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106-651: The RST was formed in 1928 by Alfred Chester Beatty , an Irish-American mining magnate, as a holding company for his mining assets in Northern Rhodesia. The new company received the financial backing of the American Metal Company of New York , who acquired 1,000,000 shares of RST in October 1930. In 1960, RST and its main subsidiaries cleared $ 13,132,546, or 29 cents a share for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1960, an increase from $ 8,780,651 in

212-672: A glass pyramid in the Louvre's central Cour Napoléon . The open spaces surrounding the pyramid were inaugurated on 15 October 1988, and its underground lobby was opened on 30 March 1989. New galleries of early modern French paintings on the 2nd floor of the Cour Carrée , for which the planning had started before the Grand Louvre , also opened in 1989. Further rooms in the same sequence, designed by Italo Rota , opened on 15 December 1992. On 18 November 1993, Mitterrand inaugurated

318-601: A consequence, the works were removed after Louis-Philippe was deposed in 1848, and were eventually auctioned away in 1853. The short-lived Second Republic had more ambitions for the Louvre. It initiated repair work, the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon and of the salle des sept-cheminées , and the overhaul of the Salon Carré (former site of the iconic yearly Salon ) and of the Grande Galerie. In 1848,

424-602: A letter to stockholders, Chairman Prain noted that the date marked the first day of independence of the Republic of Zambia , previously Northern Rhodesia . "He said that Zambia has a larger white population than any other country in tropical Africa now under an African Government and added, 'It is gratifying to record that race relations are excellent.'" In December 1964, the Rhodesian Selection Trust, Ltd. changed its name to Roan Selection Trust, Ltd. At

530-573: A more focused museum of French, Western and Near Eastern art, covering a space ranging from Iran to the Atlantic. The collections of the Louvre's musée mexicain were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1887. As the Musée de Marine was increasingly constrained to display its core naval-themed collections in the limited space it had in the second-floor attic of the northern half of

636-580: A new ceiling for the Salle des Bronzes (the former Salle La Caze ), a counterpoint to that of Braque installed in 1953 in the adjacent Salle Henri II . The room's floor and walls were redesigned in 2021 by Louvre architect Michel Goutal to revert the changes made by his predecessor Albert Ferran in the late 1930s, triggering protests from the Cy Twombly Foundation on grounds that the then-deceased painter's work had been created to fit with

742-632: A new section of the museum complex located in a suite of lavishly decorated rooms on the first floor of the South Wing of the Cour Carrée. The Egyptian collection, initially curated by Jean-François Champollion , formed the basis for what is now the Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities . It was formed from the purchased collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand , Henry Salt and the second collection of Bernardino Drovetti (the first one having been purchased by Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia to form

848-571: A part. His son had bought a home in County Kildare in 1948, which probably prompted Beatty to look favourably on Ireland as a home, especially given his Irish roots: both his paternal grandparents were born in Ireland. Beatty was also seriously considering long-term plans for his collection. Concerned that it would be dispersed if he were to leave it to a large institution, he found another solution. His purpose-built library on Shrewsbury Road in

954-587: A robust partnership with the British Museum . Though in later cases he would purchase an object and simply donate it, for the manuscript now known as the Minto Album, Beatty amicably agreed to split the folios. The lot was sold to Sir Eric Maclagan, Director of the British Museum, as part of a joint-purchase agreement with Beatty for $ 3,950. Beatty had first pick of the folios, the museum bought

1060-555: A substantial portion of the Roan assets be received by other than Amax shareholders. Under the previously announced nationalization of all Zambian copper properties , the present mining, smelting and refining operations of Roan in Zambia are to be merged into a single company to be named Roan Consolidated Mines, Ltd., in which A state‐owned industrial corporation, Indeco, will acquire a 51 per cent equity interest. The remaining 49 per cent of

1166-689: A suburb of Dublin opened in 1953, first for researchers and later to the public. He bought a large townhouse for himself on Ailesbury Road in the Ballsbridge area of Dublin, and a site on nearby Shrewsbury Road , also in Ballsbridge, for the construction of the Chester Beatty Library . The library, which housed his collection, opened on 8 August 1953. It was moved to its current location at Dublin Castle in 2000. Beatty spent

