Six facts about the interesting history of the Louvre

The museum director admitted that the architecture and condition of the Louvre Palace make it difficult to install modern security devices in a building that was not originally intended to be a museum. This can be explained by looking at its history.

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Louvre (Illustration), Photo: Getty Images

Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

26.10.2025. 09:40h

When the first stone of what is now the Louvre Museum was laid, the discovery of America was still three centuries away.

This is the ancient origin of what is now the most visited museum in the world, which has been built, expanded, and reconstructed for hundreds of years.

Since it became a museum in 1793, it has exhibited hundreds of thousands of works of world art.

Some were stolen, then returned, and some are still missing.

The Louvre is in the spotlight today because of bad news: on October 19, 2025, a group of four thieves carried out an incredible robbery of eight pieces of jewelry, including royal crowns and necklaces with precious stones.

So far, authorities have found neither the thieves nor the objects, whose historical significance exceeds their monetary value estimated at around 88 million euros.

Look HERE a graphic depiction of the great robbery of the Louvre that shocked France.

The museum director admitted that the very architecture and condition of the Louvre Palace make it difficult to install modern security devices in a building that was not originally intended to be a museum.

This can be explained by looking at its history, which has had several extremely interesting moments.

1. From medieval fortress to museum

As a building, the Louvre has experienced centuries of political and social change in France.

But the original origins date back to the Middle Ages (around 1190), when King Philip II (1165-1223), built a quadrangular fortress as part of the defense of Paris along some walls near the Seine River.

Then King Charles the Fifth (1338-1380) turned the fortress into a castle, the first royal residence of that time.

King Henry II (1519-1559) designed a modern central palace, with Renaissance architecture that survives to this day.

Other monarchs added some more buildings.

Henry IV (1553-1610) created the south wing, which runs along the Seine and now contains important collections, such as Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and the Apollo Gallery, which was looted by thieves a few days ago.

Louis XIV, known as the "Sun King" (1643–1715), continued the expansion, including the Tuileries Palace (which was demolished in the 1880s).

After the triumph of the French Revolution (1798), the Grand Gallery of the Louvre was first opened as a museum in 1793.

With the restoration of the monarchy, Napoleon I built part of the north wing, and Napoleon III finally completed the complex and expanded part of the wing.

It currently has 73.000 square meters of galleries and exhibition space for more than 500.000 exhibits, according to official figures, making it the largest museum in the world.

2. Opening to the people

The monarchs who built the Louvre collected numerous works of art over the centuries, both domestic and from other parts of Europe and the world.

But not everyone could see them.

This changed with the triumph of the French Revolution in 1789, which abolished the monarchy and brought about a political and social shift focused on the French people and the Enlightenment.

Without the royal family, the Louvre was used as the seat of the French civil government, and on August 10, 1793, the Grand Gallery of the Louvre was first opened to the public as a museum space for a vast collection of royal and Catholic church art.

It was called the Central Museum of Art and initially had a collection of more than 500 works, mostly paintings.

3. Artworks looted by Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was, as a military leader and later emperor (Napoleon I), one of the people who brought the most works of art to the Louvre Museum, captured during his military offensives in Europe and Africa.

In his campaigns, he applied the concept of "spoils of war" - French soldiers looted paintings, jewelry, sculptures, and ancient relics.

This was the case in the campaigns against Austria, Italy, Prussia, Spain and Egypt.

His justification was that France, as the country of the Enlightenment, should be the guardian of world art.

The Louvre was even renamed the Napoleon Museum for several years, which is one example of the personality cult of the military leader, whose portraits, along with his battles, were also depicted in paintings and hung on the walls.

But his fall at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 was a blow to the museum's art collection, as the once defeated powers now demanded the return of numerous works.

"They talked about a 'cultural Waterloo,'" history professor Beatrice de Graaf told The New York Times.

"They wanted to inflict not only a military defeat on the French, but also a cultural defeat, with the message: 'You must give us back what you owe us.'"

After Napoleon's fall from power, the museum returned to its former name - the Louvre.

