49 Fun Facts About Louvre

On which side of the Seine does the Louvre stand?

The Right Bank holds the Louvre in the 1st arrondissement; its long south front runs along the river between the Pont Royal and the Pont des Arts.

Which French king began the Louvre as a fortress in the late 12th century?

Philip II, known as Philip Augustus, built the fortress around 1190 to guard the city against attack from Normandy, then held by the English kings; its foundations survive in the basement.

Which king made the Louvre the French monarchy's main residence in 1546 and rebuilt it in Renaissance style?

Francis I demolished the medieval keep and in 1546 commissioned Pierre Lescot to rebuild the west wing in the Renaissance style seen in the Cour Carrée.

According to the Grand Larousse, the name Louvre may derive from a word for what?

A wolf-hunting den is the Grand Larousse's suggestion: it traces the name to Latin lupus, wolf, through the lower-Empire form lupara, a place for hunting wolves.

Louis XIV abandoned the Louvre for which palace in 1682?

Versailles became the seat of the court in 1682; the Louvre was left to the royal collections and, from 1692, to the academies, which held exhibitions there.

On what date did the Louvre open as a public museum?

10 August 1793 was the first anniversary of the monarchy's fall; the Muséum central des arts opened with 537 paintings, mostly royal and confiscated church property.

In 1803 the Louvre was renamed in honour of whom?

Napoleon, then First Consul, lent his name to the Musée Napoléon in 1803; its director Vivant Denon filled it with art seized across Europe, much of it returned after 1815.

Which Louvre wing housed the French Ministry of Finance until 1989?

The Richelieu wing, along the rue de Rivoli, held the Ministry of Finance until it moved to Bercy in 1989; the Grand Louvre project turned it into galleries opened in 1993.

Roughly how many visitors did the Louvre receive in 2018?

10.2 million visitors came in 2018, lifted by the Delacroix retrospective and Beyoncé and Jay-Z's video shot in the galleries, up from 8.1 million the year before.

Which French president launched the Grand Louvre project in 1981?

Francois Mitterrand announced the Grand Louvre in September 1981, months after taking office; the project cleared the Finance Ministry out of the north wing and added the glass entrance by 1989.

How tall is the glass Louvre Pyramid?

21.6 metres tall on a 34-metre square base, the pyramid rises at 51.52 degrees, the same slope as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

How many rhombus-shaped glass panes does the Louvre Pyramid actually contain?

603 rhombus-shaped panes plus 70 triangular ones make 673 glass segments in all, a count that refutes the legend of a satanic total.

Where did the rumour that the pyramid has 666 panes originate?

An official 1980s construction brochure cited 666 panes, apparently twice; newspapers repeated it, and the figure later fed the satanic legend popularised by The Da Vinci Code.

Which architect designed the Louvre Pyramid?

I. M. Pei, chosen without a competition in 1983, designed the steel-and-glass pyramid as a new central entrance; it was inaugurated in March 1989 for the Revolution's bicentenary year.

On what material is the Mona Lisa painted?

White poplar panel is the support: Leonardo painted the oil portrait, traditionally identified as Lisa del Giocondo, wife of a Florentine silk merchant, on a single plank about 77 by 53 centimetres.

Which Leonardo painting in the Louvre shows Mary seated on her mother's lap?

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne shows Mary seated on her mother's lap reaching for the infant Jesus, who grasps a lamb; Leonardo left it unfinished at his death.

Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911?

Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian house painter who had helped fit the Louvre's glass cases, walked out with the panel in August 1911; Apollinaire was arrested and Picasso questioned before the thief was found.

How was the Mona Lisa's thief finally caught, two years after the theft?

Trying to sell it to the Uffizi's director in Florence, he wrote to the dealer Alfredo Geri, who brought in director Giovanni Poggi; the panel was authenticated and he was arrested in December 1913.

On what day of the week was the Mona Lisa stolen in 1911?

Monday, the weekly closing day, left only staff inside on 21 August 1911; the thief, in a workman's white smock, lifted the panel from the wall, wrapped it in the smock and walked out.

What Guinness World Record does the Mona Lisa hold?

Highest known painting insurance valuation is the Guinness entry: the Mona Lisa was assessed at 100 million dollars before its 1962–63 tour to Washington and New York, around a billion in 2020s terms.

In 1956 a Bolivian visitor damaged the Mona Lisa by throwing what at it?

A rock thrown by Ugo Ungaza Villegas in December 1956 shattered the glass and dislodged a speck of pigment near the left elbow; bulletproof glass was installed afterwards.

Where was the Mona Lisa hidden when war threatened in 1938-39?

Chateau de Chambord on the Loire received the Mona Lisa in the first convoys of late August 1939; it then moved on to Louvigny, Loc-Dieu, Montauban and Montal before 1945.

The Venus de Milo was discovered in 1820 by whom?

A Greek farmer, Yorgos Kentrotas, uncovered the statue while digging on Milos in April 1820; the French naval ensign Olivier Voutier, watching, urged him to keep going.

Based on a marble hand found beside her, what was the Venus de Milo thought to be holding?

An apple held in a marble hand found with the statue suggests the Judgement of Paris, in which Aphrodite won the golden apple; whether the hand belongs to her is debated.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace stands on a base shaped like what?

The prow of a ship, carved in grey Rhodian marble, carries the Nike as if alighting on a warship's bow; the group was found on Samothrace by Charles Champoiseau in 1863.

Since 1884 the Winged Victory has stood at the top of which Louvre staircase?

Escalier Daru, the great staircase of the Denon wing, has shown the Nike on its landing since 1884; the right hand, found in 1950, is displayed in a case nearby.

The Code of Hammurabi stele was rediscovered in 1901 at which site in present-day Iran?

