Paris's large and luxurious museum, the Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre) is also one of the largest in the world. It is located on the right side of the first district of Paris, in what used to be a palace.

The Louvre was founded by King Philippe Auguste in 1190 as a fortified palace on the western border of Paris, as part of the defense of the city against Viking attacks. In the years following the construction of the fortress, when Paris expanded beyond the western boundaries set by the king, the palace was used as a line of defense for the storage of the royal treasury. Thus, in 1546, under the reign of François I, architect Pierre Lecco began to transform the fortress into a luxurious royal palace.

The idea of making the Louvre a museum rose during the time of Louis 15th. After the French Revolution, it was decided that the place should open to the masses so that they could enjoy the national masterpieces, and the museum opened in 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings.

In the years that followed, the museum was called the "Napoleon Museum" and not by chance. The collection of works expanded greatly during Napoleon's reign, mainly because of the loot he had collected during his wars. The current shape of the Louvre is a huge structure with two arms - the northern Risheleigh side and the southern Dennon side that surrounds Napoleon's courtyard in the center, it exists since 1874.
The Louvre currently has a quarter of a million works of art. Along with famous works, such as the Mona Lisa, or the Madonna and the Child of Leonardo da Vinci, you will also find less known art here. In any case, this is an unforgettable experience for every art lover.

For example, Venus from Milos, is perhaps the most famous Greek sculpture in the world. It was found by a local fisherman on the Greek island of Milos, in 1820, when it was split into two separate parts. The Turks, who ruled the island at the time, confiscated the finds, but the French ambassador who was in Istanbul made France buy them and since then it has been in the Louvre.

This is also the story of another mythical statue from Ancient Greece - the statue of Nike, facing against the wind. The statue presents the goddess of victory, Nike, standing against the wind, with her wing. She has no hands and no head, but she is beautiful and many come to the Louvre to see her.

Another famous statue here is the statue of the sitting clerk, an ancient Egyptian statue commemorating the ancient-new profession that was born with the invention of writing - the profession of the clerk, the secretary, who sits and writes diligently.

And there are also the giant Lamassu statues, which guarded the throne room in the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II. On the ancient stone on which the Hammurabi laws are written, the most comprehensive collection of laws published in antiquity.
In August 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. The thief, a museum employee named Vincenzo Peruggia, hid the little painting under his coat and casually left the museum. The Paris police searched for the thief in vain, they offered money to any informants and interrogated anyone who could have known anything, but found nothing. For two years the thief had hidden the painting that would now become the most famous work in history, in a box under his bed.

When he returned to Italy, two years later, Peruggia offered to sell the painting to the Uffizi Museum in the city of Florence. Minutes later, the local police received a phone call that made it the detective hero of the time. The Mona Lisa was found!

The thief at first said, "I acted on impulse." He then changed his version and said that he wanted to return it to Italy, from where Napoleon stole it. In the trial he said this again and again, and the judges eased his sentence, despite the unimpressive historical knowledge he was discovered with. It is ironic that after a short prison sentence, Peruggia the "patriot" returned to France and died just a few years later.
The most famous painting in the world is, oddly enough, one of the most modest and small paintings that exist.

The painting is called "Mona Lisa" or "La Gioconda" and it is located in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The painter is a Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci, and he painting for a very long time, in the 16th century.

This portrait is revolutionary, because it changed the way of painting portraits, completely accurate copies. If until then they used to paint mostly in profile, it was a frontal painting that completely changed the picture, literally. All the portraits followed his way and were frontal.

The gentle brush strokes and the blurring of the corners of the lady's mouth give Mona Lisa a mysterious and intriguing smile that fascinated generations of art lovers and made this painting known all over the world.

In addition, Leonardo used various techniques such as delicate games of light and shade in the Mona Lisa. The difference between the portrait, the background and the special perspective, increased realism in the painting. But the real genius in the painting is the use of the method he developed called Sfumato. In the Sfumato method, the artist creates a gradual and careful transition from color to color or shade to shade, so that the sub-colors cannot be distinguished. Today in the digital age it is obvious, but during the Renaissance it was an innovative invention, implemented in Mona Lisa and added great depth to the painting.

The Mona Lisa is undoubtedly the most famous painting in the world. Hundreds of copies and fakes have survived over the years. Experts say it is the most copied painting in the world.

But unlike all copies and fakes, a recent painting stands out with a truly exciting story. This is the same lady called "Mona Lisa" painted by Leonardo about a decade before the famous painting. The lady is younger, the scenery is different, the colors are lighter, but the poses and faces are the same. Even the marble pillars cut from the renowned Mona Lisa are painted.
The big and luxurious Louvre Museum of Paris is also one of the largest in the world. The place born in the 12th century as a fortified palace on the western border of Paris was initially designed to protect the city from Viking attacks. The Vikings often attacked in the Middle Ages and conquered cities throughout Europe.

The current shape of the Louvre is a huge structure with two arms - the northern Risheleigh side and the southern Dennon side that surrounds Napoleon's courtyard in the center, it exists since 1874.
In 1983, Francois Mitterrand, the French president, proposed the "Grand Louvre" plan to renew and renovate the museum. The Chinese-American architect Leoh Ming Pei, who won the project, offered the Glass Pyramid as the main entrance in the center of Napoleon's courtyard and three small pyramids next to it.

The Louvre pyramid is made of metal frames and glass panels. It serves as the main entrance to the museum. The pyramid and the underground lobby solved the difficulty of including the large number of visitors to the museum every day. What is so special about this structure is that the visitors enter through the pyramid, from which they descend into the spacious lobby and then ascend to the main buildings of the museum.

A Closer Look at the Louvre Museum: