Tour Guide
Louvre Museum in Paris

Museum

🖼️ Louvre Museum

World's largest museum - from Mona Lisa to ancient Egypt

Photo: Benh LIEU SONG · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.5

What can you see inside Louvre Museum?

The Louvre is the world's largest and most-visited art museum, displaying around 35,000 works across 72,735 square metres of galleries and drawing close to nine million visitors a year. A former royal palace on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, it holds masterpieces spanning some 9,000 years of civilization - from Mesopotamian law codes and Egyptian mummies to the painting that defines Western art in the popular imagination, Leonardo's Mona Lisa. Without a plan most visitors spend hours wandering overwhelmed; a guide turns that scale into a curated walk through the highlights of human creativity.

The building is itself a layered history of France. Philip II Augustus raised a fortress here around 1190 - its moat and keep still survive in the basement - before François I demolished the medieval castle in 1546 and commissioned a Renaissance palace, bringing home the Mona Lisa as part of the royal collection. When Louis XIV moved the court to the Palace of Versailles in 1682, the unfinished Louvre passed to artists and academies, until the revolutionary government opened it as a public museum in 1793. Napoleon filled the halls with art seized across Europe, and two centuries later President Mitterrand's Grand Louvre project gave the museum I. M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989, reorganizing millions of visitors around a single luminous entrance.

The collection is spread across three wings - Denon, Sully, and Richelieu - radiating from the pyramid, a layout that makes an unplanned visit exhausting. Pair the Louvre with the Impressionist galleries of the nearby Musée d'Orsay across the river, or continue the story of Western art into the twentieth century at the Centre Pompidou. For a full itinerary that threads the museum into a wider city trip, see our guide to planning the perfect Paris trip.

Guided Tours

  • Navigate the overwhelming scale: a guide sees the highlights efficiently in 2-3 hours instead of leaving you to wander lost through eight departments.
  • Art-history expertise: understand the symbolism, technique, and historical context behind works from ancient Mesopotamia to nineteenth-century French Romanticism.
  • Skip the security lines: licensed guides enter through the Group entrance, saving the long wait at the pyramid.
  • Hidden gems beyond the crowds: discover the medieval moat, the Islamic Art courtyard, and the Egyptian galleries that most Mona Lisa-bound visitors never reach.

Collections Highlights

The Louvre's holdings are organized into eight curatorial departments across three wings, and knowing where they sit turns a maze into a route:

  • Denon wing (the crowd magnet) - Italian and large-format French painting, including the Mona Lisa, Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, plus the Winged Victory of Samothrace on the Daru staircase and Michelangelo's Slaves.
  • Sully wing (the oldest core) - built around the Renaissance palace, it holds the medieval Louvre moat in its basement, the Egyptian Antiquities galleries with the Seated Scribe and the Great Sphinx of Tanis, and the Venus de Milo among the Greek antiquities.
  • Richelieu wing (the quiet one) - French sculpture in its glass-roofed courts, the sumptuous Napoleon III Apartments, Northern European painting, and the Near Eastern Antiquities galleries with the Code of Hammurabi and the Assyrian winged bulls of Khorsabad.

One common surprise: the department of Islamic Art sits below ground in the Cour Visconti beneath a shimmering golden canopy, one of the museum's most beautiful modern spaces and one of its least crowded.

Louvre Museum timeline

  1. Fortress origins

    Philip II Augustus built the medieval fortress guarding the Seine; its circular keep and moat survive beneath the museum's Sully wing.

  2. A Renaissance palace

    François I ordered the old keep demolished and commissioned Pierre Lescot to raise a Renaissance palace; the king's collection, including the newly acquired Mona Lisa, formed the museum's earliest core.

  3. The court leaves for Versailles

    Louis XIV moved the royal court to the [Palace of Versailles](/france/paris/palace-of-versailles/), and the half-finished Louvre was left to artists, academies, and salon exhibitions.

  4. Museum opens

    The revolutionary government opened the former royal palace as the Muséum central des arts, making the crown's collection public property.

  5. The Musée Napoléon

    Renamed for the emperor, the galleries swelled with art seized across Europe and Egypt; much was repatriated after 1815, but the campaigns shaped the collection's global reach.

  6. Glass Pyramid completed

    I. M. Pei's 21-metre glass pyramid crowned President Mitterrand's Grand Louvre project, unifying the wings around a single subterranean entrance and becoming a modern Paris landmark.

  7. Islamic Art galleries open

    A new department for Islamic art opened beneath an undulating golden canopy in the Cour Visconti, adding a wing that had no home when the museum first opened.

When to Visit

Hours: 9 AM - 6 PM, with late evenings on Wednesday and Friday until 9:45 PM. Closed every Tuesday, and on 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December. Last admission is 60 minutes before closing, and staff begin clearing the rooms about 30 minutes before. Best time: a Wednesday or Friday evening, once the day-tour groups have left and the Mona Lisa room finally breathes; the first hour (9-10 AM) and the stretch after 5 PM are the next-quietest windows. Avoid: the middle of the day, weekends, school holidays, and the free first-Friday evenings, when the galleries are at their most crowded. Confirm the current calendar on the museum's official hours page before you travel, as evening openings occasionally change for events.

