The Louvre Pyramid illuminated in the palace courtyard

The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world and, with more than 72,000 square metres of exhibition space, also the largest. Around 9 million people a year walk beneath I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, in a royal palace whose story began more than 800 years ago.

From medieval fortress to royal palace

The Louvre began as a fortress built by King Philip II at the end of the 12th century to defend Paris from the west; its foundations can still be seen in the museum’s crypt. In the 14th century Charles V turned it into a royal residence, and from 1546 Francis I began rebuilding it in Renaissance style as the main home of the French kings.

When Louis XIV moved the court to Versailles in 1682, the Louvre became above all a place to display the royal art collections. During the Revolution it opened to the public on 10 August 1793 as the Muséum central des Arts de la République.

The glass pyramid and the Grand Louvre

In 1981 President François Mitterrand launched the Grand Louvre project to give the museum almost the entire building. The architect I. M. Pei proposed his glass pyramid in 1984; the courtyard opened in October 1988 and the underground lobby on 30 March 1989. The renovated Richelieu Wing followed in 1993, together with the Carrousel du Louvre.

A new chapter is now beginning. The “Louvre – New Renaissance” plan, selected in May 2026, has a budget of €1.1 billion and includes a second main entrance at the Grande Colonnade and a dedicated 3,000-square-metre space for the Mona Lisa. Work is scheduled to start in September 2026.

The Louvre museum and its glass pyramid in Paris

The collections: eight departments and 35,000 works on show

The museum owns more than 600,000 objects and displays around 35,000 of them, arranged in eight curatorial departments:

  • Egyptian Antiquities
  • Near Eastern Antiquities
  • Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities
  • Islamic Art
  • Sculpture
  • Decorative Arts
  • Paintings
  • Prints and Drawings

The great favourites are Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and the Code of Hammurabi, a basalt stele about 2.25 metres tall. Two of the most loved masterpieces are Greek: the Venus de Milo, from the island of Milos, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Both are Hellenistic sculptures, and seeing them in person is one of the best reasons to visit the Greek antiquities rooms.

The palace is part of the collection too. Look up in the Grande Galerie, the Galerie d’Apollon, the Salle des Caryatides and the Napoleon III Apartments, where the rooms are as rich as the works inside them. The Galerie d’Apollon made headlines on 19 October 2025, when thieves broke in through a window and stole eight pieces of the French crown jewels; the Crown of Empress Eugénie was recovered, damaged, the same day.

Glass pyramid and historic wings of the Louvre in daylight

Louvre opening hours and tickets

  • Hours: 9 am to 6 pm on Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday; 9 am to 9 pm on Wednesday and Friday. Last entry is one hour before closing.
  • Closed: every Tuesday (as it has been since 1946), and on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.
  • Tickets: €22 for visitors from the European Economic Area and €32 for other visitors (from 14 January 2026).
  • Free entry: under-18s, EEA residents under 26, everyone on 14 July and on the first Friday evening of each month after 6 pm (except July and August).
  • Booking: a timed-entry reservation is recommended for everyone, including free visitors, through the Louvre’s official hours and admission page.

Tips for a better Louvre visit

No one sees the whole Louvre in a day, so choose a theme. The museum’s own visitor trails suggest routes around masterpieces or subjects, and a short list of five or six works makes for a far richer visit than a race through the galleries. The Wednesday and Friday late openings give you extra hours in the galleries.

See the Mona Lisa early, then slow down: the rooms of Greek sculpture or Egyptian antiquities reward time and attention. Exiting is final, so plan a break at one of the cafés inside the museum. Afterwards, walk west through the Tuileries Garden towards the Place de la Concorde.

For more of France, try the Palais Idéal in Hauterives, or for a very different museum, our Titanic Branson guide and Reading Between the Lines in Belgium.

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