A holiday in the French city of Paris can’t be complete without a visit to Louvre Museum. After all, it is the World’s most famous art museum.
The French call it the Musée du Louvre, while the official name is the Great Louvre.
Did you know the Museum has 380,000 objects but only displays 35,000 works?
Or the fact that the Museum attracts more than 10 million tourists every year?
This Museum’s collection spans work from ancient civilizations to the mid-19th century.
Facts about Louvre
Over the years, many exciting facts about the Museum have been unearthed.
Some are documented, and some are just legends or myths. Some are academic, and some are just trivia.
Check out some of the best Louvre Museum facts –
1. Louvre Museum is massive
As you know, the Museum displays only 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments out of the 380,000 artifacts available.
If you spent 8 hours every day in the attraction to see each item on display for only 30 seconds, it would take you 36 days.
If you decide to see all 380,000 pieces of art for 30 seconds in an 8-hour/day shift, it will take almost 400 days to finish them all.
2. Louvre Museum is quite popular
The Museum is quite famous, attracting more than ten million visitors every year. That is almost 30,000 tourists a day.
Of this, 30 % are local French tourists, while the rest are foreign tourists.
The United States and China contribute the most to the Museum crowd.
More than a Million US citizens check out this Art Museum every year.
With so many people visiting the Louvre, you must buy your Louvre Museum tickets online and skip the line.
3. Musée du Louvre had humble beginnings
They didn’t plan Musée du Louvre to be a Museum.
It was built as a fortress in 1190 AD and converted into a royal palace in the 16th century.
The French Monarchy stayed there till the French Revolution moved them to the Palace of Versailles in 1793.
The same year, on 10 August 1793, the Louvre Museum was born.
On show were the paintings and artwork confiscated from the royal family and French nobility – 537 in all.
Visual Story: 16 must-know tips before visiting Louvre Museum
4. Louvre Museum is divided into eight departments
The Museum is divided into eight departments.
They are Near Eastern Antiquities, Egyptian Antiquities, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Islamic Art, Sculptures, Decorative Arts, Paintings, and Prints and Drawings.
The Department of Paintings at the Louvre is the most popular, with almost 7500 paintings.
5. You can get lost in Louvre
The total area of the Louvre’s galleries measures 652,300 square feet. That is almost 15 acres!
The galleries are divided into three wings—the Denon, Richelieu, and Sully wings—each with more than 70 rooms.
To ensure they don’t get lost or miss out on masterpieces, seasoned art lovers prefer to book a private guided tour of the Louvre Museum.
6. Louvre Museum was once called Musée Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte was once the chief patron of the Louvre Museum.
Napoleon, who was fighting battles on every front, would bring back his war exploits for display in the Museum.
Once, he added more than 5000 pieces to the Museum and named it after himself – Musée Napoleon.
After Bonaparte lost in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the Museum returned most of the items to their rightful owners and returned them to their original names.
7. Louvre is bang in the middle of Paris’ monumental zone
The Axe Historique, also known as the historical axis of Paris, is a line of monuments and buildings that extends from the center of Paris, France, to the west.
This 5 km (3.1 miles) of the architectural line of monuments is also known as the Voie Triomphale.
The Louvre is the nucleus and is bang in the middle of this axis.
8. There are two Louvre Museums in the World
Yes, that’s right. There are two Louvre Museums – one in Paris and another in Abu Dhabi.
Louvre Abu Dhabi was inaugurated on 8 Nov 2017 and is an art and civilization museum.
This is the first of its kind in the Middle East, the result of a 30-year partnership between Abu Dhabi and the French government.
9. French artists dominate Louvre
The Louvre galleries contain a total of 35,000 items on display, out of which 7,500 are paintings.
French artists created sixty-six percent of these paintings.
10. Mona Lisa is Louvre’s most popular item
Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum is almost always crowded. It is said that more than 20,000 people view this painting every day.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the most famous piece of art here.
Mona Lisa at the Louvre attracts the maximum number of tourists and is almost always crowded.
So much so that the Mona Lisa is displayed in bulletproof glass and has her own set of bodyguards.
Many tourists are surprised when they see Mona Lisa for the first time.
Everybody assumes it to be a big painting, but it is actually just 21 x 30 inches (53 x 77 cm).
Planning a visit to the Louvre Museum? Follow the link to find out everything about the tourist attraction before purchasing your tickets.
11. Louvre Museum is haunted
Many believe that two ghosts haunt the Museum.
The first is an Egyptian mummy called Belphegor, and the second is that of a man who, when alive, was named ‘Jack the Skinner.’
Jean l’Ecorcheur, the butcher, was one of the henchmen of French Queen Catherine de Medicis.
The Queen had him murdered because he knew too many secrets about the Royal family.
Feeling cheated, the butcher rose from the dead and cursed the French royals who lived in the Louvre.
Tourists are known to see him at the Museum and the adjacent Tuileries Garden.
Since he always wears red, he is also known as the ‘Red Man of the Tuileries.’
Buy Louvre Museum Tickets12. Louvre’s glass pyramid had its share of controversy
Today, we all accept the glass pyramid as part of the Museum, but nobody wanted it built earlier.
Nobody liked the glass pyramid’s architect, IM Pei, either.
The French thought the Chinese-American architect was insufficiently French to be working on such a treasured Parisian landmark.
