Louvre

Louvre Pyramid is a large glass pyramid commissioned by then French president François Mitterrand, designed by Ieoh Ming Pei and was inaugurated in 1989. This was the first renovation of the Grand Louvre Project. The Carre Gallery, where the Mona Lisa was exhibited, was also renovated. The pyramid itself reaches a height of 20.6 metres (about 70 feet); its square base has sides of 35 metres (115 feet). The pyramid covers the Louvre entresol and forms part of the new entrance into the museum.

La Pyramide Inversée

The La Pyramide Inversée is a skylight constructed in an underground shopping mall in front of the Louvre. It may be thought of as a smaller sibling of the more famous Louvre Pyramid proper, yet turned "upside down": its upturned base is easily overlooked from outside.

The pyramid marks the intersection of two main walkways and orients visitors towards the museum entrance. Tensioned against a 30-ton, 13.3-meter square steel caisson frame, the inverted pyramidal shape in laminated glass points downward towards the floor. The tip of the pyramid is suspended 1.4 meters (a little more than 4.5 feet) above floor level. Individual glass panes in the pyramid, 30 mm thick, are connected by stainless steel crosses 381 millimeters in length. After dark, the structure is illuminated by a frieze of spotlights.

Future projects

The Inverted Pyramid

Le Louvre-Lens

Since a large part of the works in the Louvre are in storage, it was decided that an extension to the Louvre was to be created to the north of Paris. The project should be completed by 2009; the building will be capable of receiving between 500 and 600 major works. This new building should receive about 500,000 visitors per year. There were six city candidates for this project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. On November 29, 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens, Pas-de-Calais to be the site of the new Louvre building. Le Louvre-Lens was the name chosen for the museum.

The new building, under the administration of the Regional Council of Nord-Pas-de-Calais will have semi-permanent exhibition space covering at least 5000 m². There will also be space set aside for temporary national and international exhibitions. The building will be a group of glass and aluminum buildings in the middle of a large garden. The estimated cost for this building is 117 million euro, or 158.7 million US dollars (as of January 2005). It was confirmed on September 26, 2005 with the Japanese office of architecture that SANAA, under the auspices of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, will be designing the building.

Access

The station is named after the nearby Palais Royal and the Louvre. Until the 1990s its name was Palais Royal; it was renamed when a new access was built from the station to the underground portions of the redeveloped Louvre museum.

The Museum

''The Richelieu Wing of the Louvre at night

The Louvre holds the rich artistic heritage of the French people from the early Capetian Kings through the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte to 1848. Later works are shown at the Musee d'Orsay and contemporary art is at Pompidou Centre

Long managed by the French state under the Réunion des Musées Nationaux the Louvre has recently acquired powers of self-management as an Etablissement Public Autonome (Government-Owned Corporation) in order to better manage its growth. Since September 14, 2005, the Louvre museum has gradually forbidden the taking of photos of its artworks.Photography Restricted in the Louvre. Signs prohibiting photography suggest the consultation of the images on the Louvre online catalog instead.

Among the thousands of priceless paintings is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the world, housed in the Salle des Etats in a climate-controlled environment behind protective glass. Works of artists like Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Poussin, and David can also be seen. Among the well-known sculptures in the collection are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo.

The collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), given to the Louvre in 1935, fills an exhibition room. It contains more than 40,000 engravings, nearly 3,000 drawings and 500 illustrated books.

Besides art, the Louvre has many other types of exhibits, including archeology, history, and architecture. It has a large furniture collection, whose most spectacular item used to be the Bureau du Roi of the 18^th century, now returned to the Palace of Versailles.

