50 free Louvre trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Louvre trivia for art lovers, Paris visitors and anyone who has queued under the glass pyramid or fought the crowds in front of the Mona Lisa. This quiz starts with the building: Philip II's twelfth-century fortress, Francis I's Renaissance rebuild, Louis XIV's departure for Versailles, the Revolution's decision to open the royal collection to the public on 10 August 1793, and Napoleon's short-lived Musee Napoleon stuffed with plunder. Then it tours the collection and its stories: how the Mona Lisa came to France and how Vincenzo Peruggia walked out with it in 1911, the farmer who dug up the Venus de Milo, the headless Winged Victory on the Daru staircase, the Code of Hammurabi, the Seated Scribe, Veronese's enormous Wedding at Cana, Gericault's Raft, Delacroix's Liberty and David's Coronation. It finishes with the modern museum: Mitterrand's Grand Louvre, I. M. Pei's pyramid and its 666-pane myth, the eight departments, the Louvre-Lens and Louvre Abu Dhabi outposts, record visitor numbers and the October 2025 crown-jewel robbery. Questions range from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. If you enjoy this quiz, try our Paris, art history and famous paintings quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which side of the Seine does the Louvre stand?
The Right Bank
It sits in the 1st arrondissement beside the Tuileries Gardens.
Q 02Which French king began the Louvre as a fortress in the late 12th century?
Philip II
It guarded Paris against attack from the west, since England still held Normandy; its foundations survive in the basement.
Q 03Which king made the Louvre the French monarchy's main residence in 1546 and rebuilt it in Renaissance style?
Francis I
He is the same king who acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death.
Q 04According to the Grand Larousse, the name Louvre may derive from a word for what?
A wolf-hunting den
The proposed root is Latin lupus via lower-Empire 'lupara'.
Q 05Louis XIV abandoned the Louvre for which palace in 1682?
Versailles
The Louvre was left mainly to display the royal collection and to house the academies, which held the first Salon there in 1699.
Q 06On what date did the Louvre open as a public museum?
10 August 1793
It was the first anniversary of the fall of the monarchy; 537 paintings, mostly royal and confiscated church property, went on show.
Q 07In 1803, on the suggestion of director Vivant Denon, the museum was renamed in honour of whom?
Napoleon
Vivant Denon, his director, filled it with art looted across Europe; much was returned after 1815.
Q 08Into how many curatorial departments is the Louvre's collection divided?
Eight
They range from Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities to Islamic art, sculpture, decorative arts, paintings and prints and drawings.
Q 09Roughly how many works of art does the Louvre have on display at any one time?
35,000
Its holdings run to about 615,000 objects, and its 72,735 square metres of exhibition space make it the world's largest museum.
Q 10What was the Louvre's record annual attendance, set in 2018?
10.2 million
Covid cut the figure to 2.7 million in 2020; it was back to 9 million by 2025.
Q 11Which French president launched the Grand Louvre project in 1981?
Francois Mitterrand
He personally chose I. M. Pei as architect; the Richelieu Wing finally opened in November 1993.
Q 12How tall is the glass Louvre Pyramid?
21.6 metres
Its 34-metre square base covers 1,000 square metres, and its 51.52-degree slope echoes the pyramids of Egypt.
Q 13How many rhombus-shaped glass panes does the Louvre Pyramid actually contain?
603
There are also 70 triangular panes; the persistent '666' legend began with a construction brochure in the 1980s.
Q 21What Guinness World Record does the Mona Lisa hold?
Highest known painting insurance valuation
It was insured for 100 million dollars in 1962, about a billion in today's money.
Q 22In 1956 a Bolivian visitor damaged the Mona Lisa by throwing what at it?
A rock
The glass shattered and a speck of pigment near the left elbow was dislodged; it now sits behind bulletproof glass.
Q 23Where was the Mona Lisa hidden when war threatened in 1938-39?
Chateau de Chambord
The Winged Victory and Venus de Milo went to Chateau de Valencay; truck convoys began leaving Paris on 27 August 1939.
Q 14Where did the rumour that the pyramid has 666 panes originate?
An official 1980s construction brochure
The brochure cited the figure twice and newspapers repeated it.
Q 15Which architect designed the Louvre Pyramid?
I. M. Pei
He first designed it in late 1983; the underground lobby beneath it opened on 30 March 1989.
Q 16On what material is the Mona Lisa painted?
White poplar panel
Leonardo's oil portrait is traditionally identified as Lisa del Giocondo, wife of a Florentine silk merchant.
Q 17How did the Mona Lisa come to belong to France?
Francis I acquired it after Leonardo's death in 1519
Leonardo had spent his last years at the French court; the painting later passed to the Republic.
Q 18Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911?
Vincenzo Peruggia
The Italian glazier had helped make the painting's glass case; Apollinaire was arrested and Picasso questioned before he was caught.
Q 19How was Peruggia finally caught, two years after the theft?
Trying to sell it to the Uffizi's director in Florence
The painting hung in the Uffizi for over two weeks before returning to Paris on 4 January 1914.
Q 20On what day of the week did Peruggia walk out with the Mona Lisa, and why was the museum nearly empty?
Monday, the weekly closing day
He entered at 7 am in a workman's white smock, then wrapped the panel in it and left by the same door.
Q 24The Venus de Milo was discovered in 1820 by whom?
A Greek farmer
The French sailor Olivier Voutier watched and urged him to keep digging on Milos, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
Q 25Based on a marble hand found beside her, what was the Venus de Milo thought to be holding?
An apple
The apple of discord fits the goddess Aphrodite; recent analysis supports the hand belonging to the statue.
Q 26The Winged Victory of Samothrace stands on a base shaped like what?
The prow of a ship
The headless, armless Nike dates from about 190 BC and was found by French consul Charles Champoiseau in 1863.
Q 27Since 1884 the Winged Victory has stood at the top of which Louvre staircase?
Escalier Daru
Two fingers kept in Vienna since 1875 were reunited with a palm found at the site in 1950.
Q 28The Code of Hammurabi stele was rediscovered in 1901 at which site in present-day Iran?
Susa
Elamite raiders had carried the 2.25-metre basalt stele off from Babylon as plunder some 600 years after it was made.
Q 29The Seated Scribe, one of the Louvre's Egyptian treasures, has eyes inlaid with what?
Rock crystal and magnesite
The painted limestone figure was found at Saqqara in 1850 and dates from the Old Kingdom.
Q 30Which Egyptologist, decipherer of the Rosetta Stone, first curated the Louvre's Egyptian collection?
Jean-Francois Champollion
On his advice Charles X bought three collections that added 7,000 works.