The Louvre in Paris, France, is one of the most famous and most visited art museums in the world. The museum attracts 6 million visitors every year. Similarly it is one of the largest museums in the world, with over 35,000 pieces of art housed in a gigantic, 60,000 square foot building. It exemplifies traditional French architecture since the Renaissance, and it houses a magnificent collection of ancient and Western art. Located along the banks of the Seine, the glass pyramid outside the Louvre is a memorable landmark, and an often photographed view of the museum.

A medieval fortress, the palace of the kings of France, and a museum for the last two centuries, the architecture of the Louvre Palace bears witness to more than 800 years of history. The Louvre collections incorporate works dating from the birth of the great antique civilizations right up to the first half of the XIXth century. First opened to the public in 1793 the Louvre claims to be the world’s largest museum. The Louvre departments include Oriental (ancient Mesopotamian) antiquities, Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman antiquities, sculpture from the Middle Ages to modern times, furniture and objects d’art and paintings representing all the European schools. The building holds some of the world’s most famous works of art, such as Leonardo Di Vinci’s Mona Lisa, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and Madonna of the Rocks, Jacques Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii and many others. The Louvre Pyramid is a glass pyramid commissioned by then French president Francois Mitterrand and designed by I. M. Pei, a Chinese-American architect. The construction work on the pyramid base and underground lobby was carried out by Dumez, it was inaugurated in 1989. In November 1993, to mark its 200th anniversary, the museum unveiled the Richelieu wing in the quarters that had been vacated, grudgingly, by the Ministry of Finance in 1989. This expansion, which completed the museum’s occupancy of the palace complex, added 21,390 sq meters to the existing 30,225 sq meters of exhibition space, and allowed it to put an additional 12,000 works of art on display in 165 new rooms. Opening times: Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 9 am-6 p.m.; Wednesday and Friday 9 am-10 p.m. Admission is free for all on the first Sunday of each month.