Louvre Museum
| Louvre Museum | |
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| General information | |
| Name | Louvre Museum |
| Location | Paris, France |
| Director | Jean-Luc Martinez |
| Founded | August 10, 1793 |
| Architect | Pierre Lescot, Claude Perrault, Louis Le Vau |
| Website | https://www.louvre.fr/ |
Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre), is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France, housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. A visit to the Louvre and its collections lets visitors discover Western art from the Middle Ages to 1848, as well as a large number of ancient civilizations.
History
The Louvre is the world's largest museum and houses one of the most impressive art collections in history. The magnificent, baroque-style palace and museum — LeMusée du Louvre in French — sits along the banks of the Seine River in Paris. It is one of the city's biggest tourist attractions.
The Louvre was originally built as a fortress in 1190, but was reconstructed in the 16th century to serve as a royal palace. "Like many buildings, it was built and rebuilt over the years," said Tea Gudek Snajdar, an Amsterdam-based art historian, museum docent and a blogger at Culture Tourist.
During its time as a royal residence, the Louvre saw tremendous growth. Nearly every monarch expanded it, according to History.com. Today, it covers a total area of 652,300 square feet (60,600 square meters). In 1682, Louis XIV moved the royal residence to Versailles, and the Louvre became home to various art academies, offering regular exhibitions of its members' works.
During the French Revolution, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were forcibly removed from Versailles and imprisoned in Tuilleries Palace, which was then adjacent to the Louvre, according to the Louvre’s official website. They were beheaded there in 1793.[1]
See also
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Search for Louvre Museum on Wikipedia. |
