A Guide to the Louvre

First-time visitors to the Louvre can hardly fail to be overwhelmed by the sheer size and wealth of its collections. The Louvre Museum is an extraordinary time machine. As one passes from one room to another, one travels through centuries, entire civilisations, faced always with the same dilemma: how to choose among so many treasures? This guide, like the visitor, is necessarily selective. Its aim is not to show everything, but to cover everything. Through a choice of somé six hundred masterpieces from Antiquity to the mid-nineteenth century, the reader is given as comprehensive as possible an idea of all the departments today comprising the Louvre, including the recently created Islamic Arts department and the collection of African, Asian, Oceanic and American arts now on view. Accompanying the commentaries on the Louvre s foremost masterpieces, presentations of the various periods and collections situate each in its artistic context and throw light on the personalities of its most famous artists. Visitors can consult this book as a prelude to their visit and return to it afterwards to learn more about their discoveries. And because it cannot encompass the Louvre in its entirety, this guide proposes the ideál visit. Henri Loyrette President-Director of the Louvre