L is for... Let's talk about the ...Largest...

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

L is for the Louvre

The Louvre is the top visited museum worldwide, holding its preeminent position for decades altogether all through the 20th century, for the longest time. It was also the largest museum globally till October 2025, occupying over 350,000 sq feet of space and housing a collection spanning prehistory to mid 20th century. (The Grand Egyptian Museum opened in November 25 and overtook the Louvre, so now it's got pushed to the second place) However, it remains a firm favourite with both local and foreign tourists and is still the most visited museum in the world. It got 9 million visitors last year, of which roughly a quarter were local French/residents and three quarters were foreign visitors. It is so popular that museum officials have expressed concerned about over-attendance!

I have visited the Louvre twice, once with my parents long, long ago and once again with my kid, also long ago now. No sensible photographs from those visits, as the DSLR was still in the future and phone cameras were still quite basic. But it doesn't matter as the Louvre is super well known and familiar to most museum lovers. (And also to the readers of the Da Vinci Code!).

The Building

Let's talk about the buildings first - quite historic on their own. The Louvre was originally a fortress, first built around 1190 on the orders of Phillip II (later Phillip Augustus), as he planned to leave for the Third Crusade. He had a defensive wall built around Paris and the Louvre Castle protected its western side on the right bank of the Seine. Parts of this fortress have been excavated and can be viewed in the basement of the modern day Museum. 

The protective walls were expanded in the 14th century. In 1364, the Louvre's defensive purpose was altered and it became the royal residence - a palace for the first time in the reign of Charles V. The Louvre continued to be used as an arsenal and a prison in the 15th century, but the royal preference shifted to other palaces for residing and the buildings fell into disrepair. In the 16th century, the Louvre was modernised and made into a Renaissance style palace, other palace buildings were built  nearby in the Tuileries  and connected to the Louvre. 

The royal court moved to Versailles in 1682, therefore the Louvre came to be occupied by various institutions and individuals as tenants as well as squatters, the Louvre was abandoned. By the close of the 18th century, the French Revolution had changed the use of the buildings again - the king was forced to return from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace, his courtiers moved into the nearby Louvre. But as the Revolution progressed they emigrated out and more individuals occupied their quarters. In January 1793, the French king was guillotined and by August, the revolutionary government decreed that the former royal palace should be a national museum for the public display of its collection of masterpiece paintings and priceless object d'art and that was that! From fortress to palace to abandoned to museum in 6 centuries. 

In the 1980s the Louvre Pyramid was constructed as the main entrance to handle increasing visitor numbers. Much controversy surrounded it at the time and still continues. It has however, become a symbol of the Louvre regardless of whether it's loved or hated. 

Read more about the Louvre buildings by clicking the links here and here. 

The collections

Do you know where one of the earliest law codes - the Code of Hammurabi, is located? Yup, it's at the Louvre. That museum has nearly half a million pieces from the earliest human civilisations from 7000 BCE to the 1840s. From Neolithic Stone Age statues to Renaissance masterpieces and objects d'art. Take a virtual peek at some of their most famous  collections here.

The Louvre houses some of the most iconic art - the most famous being the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, 1503-19) by Leonardo  da Vinci (nice fit for the day's letter, how lucky is that ha!). Other must-see attractions include :

• the Venus de Milo (classical Greek statue depicting Aphrodite, dated to 2nd century BCE) 
• The Winged Victory (classical Greek statue of the goddess Nike also dated to 2nd century BCE)
• The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese (Painting depicting Biblical subject of the wedding feast where Jesus turns water into wine, 1562-63)
• The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Jericho (1818-19)
• Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio (1604-06)

Read more about the Louvre and its collections by clicking on the link here to access their very comprehensive website available in both French and English.

Did you know that there's a Louvre Abu Dhabi that is an art space on the Saadiyat Island known as 'France's largest cultural project abroad'? It came into being through a treaty between the French and Emirati governments that licenses the space to use the name Louvre till 2047. It is the largest gallery space in the Arabian Peninsula and has a signature 'leaves of light' dome which replicates the effect of sunlight filtered through palm leaves in the central atrium of the space. It was inaugurated in 2017 and drew 1.4 million visitors in 2025. On my wishlist for sometime now, unfortunately I left the UAE in 2008 and haven't had an opportunity to visit Abu Dhabi since for anything else but a short layover in the airport between connecting flights.  Read more about the LAD here.

Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026