Today, the Louvre’s Pyramid is one of the top three Parisian landmarks after the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
13. Mona Lisa once got stolen
Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian migrant working with the attraction as a security guard, stole the Mona Lisa in 1911.
He claimed he wanted to return the Italian painting to Italy, and that was the only reason.
Two years later, he got caught trying to sell it to an art dealer in Florence.
As for how he stole it – he stayed inside the Museum when it was closing for the night and, when it opened the next day, walked away with the painting under his jacket.
The headlines this theft generated made the Mona Lisa as popular as it is today!
14. Picasso was under suspicion for stealing Mona Lisa
During the investigation into the Mona Lisa theft, Pablo Picasso was a suspect.
A small-time artist had stolen a few sculptures from the Museum and sold them to Picasso.
The Spanish master painter didn’t know that the items he had just bought were stolen.
Picasso was also a close friend of Guillaume Apollinaire, a poet, editor, and art critic.
Guillaume was no friend of the Museum and had made many public statements that the Louvre should be burnt down.
Because Picasso possessed items stolen from the Museum and because of his association with Guillaume, he was one of the prime suspects.
However, after a single meeting with the police and the judge, he was let go.
Fun Read: When the Louvre Museum statues talked back
15. Louvre officials saved a lot of art during WW
As the Germans marched towards Paris, France, the Louvre officials got busy packing tens of thousands of art pieces.
Every valuable and moveable artwork was packed in more than 35 trucks and sent to the French countryside.
There, it was distributed to private chateaus and individual homes for safekeeping until the war ended.
Burlap bags covered up the heavy sculptures, which were difficult to move.
16. German Army used Louvre as a clearinghouse
After its occupation of Paris was complete, the German Army opened up the Louvre Museum.
However, because there was hardly any art on display and the war was on, there were hardly any visitors.
That’s when the Germans decided to use it as a clearinghouse to catalog, package, and ship art and personal items snatched from wealthy French families.
The German soldiers sent these items to the Nazi high command in Germany or their families back home.
17. The two statues that attract the most visitors
Venus of Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are the two most famous statues in the Louvre Museum.
Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue created around 100 BC.
The statue depicts Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, known as Aphrodite of Milos.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace is a 2nd-century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike. Nike represents victory.
18. The urban legend of 666 and Louvre Museum
French citizens thought that architect IM Pei wasn’t ‘French enough’ to work at the Museum.
However, despite all the opposition, the architect finished the installation.
After the glass pyramid was ready, an urban legend became popular.
Many believed the pyramid had exactly 666 glass panes – a dedication to Satan himself.
The Museum claimed in an official release that the structure has 673 glass panes (603 rhombi and 70 triangles).
Despite this urban legend, many tourists love visiting the Louvre Museum at night.
19. An artist once made Louvre’s glass pyramid vanish
In 2016, French artist JR made the glass pyramid vanish in front of the Louvre Museum.
He pasted the surface of the Museum’s glass pyramid with black-and-white photographs of surrounding buildings on all sides.
This created the optical illusion that the pyramid didn’t exist.
The Museum left this optical illusion in its place for a month, after which they removed it.
20. The Mona Lisa at Louvre Museum may not be the original
Mona Lisa is the most important piece of art in the Louvre Museum.
However, what if we told you that the Mona Lisa in the Louvre wasn’t the first one that the artist painted?
Leonardo Da Vinci had painted one more Mona Lisa earlier.
It is believed that the artist started painting the first version in 1503 but left it unfinished.
This version is known as the Isleworth Mona Lisa and is not part of a public display.
21. Musee du Louvre is NOT the most visited Museum
The Louvre Museum in Paris, France, is not the most visited museum in the world. That credit goes to the Palace Museum in Beijing.
While the Louvre Museum gets almost 10 million visitors annually, the Palace Museum hosts 16 million visitors annually.
The Palace Museum is in the imperial palace of the consecutive Ming and Qing dynasties.
22. Louvre Museum once closed down for pickpockets
If you are visiting the Louvre Museum, beware of pickpockets.
In April 2013, the Museum’s employees went on strike to highlight the menace of pickpocketing in the museum.
The employees complained that little was being done about the pickpockets, who were aggressive with both the visitors and the employees.
The employees said that the young criminals (admission is free for those below 18 years old) distracted and robbed the visitors.
And when the employees intervened, they were spat at, insulted, threatened, or kicked.
This strike led to tighter cooperation with the police and temporary bans for serial offenders.
23. Louvre Museum encourages copyists
Most art museums don’t encourage copyists – artists who copy famous works of art.
However, the Louvre recognizes and appreciates artists who enjoy and learn by replicating famous works.
Copyists can set up their easels in front of the painting of their choice to work on their replicas every day from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm.
The Museum has only two requests: The canvas size shouldn’t match the original, and the painter should not sign the replica in the original painter’s name.
24. Mona Lisa has left Louvre Museum on four occasions
Mona Lisa’s painting left the Museum when Napoleon Bonaparte insisted it be hung in his private bedroom.
After his defeat in Waterloo, the Museum got the painting back.
The second time was in August 1911, when a thief stole it.
It was recovered two years later and brought back to the Museum.
The third time it left the Museum was when the invading Germans were closing in on Paris. It was packed along with other artworks and dispatched to the French countryside. After the war was over, Mona Lisa came back to the Museum.
The fourth and last time it left the confines of the Museum was because of US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. She borrowed the Mona Lisa for a tour of the museums in Washington, D.C., and New York.
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