrich and protect the collections but also to—pardon me! —to exploit it.
A new phenomenon is the increasing indiscipline and disrespect of the visitors! Lipstick and black pencil marks, glued chewing gums. Last summer a student managed to break two fingers of an Aphrodite! Even if the Egyptian objects are already 80 % behind a window, people still want to touch the sculptures. That reminds me that in front of the Getty museum in L.A. a very poor sculpture had been installed just to let people live out their frustrations and touch it as much as they wanted. That was a good idea! The French guards would sure appreciate such a gag, since they are by far the largest working group in the Louvre. Some denounce these tourists eating and drinking in front of the art works, climb on the benches to take a picture, sit on the sculptures and insult you when you make them a remark. Others describe the pickpocket clan, growing constantly, or the “ cruisers” just there to pick up a gal or even a boy. But all guards smile when they evoke the three most asked questions: “-Where is the bathroom, please?” “Where is the exit?” and “Where is the Mona Lisa?”