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1272-867: Is Beatty's growing frustration with post-war Britain, not least the defeat of the Conservative party in the 1945 general election. Having committed himself to the Allied war effort during the Second World War and served on a number of Churchill's committees, he was shocked by the Labour party victory. He told a meeting of stockholders that London was no longer the centre of the mining world and that "the position would deteriorate while high taxation, unjust duties and rigid controls stopped new mining projects being launched". There were other, personal, considerations, however, and his old spirit of adventure surely played

1378-603: Is housed in the Louvre Palace , originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II . Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings . The building was redesigned and extended many times to form

1484-513: Is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden. Beginning in 2012, Nintendo 3DS portable video game systems were used as the official museum audio guides. The following year, the museum contracted Nintendo to create a 3DS-based audiovisual visitor guide. Entitled Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre , it contains over 30 hours of audio and over 1,000 photographs of artwork and the museum itself, including 3D views, and also provides navigation thanks to differential GPS transmitters installed within

1590-613: The Salle Henri II , next to the Salle La Caze . In the late 1960s, seats designed by Pierre Paulin were installed in the Grande Galerie . In 1972, the Salon Carré 's museography was remade with lighting from a hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect Marc Saltet  [ fr ] with assistance from designers André Monpoix  [ fr ] , Joseph-André Motte and Paulin. In 1961,

1696-515: The Grande Galerie and Pavillon Denon was redecorated in 1886 by Edmond Guillaume  [ fr ] , Lefuel's successor as architect of the Louvre, and opened as a spacious exhibition room. Edomond Guillaume also decorated the first-floor room at the northwest corner of the Cour Carrée , on the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by Carolus-Duran , The Triumph of Marie de' Medici originally created in 1879 for

1802-497: The Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon . The expansion of the museum and its collections slowed after World War I, however, despite some prominent acquisitions such as Georges de La Tour 's Saint Thomas and Baron Edmond de Rothschild 's 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books. From the late 19th century, the Louvre gradually veered away from its mid-century ambition of universality to become

1908-729: The Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation and on a design by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti . In 2007, German painter Anselm Kiefer was invited to create a work for the North stairs of the Perrault Colonnade , Athanor . This decision announces the museum's reengagement with contemporary art under the direction of Henri Loyrette , fifty years after the institution's last order to a contemporary artists, George Braque . In 2010, American painter Cy Twombly completed

2014-579: The Austrian government for the keeping of works such as Veronese's Wedding at Cana which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection. For most of the 19th century, from Napoleon 's time to the Second Empire , the Louvre and other national museums were managed under the monarch's civil list and thus depended much on the ruler's personal involvement. Whereas

2120-665: The Austrian Monarchy . This treaty marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the end of the first phase of the French Revolutionary Wars . It compelled Italian cities to contribute pieces of art and heritage to Napoleon's "parades of spoils" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum. The Horses of Saint Mark , which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after

2226-544: The Chester Beatty Library on Shrewsbury Road to house his collection; it opened to the public in 1954. The collections were bequeathed to the Irish people and entrusted to the care of the state in his Irish will. He donated several papyrus documents to the British Museum , his second wife's (Edith Dunn Beatty) collection of Marie Antoinette's personal furniture to the Louvre and a number of his personal paintings that once hung in

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2332-479: The Château de Valençay . On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement". In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre. New arrangements after the war revealed the further evolution of taste away from

2438-702: The Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone . Beatty made his fortune in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia ) and the Belgian Congo (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo), where he exploited the Copper Belt . For this, he became known as the "King of Copper". An early family anecdote recalls that, as a young boy, Chester caught the collection bug, bidding at auction for mining samples. He recalled attending an auction with his father at

2544-450: The Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778. Under Louis XVI , the idea of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition. The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed to convert the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which at that time contained the plans-reliefs or 3D models of key fortified sites in and around France – into

2650-600: The Cour Carrée 's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment. In January 2020, under the direction of Jean-Luc Martinez , the museum inaugurated a new contemporary art commission, L'Onde du Midi by Venezuelan kinetic artist Elias Crespin . The sculpture hovers under the Escalier du Midi, the staircase on the South of the Perrault Colonnade . The Louvre, like many other museums and galleries, felt