And by a twist of fate, two of the eight pieces stolen on October 19, 2025, were the very emerald necklace and earrings that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to his second wife, Marie Louise, as a wedding gift.

4. The Controversial Central Pyramid

One of the Louvre's great modern architectural projects was also one of its most controversial: the glass pyramid at the central entrance.

In a major renovation ordered by President François Mitterrand in the 1980s, Chinese-American architect Yeoh Ming Pei was commissioned to create a central part of the space as a kind of welcome for visitors.

The architect said he wanted something "magnificent" and "luminous," which could be a pyramid, a dome, an arch, or a cube.

The final choice was the first one.

But its design, which is at odds with the building's Renaissance architecture, was the subject of much criticism, as it was unthinkable for such an element to fit into the surroundings.

It has also been criticized that the pyramid suggests an association with Egyptian rather than French elements, but Pay claimed that it "has no connection" with North African culture and that the pyramid is "the most aesthetically pleasing thing to look at".

Some French people called it a "crime," and there were some "anti-pyramid" groups that tried to change the project.

The project, however, continued until the ceremonial unveiling of the 21-meter-high and 35-meter-wide glass pyramid in March 1985.

Since then, museum visitors have been descending the pyramid stairs into the main hall.

"The architect's work is inspired by the Louvre's long history of transformations."

"In the project, he respected the main lines and perspectives of the palace and its overall layout, while creating the most transparent, light and airy structure possible."

"It was a technical feat, brilliantly executed," the Louvre says, but they also admit that the pyramid has caused controversy.

Watch the video: Some of the jewels stolen in October 2025.

5. Theft of the Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa, currently the Louvre's most famous work, was stolen in 1911, although at the time the painting by Leonardo da Vinci was not the museum's most valuable or famous work.

In the middle of the night in August of that year, Italian Vincenzo Perugia, who had worked at the museum the year before, exploited a security breach and stole the painting.

The guards didn't realize the Mona Lisa was missing until the next day.

The motives were never fully clear, although it was believed to be revenge for a former Louvre employee.

"The truth is we have no idea. It remains a mystery," Jerome Coinyard, author of "The Disappearance of a Woman," toldA Woman Vanishes), the BBC.

According to one version, Peugia allegedly wanted to return the Mona Lisa to her homeland, where, he believed, she belonged.

The work was missing for more than two years, during which time it was in his house.

It was found on December 10, 1913, when Peruggia was arrested after handing the painting over to Alfredo Geri, an antiquarian in Florence.

"It was the most famous peacetime property theft," Noah Charmey, author of The Mona Lisa Theft, told the BBC.The Mona Lisa Thefts).

It was this theft and the widespread attention in the press that made this painting one of the Louvre's most famous works ever since.

Many people even visited the museum just to see the empty space while the work was absent, further increasing its fame.

6. The Mystery of the Hands of Venus de Milo

The museum considers the Greek sculpture of the Venus de Milo to be "one of the three great ladies" of the Louvre, along with the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

But Venus is a work that encompasses the mystery of its origin: the absence of its hands.

The work was discovered during excavations in Greece in 1820 and brought to France by the Marquis de Rivière, then ambassador to that country, who presented it to King Louis XVIII (1755-1824).

He loaned it to the Louvre for an exhibition in March 1821.

From the beginning, her hands were missing - according to one of the most widely accepted theories among experts (others claim they were broken off).

"When the sculpture was brought to the Louvre, there was a proposal to restore the hands, but the idea was ultimately rejected so as not to 'destroy the work,'" the museum notes.

It is believed that during the restoration, some parts of the hands were destroyed and were left in their current state.

But the lack of arms actually contributed to the glory of this sculpture.

In ancient Greece, these types of statues of gods held objects called "attributes" in their hands, which identified the deity they represented.

"At the time of her discovery, there was some doubt about the identity of the goddess. Was she Amphitrite, goddess of the sea and therefore especially revered on the island of Milos?"

"Or perhaps Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, as might be inferred from her half-naked appearance and the sensuality of her body?" the museum notes.

The consensus among experts is that it is Aphrodite.

But to this day there is no definitive proof.

It is part of the mystery surrounding the history of the Louvre.

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