Susa, the Elamite capital, is where Jacques de Morgan's team dug up the 2.25-metre basalt stele in 1901–02; King Shutruk-Nakhunte had carried it off as plunder from Babylonia around 1150 BC.

The Seated Scribe, one of the Louvre's Egyptian treasures, has eyes inlaid with what?

Rock crystal and magnesite form the eyes: a crystal iris set in red-veined white magnesite, ringed with copper, giving the Old Kingdom scribe found at Saqqara in 1850 his unsettling gaze.

Which Egyptologist, decipherer of the Rosetta Stone, first curated the Louvre's Egyptian collection?

Jean-Francois Champollion, who cracked the hieroglyphs in 1822, became the first curator of the Egyptian department in 1826 and steered Charles X's purchase of the Durand, Salt and Drovetti collections.

Which huge Veronese canvas, plundered from a Venetian monastery by the French in 1797, is the Louvre's largest painting?

The Wedding at Cana, nearly 10 metres wide, was painted in 1562–63 for the refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore; the monks' contract paid Veronese 324 ducats plus a cask of wine.

Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa depicts survivors of a frigate wrecked in 1816 off which coast?

Mauritania's coast, at the Bank of Arguin, is where the frigate Méduse grounded in July 1816; of about 147 people set adrift on the raft, 15 survived the 13 days.

Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People commemorates which uprising?

The July Revolution of 1830, the 'Three Glorious Days' of 27–29 July that toppled Charles X, is the event; the bare-breasted Liberty in a Phrygian cap became identified with Marianne.

What did David originally paint in his 1804 coronation picture before changing the composition?

Napoleon holding the crown above his own head was David's first idea, recorded in his sketches and traceable on the canvas; he changed it to the emperor crowning Josephine.

The Regent Diamond, displayed in the Louvre's Galerie d'Apollon, weighs roughly how many carats?

140 carats, or 140.64 to be exact, is the Regent's weight; legend says an enslaved miner smuggled it out of India in a leg wound, and Thomas Pitt bought it in 1701.

In the robbery of 19 October 2025, thieves entered the Louvre's Galerie d'Apollon how?

Via a lorry-mounted basket lift and an angle-grinder, the thieves reached a first-floor window from the Seine-side quay in a matter of minutes and took jewels including Empress Marie-Louise's emerald necklace.

Which royal headpiece was dropped and damaged by the thieves in the October 2025 heist?

The crown of Empress Eugenie, set with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, was found broken outside the museum after the thieves dropped it while fleeing.

Which adjoining royal residence did Communards burn down on 23 May 1871, with the fire reaching the Louvre?

The Tuileries, the palace joined to the Louvre's western wings, burned for two days after Communards set it alight; the flames consumed the adjoining Louvre library, and the ruins were razed in 1883.

The Louvre's satellite museum opened in 2012 in which former coal-mining town of northern France?

Lens, in the Pas-de-Calais coalfield, got the Louvre-Lens in December 2012, a low glass-and-aluminium building by the Japanese firm SANAA set on a former pithead site.

Who designed the Louvre Abu Dhabi, inaugurated in November 2017 with a vast perforated dome?

Jean Nouvel, architect of the Arab World Institute, topped the Saadiyat Island museum with a 180-metre dome of layered lattices that filters sunlight into a 'rain of light'.

Which handheld games console served as the Louvre's official audio guide from 2012?

Nintendo 3DS units replaced the old audio handsets in April 2012, offering 3D photographs and floor maps; Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto later presented the guide from the museum.

How much did the Louvre earn by allowing The Da Vinci Code to be filmed in its galleries?

2.5 million dollars was the reported fee for letting Ron Howard shoot in the galleries in 2005; the film opens with a murder in the Grande Galerie.

Which president ordered the Louvre's Department of Islamic Art created in 2003?

Jacques Chirac ordered the department in 2003; its galleries under a rippling glass-and-metal roof in the Cour Visconti opened in 2012, with 17 million euros from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation.

Which sister of Napoleon, Queen of Naples, commissioned Ingres's Grande Odalisque?

Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, ordered the picture in 1814 as a pendant to a sleeping nude; the reclining concubine is famous for her anatomically impossible elongated back.

What is the underground space beneath the glass pyramid, opened in 1989, called?

Hall Napoléon, opened with the pyramid in 1989, holds the ticket desks and leads to the three wings; it can also be reached from the Carrousel du Louvre mall.

Which Michelangelo marbles, carved for Pope Julius II's tomb, belong to the Louvre?

The Slaves, the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave of 1513–15, were carved for Julius II's tomb; Michelangelo gave them to Roberto Strozzi, and they entered the Louvre in 1794.

Which 14th-century king converted the Louvre from a military fortress into a residence?

Charles V had Raymond du Temple remodel the fortress into a residence in the 1360s, with his library in a tower, a seed of the Bibliothèque nationale.

Which looted Venetian bronzes crowned the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel from 1808 to 1815?

The Horses of Saint Mark, seized from Venice in 1797 and paraded into the capital in 1798, stood on the arch from 1808 until their return in 1815; Venice had itself looted them from Constantinople in 1204.

Which art did Adrien de Longpérier's museum, opened inside the Louvre in 1850, display?

Pre-Columbian art, chiefly Mexican antiquities, filled the musée américain that Longpérier opened in 1850, one of several short-lived museums inside the 19th-century Louvre; the pieces later went to the Trocadéro.

The Assyrian Museum that opened at the Louvre in 1847 displayed monumental sculptures brought to Paris by whom?

Paul-Émile Botta, French consul at Mosul, excavated Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad from 1843; his winged bulls and reliefs filled the Assyrian Museum that Louis-Philippe opened on 1 May 1847.