2756-528: The Cyprus Mines Corporation to form Cyprus Amax Minerals Company, the world's leading producer of molybdenum and lithium, and a leading producer of copper and coal. In 1999, Cyprus Amax Minerals was acquired by Phelps Dodge Corporation which in turn was acquired by Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) in 2007, forming the world's largest copper producer. Alfred Chester Beatty Alfred Chester Beatty (7 February 1875 – 19 January 1968)

2862-632: The French Navy created an exhibition of ship models in the Louvre in December 1827, initially named musée dauphin in honor of Dauphin Louis Antoine , building on an 18th-century initiative of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau . This collection, renamed musée naval in 1833 and later to develop into the Musée national de la Marine , was initially located on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's North Wing, and in 1838 moved up one level to

2968-545: The Grand Louvre overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, the Louvre had several street-level entrances, most of which are now permanently closed. Since 1993, the museum's main entrance has been the underground space under the Louvre Pyramid , or Hall Napoléon , which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorized visitors) from the passage Richelieu connecting to

3074-582: The Guimet Museum in 1945. Nevertheless, the Louvre's first gallery of Islamic art opened in 1893. In the late 1920s, Louvre Director Henri Verne devised a master plan for the rationalization of the museum's exhibitions, which was partly implemented in the following decade. In 1932–1934, Louvre architects Camille Lefèvre  [ fr ] and Albert Ferran redesigned the Escalier Daru to its current appearance. The Cour du Sphinx in

3180-711: The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] ), is a national art museum in Paris , France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward) and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art , including the Mona Lisa , Venus de Milo , and Winged Victory . The museum

3286-597: The Luxembourg Palace . Meanwhile, during the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new artefacts mainly via donations, gifts, and sharing arrangements on excavations abroad. The 583-item Collection La Caze , donated in 1869 by Louis La Caze , included works by Chardin ; Fragonard , Rembrandt and Watteau . In 1883, the Winged Victory of Samothrace , which had been found in

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3392-530: The Luxembourg Palace . A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the "king's paintings" ( Tableaux du Roy ) on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Luxembourg gallery included Andrea del Sarto 's Charity and works by Raphael ; Titian ; Veronese ; Rembrandt ; Poussin or Van Dyck . It closed in 1780 as a result of the royal gift of the Luxembourg palace to

3498-666: The Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic . The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities ; Near Eastern Antiquities ; Greek , Etruscan , and Roman Antiquities ; Islamic Art ; Sculpture; Decorative Arts ; Paintings; Prints and Drawings. The Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 m (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to

3604-514: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage . It was closed for six months during French coronavirus lockdowns and saw visitor numbers plunge to 2.7 million in 2020, from 9.6 million in 2019 and 10.2 million in 2018, which was a record year. In preparation for the 2024 Olympics , the Louvre staged an exhibit about the Games' history that links their ancient beginnings to

3710-566: The "French Museum". Many design proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, without a final decision being made on them. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution. The Louvre finally became a public museum during the French Revolution. In May 1791, the National Constituent Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all

3816-632: The 10.1 million visitors it received in 2018. The Louvre is the most-visited museum in the world , ahead of the Vatican Museums . The Louvre museum is located inside the Louvre Palace , in the center of Paris, adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens . The two nearest Métro stations are Louvre-Rivoli and Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre , the latter having a direct underground access to the Carrousel du Louvre commercial mall. Before

3922-529: The 14th century, Charles V converted the building from its military role into a residence. In 1546, Francis I started its rebuilding in French Renaissance style. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, construction works slowed to a halt. The royal move away from Paris resulted in the Louvre being used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage. For example, four generations of craftsmen-artists from

4028-527: The 2nd-floor attic , where it remained for more than a century. Following the July Revolution , King Louis Philippe focused his interest on the repurposing of the Palace of Versailles into a Museum of French History conceived as a project of national reconciliation, and the Louvre was kept in comparative neglect. Louis-Philippe did, however, sponsor the creation of the musée assyrien to host

4134-578: The Aegean Sea in 1863, was prominently displayed as the focal point of the Escalier Daru . Major artifacts excavated at Susa in Iran, including the massive Apadana capital and glazed brick decoration from the Palace of Darius there, accrued to the Oriental (Near Eastern) Antiquities Department in the 1880s. The Société des amis du Louvre was established in 1897 and donated prominent works, such as

