THE LOUVRE MUSEUM IN FRANCE.

The Louvre Museum is one of the world's largest museums .It enhance”s the beauty of france.It is the most visited art museum in the World and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right bank of the seine in the 1^st arrondissement (district) . About 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century which are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square meters (652,300 square feet). The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace . It began as a fortress built in the late 12th century under Philip II. At the beginning of French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum, to display the nation's masterpieces. 

The building was elaborated many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of antique sculpture. On 10 August 1793 the museum opened with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal . In( 1796- 1801) , the museum was closed on account of structural problems with the building .The size of the collection elaborated under Napoleon and the museum was named after the Musée Napoléon. After the defeat of Napoléon at Waterloo, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners.

The collection was further elaborated at the beginning of the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic.As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments.

* Egyptian Antiquities

* Near Eastern Antiquities

* Etruscan

* Roman Antiquities

* Islamic Art

* Sculpture

* Decorative Arts

* Paintings

* Prints and Drawings

In the 12th century the Louvre Palace which houses the museum was begun as a fortress by Philip II .Although it was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. Everybody believe that the word 'louver' may refer to the structure's status as the largest in late 12th century Paris. The Louvre Palace was altered frequently during the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence. In 1546, Francis I renovated the site in French Renaissance style. Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvre's holdings. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, however, the move permitted the Louvre to be used as a residence for artists. At the beginning of 18th century there was an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery with Lafont Saint-Yenne publishing, in 1747, a call for a display of the royal collection'.

On 14 October 1750, Louis XV sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection mounted in the  Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace.In 1776 the comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the "French Museum"many proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, however everybody refused it. The museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution. 

The department comprising over 50,000 pieces which includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations. It enriched with the world's largest overviews such as Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods. Origins was augmented by Napoleon's 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Viv ant, the future director of the Louvre. After Jean-François Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created.

The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the Neolithic to the 6th century. The collection of spans from the Cycladic period refuse by the Roman Empire. This department is one of the museum's oldestand it began with appropriated royal art. In the 19th century, the Louvre achieved works including vases from the Durand collection. In 640 BC ,he archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre. 


Leonardo di Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is considered one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. Leonardo was renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait.

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