Table of Contents

The Louvre

Largest museum in the world

The Louvre is the largest museum in the world. The museum offers a total of 380,000 exhibits, but not all collections are on display for visitors. 1)

Most visited museum in the world

The Musée du Louvre is located on the Seine River in Paris and is the most visited museum in the world with the National Museum of China in second place. 2)

Musée Napoleon

When Napoleon came to power the building was named the Musée Napoleon. After his fall in 1814, the museum was given its current name. 3)

Love letters to Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa painting has its own private mailbox because of all the love letters people write. 4)

Fortress

The Louvre was not originally a museum. It was a fortress built-in 1190. In the 16th century, the Louvre was turned from a fortress into a royal palace. 5)

Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is undoubtedly one of the most famous works of art in the Louvre. 6)

Larger area

The Louvre's museums are also outside the boundaries of the 16th-century museum and palace, as they are connected to Musée National Eugène-Delacroix, and fronted by the Tuileries Gardens, Paris' oldest park. 7)

66% French artists

There are about 7,500 paintings in the Louvre galleries, 66% of which were made by French artists. 8)

Mona Lisa is a small painting

The dimensions of the Mona Lisa are only 21 x 30 inches. It is only slightly larger than an A2 sheet of paper. 9)

Mona Lisa bodyguards

The Mona Lisa also has its own bodyguards and is protected by bulletproof glass. 10)

Theft

The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia. 11)

Warehouse for the Nazis

The Nazis used the Louvre as a warehouse for stolen art during World War II. 12)

Haunted

The museum is believed to be haunted by a mummy named Belphegor. The nearby Tuileries Gardens are also believed to be haunted by a man dressed in red. 13)

The glass pyramid of the Louvre

The glass pyramid of the Louvre was built in 1989. It is made exclusively of glass and metal and is now one of the city's most recognizable landmarks. 14)

Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo, an ancient Greek statue of Aphrodite, is one of the most popular pieces on display at the Louvre. 15)

Façade of the Louvre

The façade of the Louvre is almost entirely decorated with rich sculptural decoration from the 16th to 19th centuries. 16)