4240-544: The Boulle family were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre. Meanwhile, the collections of the Louvre originated in the acquisitions of paintings and other artworks by the monarchs of the House of France . At the Palace of Fontainebleau , Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including Leonardo da Vinci 's Mona Lisa . The Cabinet du Roi consisted of seven rooms west of

4346-724: The Cour Carrée, many of its significant holdings of non-Western artefacts were transferred in 1905 to the Trocadéro ethnography museum, the National Antiquities Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye , and the Chinese Museum in the Palace of Fontainebleau . The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the Palais de Chaillot in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art were moved to

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4452-412: The Finance Ministry accepted to leave the Pavillon de Flore at the southwestern end of the Louvre building, as Verne had recommended in his 1920s plan. New exhibition spaces of sculptures (ground floor) and paintings (first floor) opened there later in the 1960s, on a design by government architect Olivier Lahalle. In 1981, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets ,

4558-409: The Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of the remodeled Petite Galerie. Many of the king's paintings were placed in these rooms in 1673, when it became an art gallery, accessible to certain art lovers as a kind of museum. In 1681, after the court moved to Versailles, 26 of the paintings were transferred there, somewhat diminishing the collection, but it is mentioned in Paris guide books from 1684 on, and

4664-452: The Grand Louvre plan to relocate the Finance Ministry , until then housed in the North Wing of the Louvre, and thus devote almost the entire Louvre building (except its northwestern tip, which houses the separate Musée des Arts Décoratifs ) to the museum which would be correspondingly restructured. In 1984 I. M. Pei , the architect personally selected by Mitterrand, proposed a master plan including an underground entrance space accessed through

4770-428: The Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities. After the French defeat at Waterloo , the looted works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrator, Denon, was loath to comply in absence of a treaty of restitution. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, though far from all. In 1815 Louis XVIII finally concluded agreements with

4876-406: The Kektonga Silver Mine. His first mentor was T. A. Rickard, a mining engineer. Rickard also introduced Beatty to his sister-in-law, Grace "Ninette" Rickard, whom Beatty married in Denver in 1900. In 1903 he joined John Hayes Hammond on the management team of the Guggenheim Exploration Company . This position soon made Beatty wealthy. In 1908, when he left the Guggenheims, he was regarded as one of

4982-420: The Louvre conducted an elaborate plan of evacuation of its art collection . When Germany occupied the Sudetenland , many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord . When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to

5088-423: The Louvre, upon a recommendation from his friend the art collector and dealer Jacques Kerchache  [ fr ] . On his initiative, a selection of highlights from the collections of what would become the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac was installed on the ground floor of the Pavillon des Sessions and opened in 2000, six years ahead of the Musée du Quai Branly itself. The main other initiative in

5194-404: The Naval Museum in the Cour Carrée's attic was brought under the common Louvre Museum management, a change which was again reversed in 1920. In 1850 under the leadership of curator Adrien de Longpérier , the musée mexicain opened within the Louvre as the first European museum dedicated to pre-Columbian art . The rule of Napoleon III was transformational for the Louvre, both the building and

5300-460: The South Wing was covered by a glass roof in 1934. Decorative arts exhibits were expanded in the first floor of the North Wing of the Cour Carrée , including some of France's first period room displays. In the late 1930s, The La Caze donation was moved to a remodeled Salle La Caze above the salle des Caryatides , with reduced height to create more rooms on the second floor and a sober interior design by Albert Ferran. During World War II ,

5406-568: The Vatican, had opened in November 1800 in Anne of Austria 's former summer apartment, located on the ground floor just below the Galerie d'Apollon. On 19 November 1802, Napoleon appointed Dominique Vivant Denon , a scholar and polymath who had participated in the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, as the museum's first director, in preference to alternative contenders such as antiquarian Ennio Quirino Visconti , painter Jacques-Louis David , sculptor Antonio Canova and architects Léon Dufourny or Pierre Fontaine . On Denon's suggestion in July 1803,

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5512-469: The adjoining halls, in what is now the Richelieu Wing, were separately destroyed. But the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees led by curator Henry Barbet de Jouy . Following the end of the monarchy, several spaces in the Louvre's South Wing went to the museum. The Salle du Manège was transferred to the museum in 1879, and in 1928 became its main entrance lobby. The large Salle des Etats that had been created by Lefuel between

