50 Fun Facts About Louvre

On which side of the Seine does the Louvre stand?

It sits in the 1st arrondissement beside the Tuileries Gardens.

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

It guarded Paris against attack from the west, since England still held Normandy; 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?

He is the same king who acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death.

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

The proposed root is Latin lupus via lower-Empire 'lupara'.

Louis XIV abandoned the Louvre for which palace in 1682?

The Louvre was left mainly to display the royal collection and to house the academies, which held the first Salon there in 1699.

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

It was the first anniversary of the fall of the monarchy; 537 paintings, mostly royal and confiscated church property, went on show.

In 1803, on the suggestion of director Vivant Denon, the museum was renamed in honour of whom?

Vivant Denon, his director, filled it with art looted across Europe; much was returned after 1815.

Into how many curatorial departments is the Louvre's collection divided?

They range from Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities to Islamic art, sculpture, decorative arts, paintings and prints and drawings.

Roughly how many works of art does the Louvre have on display at any one time?

Its holdings run to about 615,000 objects, and its 72,735 square metres of exhibition space make it the world's largest museum.

What was the Louvre's record annual attendance, set in 2018?

Covid cut the figure to 2.7 million in 2020; it was back to 9 million by 2025.

Which French president launched the Grand Louvre project in 1981?

He personally chose I. M. Pei as architect; the Richelieu Wing finally opened in November 1993.

How tall is the glass Louvre Pyramid?

Its 34-metre square base covers 1,000 square metres, and its 51.52-degree slope echoes the pyramids of Egypt.

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

There are also 70 triangular panes; the persistent '666' legend began with a construction brochure in the 1980s.

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

The brochure cited the figure twice and newspapers repeated it.

Which architect designed the Louvre Pyramid?

He first designed it in late 1983; the underground lobby beneath it opened on 30 March 1989.

On what material is the Mona Lisa painted?

Leonardo's oil portrait is traditionally identified as Lisa del Giocondo, wife of a Florentine silk merchant.

How did the Mona Lisa come to belong to France?

Leonardo had spent his last years at the French court; the painting later passed to the Republic.

Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911?

The Italian glazier had helped make the painting's glass case; Apollinaire was arrested and Picasso questioned before he was caught.

How was Peruggia finally caught, two years after the theft?

The painting hung in the Uffizi for over two weeks before returning to Paris on 4 January 1914.

On what day of the week did Peruggia walk out with the Mona Lisa, and why was the museum nearly empty?

He entered at 7 am in a workman's white smock, then wrapped the panel in it and left by the same door.

What Guinness World Record does the Mona Lisa hold?

It was insured for 100 million dollars in 1962, about a billion in today's money.

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

The glass shattered and a speck of pigment near the left elbow was dislodged; it now sits behind bulletproof glass.

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

The Winged Victory and Venus de Milo went to Chateau de Valencay; truck convoys began leaving Paris on 27 August 1939.

The Venus de Milo was discovered in 1820 by whom?

The French sailor Olivier Voutier watched and urged him to keep digging on Milos, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

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

The apple of discord fits the goddess Aphrodite; recent analysis supports the hand belonging to the statue.

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

The headless, armless Nike dates from about 190 BC and was found by French consul Charles Champoiseau in 1863.

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

Two fingers kept in Vienna since 1875 were reunited with a palm found at the site in 1950.

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

Elamite raiders had carried the 2.25-metre basalt stele off from Babylon as plunder some 600 years after it was made.

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

The painted limestone figure was found at Saqqara in 1850 and dates from the Old Kingdom.

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

On his advice Charles X bought three collections that added 7,000 works.

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

Its 67 square metres hang opposite the Mona Lisa; the Benedictine monks who commissioned it paid partly in wine.

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

Of the roughly 150 people set adrift, only 15 survived the 13 days, resorting to cannibalism.

Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People commemorates which uprising?

The bare-breasted figure in a Phrygian cap became identified with Marianne, symbol of the Republic.

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

The outline can still be seen; Napoleon's mother Letizia was painted into the stands although she was absent.

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

Legend says an enslaved miner smuggled it out of India in a leg wound; Thomas Pitt bought it in 1701.

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

Eight pieces of the crown jewels were taken, including an emerald necklace of Empress Marie-Louise.

Which royal headpiece was damaged in the October 2025 heist and slated for a 40,000-euro restoration?

The stolen jewels themselves had not been recovered when suspects began confessing.

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

The fire raged for 48 hours and destroyed the emperor's Louvre library.

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

Japanese firm SANAA designed it; the region rather than the Louvre pays for it.

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

He had earlier designed the Arab World Institute in Paris; the museum sits on Saadiyat Island.

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

Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated the guide at the museum in a Nintendo Direct.

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

The 2006 film, like Dan Brown's novel, opens with a murder in the Grande Galerie.

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

The 98.5-million-euro project got 17 million euros from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation.

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

The reclining concubine is famous for her anatomically impossible elongated back.

What is the underground space beneath the glass pyramid, the museum's main entrance since 1993, called?

It can also be reached from the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall or, for authorised visitors, the passage Richelieu.

Approximately how many objects does the Louvre hold in its total collection?

Only a fraction is on show, spread across more than 60,600 square metres of permanent galleries.

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

His library there was a seed of what became the Bibliothèque nationale, long before the palace held paintings.

Which looted Venetian bronzes were placed atop the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1797?

Venice itself had taken them from Constantinople in the sack of 1204, so they were twice-plundered trophies.

The musée mexicain that opened inside the Louvre in 1850 was Europe's first museum devoted to what?

Curator Adrien de Longpérier led it, one of many mini-museums that sprouted inside the vast building in the 19th century.

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

Louis-Philippe sponsored the gallery just north of the Cour Carrée's eastern entrance.