Louvre, in full Louvre Museum or French Musée du Louvre, official name Great Louvre or French Grand Louvre, national museum and art gallery of France, housed in part of a large palace in Paris that was built on the right-bank site of the 12th-century fortress of Philip Augustus. It is the world’s most-visited art museum, with a collection that spans work from ancient civilizations to the mid-19th century.
Visit the palace of French kings to admire some of the world’s finest art. The Louvre holds many of Western Civilization’s most famous masterpieces, including the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and the Vénus de Milo. A large number of the museum’s paintings were owned by the various kings who lived in the Louvre when it was a royal residence; other pieces were acquired through France’s treaties with the Vatican and the Venetian Republic. The collection was further enriched by the spoils of Napoléon I.