5618-431: The aftermath of the Grand Louvre project was Chirac's decision to create a new department of Islamic Art, by executive order of 1 August 2003, and to move the corresponding collections from their prior underground location in the Richelieu Wing to a more prominent site in the Denon Wing. That new section opened on 22 September 2012, together with collections from the Roman-era Eastern Mediterranean, with financial support from

5724-463: The age of ten, and bidding 10 cents on a piece of pink calcite. During his time in Denver he began collecting stamps, which grew into an award-winning collection. Before his move to London he had already started collecting Chinese snuff bottles and Japanese netsuke , inro and tsuba . Due to a condition of the lungs called silicosis , which he had acquired through his years working in American mines, Beatty and his family would winter in Egypt, until

5830-421: The building, the museum was closed from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon , after the Napoleonic looting of art in Europe, Egypt and Syria , and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon , but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X , and during

5936-400: The building. Between 1852 and 1870, the museum added 20,000 new artefacts to its collections. The main change of that period was to the building itself. In the 1850s architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel created massive new spaces around what is now called the Cour Napoléon , some of which (in the South Wing, now Aile Denon) went to the museum. In the 1860s, Lefuel also led

6042-401: The collection of the National Gallery of Ireland . One of the paintings was an idealized version of peasant life called The Gleaners by Jules Breton . Beatty had supported the war effort, contributing a large amount of raw materials to the Allies. He received a belated knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1954 Birthday Honours List for his contribution to the wartime effort. By

6148-443: The collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000  livres per year. In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere , to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty". The early days were hectic. Privileged artists continued to live in residence, and

6254-439: The collections. The Greek and Roman sculpture gallery on the ground floor of the southwestern side of the Cour Carrée was completed on designs by Percier and Fontaine . In 1819 an exhibition of manufactured products was opened in the first floor of the Cour Carrée's southern wing and would stay there until the mid-1820s. Charles X in 1826 created the Musée Égyptien and in 1827 included it in his broader Musée Charles X ,

6360-402: The core of the present Museo Egizio in Turin ). The Restoration period also saw the opening in 1824 of the Galerie d'Angoulême , a section of largely French sculptures on the ground floor of the Northwestern side of the Cour Carrée, many of whose artefacts came from the Palace of Versailles and from Alexandre Lenoir's Musée des Monuments Français following its closure in 1816. Meanwhile,

6466-454: The country's leading mining engineers. He bought a house on the East Side of New York and set up an office on Broadway as an independent mining consultant. Ninette and their daughter (little Ninette) joined him during the summer of 1907, and in October their son, Chester Jr, was born. In 1911, Grace died suddenly of typhoid fever . In 1912 he purchased Baroda House in Kensington Palace Gardens and moved with his two young children to London

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6572-412: The creation of the pavillon des Sessions with a new Salle des Etats closer to Napoleon III's residence in the Tuileries Palace , with the effect of shortening the Grande Galerie by about a third of its previous length. A smaller but significant Second Empire project was the decoration of the salle des Empereurs below the Salon carré . The Louvre narrowly escaped serious damage during

6678-474: The curators), he changed his mind when the new director insisted on deciding for himself whether Beatty's collection met the museum's quality standards. The director also would not assure Beatty that his collection would remain intact, rather than being parcelled out to different departments. In 1950, at the age of 75, Chester Beatty handed over the reins of Selection Trust to his son Chester Jr and relocated to Dublin, taking many by surprise. The reason often cited

6784-407: The equity capital in Roan Consolidated will be owned 36.75 percent by Roan Selec tion and the remaining 12.25 per cent almost entirely by companies in the Anglo-American Corporation group by reason of their present minority, interests in certain of the Roan Selection companies." In 1982, NCCM and RCM were merged into the giant Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Ltd (ZCCM). In 1993, AMAX merged with

6890-454: The existing understanding of pre-Constantinian textual history. With the New Testament books – Gospels and Acts (BP I), Pauline Epistles (BP II) and Revelation (BP III) – all dated to the third century, these documents were not only surprising for having survived the Diocletian persecutions at the beginning of the next century, but the dating moved New Testament scholarship back by at least one hundred years. The dating specifically of BP I (p45) to

6996-416: The first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution , the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with

