Home to the kings of France and now the world's most prestigious museum, the Louvre has a rich history spanning eight centuries. Here, more than a hundred authors provide an overview of its history, from its origins to the present day. The Louvre palace, the Tuileries palace (no longer in existence) and their gardens form an area that has seen the history of France unfold. The evolution over the centuries of its architecture, its painted, sculpted and planted decor, and its furnishings, has forged the destiny of French art.
Since 1793, the Musée du Louvre and its collections have been housed here. Their history, their constitution and development, the evolution of their administration and the portraits of the people who have brought them to life, are recounted thanks to a wealth of documentary and visual sources, many of them previously unpublished. From its genesis under the Ancien Régime, its creation under the Revolution, its development under the Empire, its opening up to distant worlds under the Restoration, its enlargement under Napoleon III and its many phases of restructuring, right up to the blossoming of the "Grand Louvre" and the most recent changes, the museum sees every stage of its history analyzed and detailed.
Archival documents, engravings, plans and old and new photographs of the rooms and buildings illustrate this vast overview, making this an exceptional work. Complementing this chronological approach, a thematic dictionary provides a cross-section of the museum's main constituent elements.