Admission and Costs

Entry ticket: €22 (about $24) - always book a timed slot online to skip the ticket queue; walk-up tickets sell out on busy days. Free for under-18s, for EU/EEA residents aged 18-25, and for everyone on the first Friday evening of each month from 6 PM (except July and August) and on Bastille Day, 14 July. The Paris Museum Pass includes the Louvre with no separate booking, though you still reserve a time slot. Guided small-group tours: €60-90 (about $65-98) per person for a 2-3 hour skip-the-line visit. Private art historian: €300-500 (about $325-540) for up to six people over three hours. Audio guide: €5 on the museum's handheld player - serviceable for orientation, but no substitute for a guide's context.

The Case for a Guide

With 35,000 works spread across 72,735 square metres, the Louvre without a guide is less a museum visit than a very expensive walk through a crowd — a guide transforms it into a curated journey through nine millennia of human civilization.

  • Navigating to the marquee works: Guides chart a purposeful 2-3 hour route through the Denon, Sully, and Richelieu wings that hits the Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa while avoiding the corridors where most visitors lose an hour between signage and cafés.
  • Why the Mona Lisa disappoints — and why it shouldn't: Guides explain why Leonardo's portrait is smaller than expected, why the crowds gather, and what Da Vinci's sfumato technique achieves that makes it unlike anything painted before or since — then turn you around to face Veronese's vast Wedding Feast at Cana on the opposite wall.
  • Hidden rooms most visitors never enter: The medieval Louvre moat in the Sully basement, the Islamic Art wing's golden-canopied courtyard, and the Egyptian antiquities galleries are all off the beaten tourist path.
  • Da Vinci's optical tricks decoded: A guide demonstrates in front of Virgin of the Rocks how Leonardo used atmospheric perspective and anatomical foreshortening to create the illusion of a third dimension on a flat panel.
  • Ancient world gems in context: The Seated Scribe, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Assyrian winged bulls of Khorsabad receive a fraction of the Mona Lisa's visitors despite being thousands of years older — a guide ensures you see them with the history that makes them extraordinary.

Tips for Visitors

  • Skip the pyramid queue. The glass pyramid is the slowest entrance; enter instead through the Carrousel du Louvre (99 rue de Rivoli, or straight from the Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre Métro), the Porte des Lions, or the Passage Richelieu for pass and advance-ticket holders.
  • Book a timed slot online at louvre.fr even if entry is free for you; slots cap the crowd and are required at peak times.
  • See the Mona Lisa first or last. Head straight for the Salle des États at opening, or leave it for the final evening hour - the queue is shortest at the ends of the day.
  • Plan 3-4 hours minimum. You could spend days here; a well-guided half-day covers the essentials without collapse. Wear comfortable shoes for the marble floors.
  • Photography is allowed without flash in most galleries, but not in Napoleon III's Apartments and certain temporary shows.
  • Eat before you arrive or bring a snack - the interior cafés are pricey - and use the free cloakroom for coats and bags to move faster through the galleries.
  • Pair it with the Left Bank. It is a 15-minute riverside walk to the Musée d'Orsay, making a two-museum day ambitious but doable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the opening hours of the Louvre Museum?

Hours: 9 AM - 6 PM, with late evenings on Wednesday and Friday until 9:45 PM. Closed every Tuesday, and on 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December. Best time: Wednesday or Friday evening, when the day-tour groups have gone and the galleries quieten. Least crowded: the first hour (9-10 AM) or after 5 PM. Last admission is 60 minutes before closing, and rooms start emptying about 30 minutes before.

What does admission to Louvre Museum cost?

Entry ticket: €22 (book a timed slot online to skip the ticket line). Free: under-18s, EU/EEA residents aged 18-25, and everyone on the first Friday evening of each month from 6 PM (except July and August) and on Bastille Day, 14 July. The Paris Museum Pass covers entry with no separate booking. Guided small-group tours run €60-90 per person (2-3 hours, skip-the-line); a private art historian is €300-500 for up to six people.

What can visitors see at Louvre Museum with a guide?

A guide charts a purposeful route to the marquee works - the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory of Samothrace - then decodes the symbolism and technique most visitors miss, and enters through the Group entrance to skip the security queue. Expect to cover the essentials in 2-3 focused hours instead of wandering the 72,735 square metres of galleries.

How do you get to the Louvre Museum?

The Métro station Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre (lines 1 and 7) opens directly into the Carrousel du Louvre shopping concourse beneath the museum, the quietest way in. Bus lines 21, 27, 39, 68, 69, 72, and 95 stop nearby, and the Batobus river shuttle calls at the Louvre quay on the Seine. On foot it is about 15 minutes across the river to the Musée d'Orsay and a short walk through the Tuileries toward the Champs-Élysées.

What are the must-see works at the Louvre?

The essential five: Leonardo's Mona Lisa in the Salle des États, the armless Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace poised at the top of the Daru staircase, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. Beyond the paintings, seek out the Code of Hammurabi, the Egyptian Seated Scribe, the Assyrian winged bulls from Khorsabad, and the medieval moat of Philip II's fortress in the Sully basement.