7102-407: The first six days of which were reserved for visits by artists and foreigners and the last three for visits by the general public. In the early 1800s, after the seven-day week had been reinstated, the general public had only four hours of museum access per weeks, between 2pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. In 1824, a new regulation allowed public access only on Sundays and holidays; the other days

7208-433: The following year. Shortly after the move, he married his second wife, Edith Dunn, in the Kensington Registry Office. He and Edith were both avid collectors. In 1914, Beatty founded the London-based mining company, Selection Trust . The First World War delayed the company's expansion, but during the 1920s the business expanded to acquire interests in countries including the USSR , the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana ) and

7314-447: The gallery linked the main house to the garden library. In 1940, Beatty packed up the paintings and shipped them to New York for safekeeping during the Second World War. In 1949, Beatty decided to donate part of his collection of French nineteenth-century paintings to the Irish nation as a token of appreciation to the Taoiseach of the day, John A. Costello , for his support in facilitating Beatty's move from London. These are now part of

7420-550: The grounds of Dublin Castle. In 1900, in Denver, Beatty married Grace Rickard, known as Ninette, the sister of his mentor T. A. Rickard. They had a daughter, Ninette, and a son, Chester Jr, who was born in 1907. In 1911, his wife died suddenly of typhoid fever . In 1912 he bought a house in Kensington Palace Gardens, London, and moved there with his two children in 1913. Shortly after this, he married secondly Edith Dunn, in Kensington. In 1929, in Westminster Cathedral , Ninette Beatty married Captain Edward Newling. A daughter, Anne,

7526-450: The late 12th century to protect the city from the attack from the West, as the Kingdom of England still held Normandy at the time. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre are still visible in the crypt. Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, and it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. The origins of the name "Louvre" are somewhat disputed. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique ,

7632-515: The late 1940s, however, he had become disillusioned with Britain. Political deviations from his free-market values, coupled with increased foreign exchange restrictions impacted both his personal and collecting interests in Britain. Though he had initially envisioned deepening his relationship with the British Museum by donating his collection in its entirety (he had personally funded many of the museum acquisitions, and received expert consultations from

7738-458: The lavish decorative practices of the late 19th century. In 1947, Edmond Guillaume's ceiling ornaments were removed from the Salle des Etats , where the Mona Lisa was first displayed in 1966. Around 1950, Louvre architect Jean-Jacques Haffner  [ fr ] streamlined the interior decoration of the Grande Galerie . In 1953, a new ceiling by Georges Braque was inaugurated in

7844-461: The mid-third century moved the understanding of when Christians accepted the four gospels as canonical to earlier than had previously been presumed. In 1917, recovering from a bout of pneumonia and Spanish influenza, Beatty, Edith and his daughter Ninette, traveled by boat to Japan and China. During this trip he acquired painted albums and scrolls and he continued to purchase Chinese, Japanese and south-east Asian manuscripts, textiles and artefacts for

7950-454: The monarchy's demise, as Muséum central des Arts de la République . The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated". The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three-quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property ( biens nationaux ). To expand and organize

8056-434: The monumental Assyrian sculpture works brought to Paris by Paul-Émile Botta , in the ground-floor gallery north of the eastern entrance of the Cour Carrée. The Assyrian Museum opened on 1 May 1847. Separately, Louis-Philippe had his Spanish gallery displayed in the Louvre from 7 January 1838, in five rooms on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's East ( Colonnade ) Wing, but the collection remained his personal property. As

8162-545: The most iconic collection remained that of paintings in the Grande Galerie , a number of other initiatives mushroomed in the vast building, named as if they were separate museums even though they were generally managed under the same administrative umbrella. Correspondingly, the museum complex was often referred to in the plural (" les musées du Louvre ") rather than singular. During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X added to

8268-468: The museum itself was renamed Musée Napoléon . The collection grew through successful military campaigns. Acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as the result of war looting or formalized by treaties such as the Treaty of Tolentino . At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of

8374-468: The museum was open only to artists and foreigners, except for closure on Mondays. That changed in 1855 when the museum became open to the public all days except Mondays. It was free until 1922, when an entrance fee was introduced except on Sundays. Since its post- World War II reopening in 1946, the Louvre has been closed on Tuesdays, and habitually open to the public the rest of the week except for some holidays. The use of cameras and video recorders

