Musée du Louvre aka Grand Louvre
Posted On November 20, 2009
Musée du Louvre is officially known as Grand Louvre in English, also it is popularly known as Louvre Museum, Louvre and Great Louvre has the honor of being the most popular museum. The most visited museum in the world Musée du Louvre is the largest museum in the country of France. Musée du Louvre is one of the most important landmarks of Paris. The total area of the Museum is about 60,600 square meters where nearly 35,000 items are kept on display from the pre-historical period till the late 19th century.
The museum was actually a fortress which was started to be built in the later 12th century under the rule of Philip II. You can still see few of the remnants of the fortress. To form the present Louvre Palace the building was extended many times. To keep the royal collection for display in 1672 Louis XIV s
hifted to Palace of Versailles leaving the Louvre Palace.
The first exhibition in the museum was held on 10 Aug 1793 with nearly 537 painting kept under the display after which the palace was kept open for the national and international tourists. The museum was kept closed from 1796 to 1801 due to some structural problems. The museum was renamed as Musée Napoléon during the Napoleon regime; it was the time when the collection of the museum increased. The museum was returned back to the original owners when Napoleon was defeated in Waterloo. The numbers of items in the collection was further increased during the regime of Charles X, the Second French Empire and during the regime of Louis XVIII. It was the time when the collection of the museum attained the number of 20,000. Today the collection is divided into eight curatorial departments Near Eastern Antiquities, Islamic Art, Roman Antiquities, Egyptian Antiquities, Etruscan, Decorative Arts, Greek, Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings and Prints.
The museum in located in the right bank in the centre of Paris. 1st arrondissement, which is the home to the destroyed Palais des Tuileries stands beside the museum. The Tuileries Gardens situated in the neighborhood of the palace is created by Catherine de Medici in the year 1564 also it was designed by Andre Le Notre in the year 1664. Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, is the contemporary art museum which stored the Jewish cultural property during 1940-44 in located in the gardens. Waterlilly paintings by Monet which are displayed in Orangeria is located parallel to the Jeu de Paume.
The louvre Palace has an architectural line which is of around 8 km divides the city into two parts. The line starts from Louvre courtyard and ends upto Champs-Élysées. You can reach to the Louvre Palace by Louvre-Rivoli stations or by the Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Metro. If you are planning to visit France and visit the various museums and monuments during your tour you can surely get the Museums and monuments card which is offered by Discover France. The card enables you unlimited access to a number of monuments and museums in the city. You can actually access nearly 70 places in and around Paris. You can get this card from the Paris tourist Office. You can get cards for one, three or five consecutive days.