Notable works

Famous artworks in the Louvre include:
Sitting scribe
Lady of Auxerre
Winged Victory of Samothrace (illustrated)
Venus de Milo

Image:Poussinorig.jpg|Et in Arcadia egoImage:Lady-of-auxerre.jpg|Lady of AuxerreImage:Mona Lisa.jpg|Mona LisaImage:Winged victory.jpg|Winged Victory of SamothraceImage:BoschShipOfFools.jpg|Ship of FoolsImage:Virginandchildwithstanne.JPG|The Virgin and Child with St. AnneImage:VenusdeMilo01.jpg|Venus de MiloImage:Cupid_and_Psyche.jpg|Cupid and Psyche

Notable paintings

13th to 15th century

The Madonna and Christ Child enthroned with angels, Cimabue (about 1270)
Saint Francis of Assisi receives the stigmata, Giotto (about 1290-1300)
Portrait of John II the Good, anonymous (about 1350). Acquired by Louis XV, part of the royal collection
The Virgin with Chancellor Rolin, Jan van Eyck (about 1435). Seized in the French Revolution (1796)
Portrait de Charles VII, Jean Fouquet (1445-1448). Bought in 1838
The Condottiero, Antonello da Messina (1475). Bought in 1865
St. Sebastian, Andrea Mantegna (1480)
Ship of Fools, Hieronymus Bosch (1490-1500)
*Self-Portrait with flowers'', Albrecht Dürer (1493). Bought in 1922

16th century

Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci (1503-1506), acquired by Francis I in 1519
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Leonardo da Vinci (1508)
The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, called la Belle Jardinière, Raphael (1508). Belonged to the royal collection, acquired by Francis I
Portrait of Balthazar Castiglione, Raphael (about 1515), acquired by Louis XIV from the estate of Mazarin
The Wedding at Cana, Paolo Veronese (1562-1563). It hung 2.5 metres from the floor in the San Giorgio Maggiore monastery for 235 years, until it was plundered by Napoleon in 1797

17th century

Saint Joseph charpentier, Georges de la Tour (1642), donated in 1948
The club foot, Joseph de Ribera (1642), bequeathed in 1869
The pilgrims of Emmaus, Rembrandt (1648), seized in the French Revolution in 1793
Le young mendicant, Murillo (about 1650), bought by Louis XVI about 1782
Bathsheba at Her Bath, Rembrandt (1654, bequeathed in 1869
Ex Voto, Philippe de Champaigne (1662), seized in the French Revolution in 1793
The Lacemaker, Johannes Vermeer, (1669-1670), bought in 1870
Et in Arcadia ego, Nicolas Poussin (1637-1638)

18th century

Portrait of Louis XIV, Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701)
The Embarkation for Cythera, Antoine Watteau (1717)
La Raie, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (before 1728)
Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David (1784)
Master Hare, Joshua Reynolds (1788-1789)

19th century

Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa, Antoine-Jean Gros (1804)
The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault (1819)
Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix (1830)
The Turkish bath, Ingres (1862)

References in popular culture

The Louvre is mentioned briefly in a joke by Robin Williams in Live on Broadway.

British rock band Queen mentioned the Louvre in a line in the song "Lazing On a Sunday Afternoon"

The Louvre is a central location in the 1979 serial City of Death in the science fiction television series Doctor Who. In this adventure, Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, attempts to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

The Louvre, its art, particularly the art in the basement â€" not on display, is the subject of a scene in Kate & Leopold where Leopold talks about having a private tour of the basement to see the "real treasures".

The Louvre inspired a virtual setting of adventure in the video game Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, starring Lara Croft.

The Da Vinci Code

The Louvre and many of its works of art are featured prominently in Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, and in the 2006 film adaptation. The Louvre is the main setting in the prologue and first few chapters of the book and parts of the movie. The museum is the homicide crime scene where Jacques Saunière was murdered by a mysterious character named Silas. The location is also the laying and burial ground of Mary Magdalene.

Film production

The Da Vinci Code was filmed entirely on location. Originally, director Ron Howard was unable to obtain permission to film in the Louvre, having previously been denied access to Westminster Abbey as well. However, French President Jacques Chirac invited Howard to lunch at his home, where he informed the director that he would obtain clearance and Howard could contact him personally if there were any further problems (TIME, April 2006).

See also

* Louvre Pyramid
* La Pyramide Inversée
* WebLouvre

References

External links

* Official Louvre website (French)
* Official Louvre website (English)
* Extensive Photo Gallery from The Louvre â€" Photos of almost all the sculpture, many of the paintings and Objects d'Art
* History of the Louvre
* Excerpt of Michael T. Cannell's book on I.M. Pei â€" discusses controversy over Pei's pyramid.
* Mus̩e du Louvre РLouvre Museum РMore than 10,000 pictures