8480-423: The museum. The upgraded 2013 Louvre guide was also announced in a special Nintendo Direct featuring Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrating it at the museum, and 3DS XLs pre-loaded with the guide are available to rent at the museum. As of August 2023, there are virtual tours through rooms and galleries accessible online. The Louvre Palace , which houses the museum, was begun by King Philip II in

8586-541: The museum. In 1852, he created the Musée des Souverains in the Colonnade Wing , an ideological project aimed at buttressing his personal legitimacy. In 1861, he bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection . For its display, he created another new section within the Louvre named Musée Napoléon III , occupying a number of rooms in various parts of

8692-532: The name derives from an association with a wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus , lower Empire: lupara ). In the 7th century, Burgundofara (also known as Saint Fare), abbess in Meaux, is said to have given part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery, even though it is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly to the present site of the Louvre. The Louvre Palace has been subject to numerous renovations since its construction. In

8798-596: The nearby rue de Rivoli . A secondary entrance at the Porte des Lions , near the western end of the Denon Wing, was created in 1999 but is not permanently open. The museum's entrance conditions have varied over time. Prior to the 1850s, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-day "weeks" (French: décades ),

8904-673: The next major phase of the Grand Louvre plan: the renovated North (Richelieu) Wing in the former Finance Ministry site, the museum's largest single expansion in its entire history, designed by Pei, his French associate Michel Macary, and Jean-Michel Wilmotte . Further underground spaces known as the Carrousel du Louvre , centered on the Inverted Pyramid and designed by Pei and Macary, had opened in October 1993. Other refurbished galleries, of Italian sculptures and Egyptian antiquities, opened in 1994. The third and last main phase of

9010-541: The outbreak of World War II , and after the war in the south of France. During his first trip to Cairo in the winter of 1913/14, he became interested in papyrus and Islamic manuscripts. In 1931 an announcement in The Times cast Beatty as a great collector. He had acquired an important collection of Biblical manuscripts, now known as the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri . The discovery changed

9116-427: The permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art , paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 m (782,910 sq ft), making it the largest museum in the world . It received 8.9 million visitors in 2023, 14 percent more than in 2022, though below

9222-680: The picture gallery of his London home to the National Gallery of Ireland . He also made possible the expansion and relocation of the Cancer Research Institute, which was renamed the Chester Beatty Institute, and later renamed the Institute of Cancer Research , in 1939. A. Chester Beatty, known to friends and family as Chester or "Chet", was born into a middle-class New York family in 1875 on

9328-460: The plan unfolded mainly in 1997, with new renovated rooms in the Sully and Denon wings. A new entrance at the porte des Lions opened in 1998, leading on the first floor to new rooms of Spanish paintings. As of 2002, the Louvre's visitor count had doubled from its pre-Grand-Louvre levels. President Jacques Chirac , who had succeeded Mitterrand in 1995, insisted on the return of non-Western art to

9434-595: The preceding year. In 1964, the firm reported a slight dip in profit from $ 16,691,000 in 1963 to $ 16,517,000 for the year ended June 30, 1964. The firms sales however, rose from $ 142,605,518 to $ 165,736,718. In February 1964, firm Chairman Sir Ronald Prain, who had insisted RST offer copper outside the speculative London Metal Exchange at a price below the exchange level, argued alongside the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa "for maintaining copper price stability". On October 23, 1964, in

9540-529: 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 ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture , which in 1699 held

9646-463: The remainder for $ 2000, and Beatty charitably donated an additional folio. The Beattys were also patrons of the British Museum, donating 19 ancient Egyptian papyri to the Museum. Between 1939 and 1949, Beatty acquired over 140 nineteenth-century paintings to display in the picture gallery of his London home. The gallery had been built as a result of the conversion of the stables to a library in 1934;

9752-533: The remainder of his life between Dublin and the south of France. He was made a Freeman of Dublin in 1954 and was the first person granted honorary citizenship of Ireland in 1957. He continued to collect in the 1950s and 1960s, acquiring important Ethiopian manuscripts and Japanese printed material during that period. Beatty died in Monte Carlo in Monaco in 1968; his Irish estate was valued at £7 million. He

9858-431: The rest of his life. Beatty's reputation as a collector grew, and so did his network of advisers and agents. As in his business life, Beatty relied on the advice of experienced specialists but made the final decision on any purchase himself. By this time Edith was also establishing herself as a serious collector in her own right. While she was buying Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and French furniture, Beatty

