Louvre
The Louvre is a Paris museum housed in a former royal palace. Its collections span ancient civilizations and include major works of European art.
Mona Lisa: Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of a woman, painted in the early sixteenth century and displayed at the Louvre. This portrait is the Louvre’s most famous painting and a defining part of its public image.
Louvre Palace: A Paris palace built and altered over centuries on the site of a medieval fortress. The museum occupies this palace, whose architecture records its earlier royal functions.
Museum: An institution that collects, preserves, studies, and presents objects and works of cultural or scientific significance. The Louvre is a major example of a national museum with encyclopedic collections.
Universal museum: A museum that presents collections spanning multiple regions, cultures, and periods of human history. The Louvre’s broad collections make it a prominent example of this museum model.
Musée d'Orsay: A Paris museum housed in a former railway station, known especially for art from 1848 to 1914. Its concentrated nineteenth-century collections differ from the Louvre’s much broader historical span.
Venus de Milo: An ancient Greek marble statue of Aphrodite, discovered on the island of Milos in 1820. The statue is one of the Louvre’s best-known works of ancient Greek sculpture.
Louvre Fortress: A medieval fortress built in Paris under Philip II in the late twelfth century. Its remains lie beneath the museum and mark the site’s earliest known role.
Art history: The study of visual art, including its forms, contexts, makers, and historical development. Art-historical research shapes how many Louvre works are dated, interpreted, and displayed.
Napoleonic looting: The seizure and transfer of artworks and cultural objects during Napoleon’s military campaigns. Objects taken during these campaigns became part of the Louvre’s collections and fueled restitution disputes.
Centre Pompidou: A Paris cultural institution whose National Museum of Modern Art holds major modern and contemporary art collections. Its modern and contemporary focus contrasts with the Louvre’s older and more encyclopedic holdings.