What to Visit when in Paris: The Louvre

WHAT TO VISIT WHEN IN:

PARIS

Museums and their masterpieces:

The Louvre:

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Phillip 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 the Palace 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.

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.

By 1874, the Louvre Palace had achieved its present form of an almost rectangular structure with the Sully Wing to the east containing the square Cour Carrée and the oldest parts of the Louvre; and two wings which wrap the Cour Napoléon, the Richelieu Wing to the north and the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south. In 1983, French President François Mitterand proposed, as one of his Grands Projects, the Grand Louvre plan to renovate the building and relocate the Finance Ministry, allowing displays throughout the building. Architect I.M. Pei was awarded the project and proposed a glass pyramid to stand over a new entrance in the main court, the Cour Napoléon. The pyramid and its underground lobby were inaugurated on 15 October 1988; the pyramid was completed in 1989.

Masterpieces of the Louvre:

Aphrodite or the Venus de Milo

An ancient Greek statue 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).

Regent Diamond:

 

Discovered in 1698 in Golconda, India, this stone immediately attracted the interest of Thomas Pitt, the English governor of Madras. Cut in England, it was then purchased for the French Crown at the behest of the Regent Philippe d'Orléans in 1717. The Regent surpassed in beauty and weight all the diamonds known in the western world until that time. Even today, its flawless brilliance and perfect cut ensure that it is still considered the finest diamond in the world.

Hammurabi Code:

is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1772 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws.

 Liberty Leading the People:

 

 is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France. A woman personifying 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  Mona Lisa or La Gioconda, in Italian 

 

is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist 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.”

It is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506 and was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic.

The ambiguity of the subject's expression  is frequently described as enigmatic.

Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle

 

is an oil painting on parchment pasted on canvas by German artist Albrecht Dürer, painted in 1493. It is the earliest of Dürer's painted self-portraits and has been identified as one of the first self-portraits painted by a Northern artist.

The Coronation of Napoleon 

 

 is a painting completed in 1807 by Jacques-Louis David, the official painter of Napoleon. The painting has imposing dimensions, as it is almost ten metres wide by approximately six metres tall. The crowning and the coronation took place at Notre-Dame de Paris, a way for Napoleon to make it clear that he was a son of the Revolution.

The Coronation of the Virgin

is a painting of the Coronation of the Virgin by the Italian early Renaissance master Fra Angelico, executed around 1434-1435. The artist executed another Coronation of the Virgin (c. 1432), now in the Uffizi in Florence. He was one of the first artists to experiment using the concept of perspective.

The Wedding Feast at Cana (1563)

is a massive painting by the late-Renaissance or Mannerist Italian painter Paolo Veronese. It is the largest painting in that museum's collection.

 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace, is a 2nd-century (200–190 BC) marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory). Since 1884, it is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world.