9964-517: The room's prior decoration. That same year, the Louvre commissioned French artist François Morellet to create a work for the Lefuel stairs, on the first floor. For L'esprit d'escalier Morellet redesigned the stairscase's windows, echoing their original structures but distorting them to create a disturbing optical effect. On 6 June 2014, the Decorative Arts section on the first floor of

10070-665: The sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris where they were placed atop Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1797. Under the Treaty of Tolentino, the two statues of the Nile and Tiber were taken to Paris from the Vatican in 1797, and were both kept in the Louvre until 1815. (The Nile was later returned to Rome, whereas the Tiber has remained in the Louvre to this day.) The despoilment of Italian churches and palaces outraged

10176-566: The same time, the Roan Antelope Division of Rhodesian Selection Trust, Ltd., became the Luanshya Division of Roan Selection Trust, Ltd. In 1970, Roan Selection Trust, Ltd., which had been 42.3% owned by American Metal Climax, Inc., became a wholly owned subsidiary of AMAX as a result of a reorganization. "The amalgamation will be effected under an arrangement before Zambia's high court that will also provide that

10282-490: The sciences and arts". On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display. The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of

10388-431: The site of what is now Rockefeller Center , the youngest of three sons, Chester, Robert and Gedney. He was born to Hetty and John Beatty, a banker and stockbroker. He graduated from Columbia School of Mines in 1898 and bought a one-way train ticket to Denver , Colorado. His first job in the mines earned him $ 2 per day as a "mucker", clearing away rock and soil from mine tunnels. He was quickly promoted to supervisor of

10494-611: The suppression of the Paris Commune . On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret  [ fr ] set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Palace . The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the Tuileries and spreading to the north west wing of the museum next to it. The emperor's Louvre library ( Bibliothèque du Louvre ) and some of

10600-488: The unlabeled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling". The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns. On 15 August 1797, the Galerie d'Apollon was opened with an exhibition of drawings. Meanwhile, the Louvre's Gallery of Antiquity sculpture ( musée des Antiques ), with artefacts brought from Florence and

10706-526: Was accorded a state funeral by the Irish government – the first private citizen in Irish history to receive such an honour. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. The Chester Beatty Library on Shrewsbury Road and the collection it housed was bequeathed to a trust on behalf of the people of Ireland. In 2000, it opened in its current location: the eighteenth-century Clock Tower building in

10812-490: Was acquiring important Islamic material, including an exceptional collection of illuminated copies of the Quran, and Mughal, Turkish and Persian manuscripts. His Western holdings were enhanced by acquisitions of Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Greek manuscripts. To his Asian holdings he added Tibetan, Thai, Burmese and Sumatran manuscripts. His eye was drawn to richly illustrated material, fine bindings and beautiful calligraphy, but he

10918-444: Was also deeply committed to preserving texts for their historic value. He concerned himself only with works of the finest quality, and this became the hallmark of his collection. Initially, Beatty was a competitive force in the burgeoning Orientalist art market of the early 20th century. The major library and museum institutions anticipated his presence when prospecting acquisitions. However, in 1925, Beatty began what would later become

11024-512: Was an American-British mining magnate and philanthropist. A successful businessman, Beatty was given the epithet "the King of Copper " in reference to his fortune. He became a naturalised British subject in 1933, was knighted in 1954, and was made an honorary citizen of Ireland in 1957. He collected African, Asian, European and Middle Eastern manuscripts, rare printed books, prints and objets d'art. After moving to Dublin in 1950, he established

11130-691: Was born in Marylebone in 1930. In 1933, Beatty married thirdly Elizabeth Pamela Belas. They had one daughter, Sarah Anne Chester Beatty. He married fourthly Enid Groome, daughter of Stanley Hugh Groome, in 1938. In 1956, Beatty's daughter Sarah married David Greville, Earl Brooke , heir to the Warwick Castle estate, and had two children, Guy Greville, 9th Earl of Warwick (born 1957), and Lady Charlotte Greville (1958), both of whom have children. Louvre The Louvre ( English: / ˈ l uː v ( r ə )/ LOOV( -rə) ), or

11236-464: Was shown to ambassadors from Siam in 1686. By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery in the Louvre. Art critic Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne in 1747 published a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV decided on a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of

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