What are the must-see works housed in the Musee Louvre, Paris?

Question

I'm deciding which works of art I must ensure I see when I visit the Louvre later this year.

Answer 1

Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Turkish Bath, the Pyramid. Have fun!!

Answer 2

On a first trip to the Louvre, I'd try to see:

Slaves - Michelangelo

Pre-classical Greek Statuary

Frieze from the Parthenon

Venus de Milo

Borghese Gladiator

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Apollo Gallery (Napoleon's Crown)

Frescoes by Botticelli

Giotto, Fra Angelico, and Uccello paintings

St. Sebastian - Mantegna

Grand Gallery

Mona Lisa - da Vinci

Virgin Child and St. Anne - di Vinci

La Belle Jardiniere - Raphael

Pastoral Symphony - Titian

Marriage at Cana - Veronese

Coronation of Napoleon - David

La Grande Odelisque - Ingres

Raft of the Medusa - Gericault

Liberty Leading the People - Delacroix

Jean II le Bon painting

Avignon Pieta

Portrait of Francois I - Clouet

Diana the Huntress and Gabrielle d'Estree et une de ses Soeurs - Ecole de Fontainebleu

Shepards of Arcadia - Poussin

Port de Mer au Soleil Couchant - Lorrain

St. Joseph in Carpenter Shop - de la Tour

Peasant Family - le Nain

Chancellor Seguir - le Brun

Portrait of Louis XIV - Rigaud

Embarkation for Cythera and Gilles  - Watteau

Forge of the Vulcan - Boucher

Women Bathing - Fragonard

Roman Ruins Paintings - Robert

Various Portraits - David and INgres

Portrait of Chopin - Delacroix

There, that ought to keep you busy for a couple of hours!

The other museum he is talking about is  Musee D'Orsay - it picks up chronologically where the Louvre leaves off, 19 century and into the 20th.  It has some very important works by

Ingres, Cabanel, Daumier, Courbet, Couture, Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Whistler, Pisarro, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Redon, Rousseau, Gauguin, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec

Charpentier, Rodin (my idol!), Claudel, et al.

That should take at least another couple of hours.

If you like Rodin like I do, his house and studio are just East of Invalides (Napoleon's Tomb) and well worth an afternoon of browsing. That's my pilgrimage sight.

Everyone's taste (and stamina) is different, so don't try to see it all, that would take the rest of your lifetime since there are over 300,000 works there, the largest museum in the world.

Also, if the royalty thing is your deal, like the Painting of Louis XIV, go see his house at Versaille, a short train ride west of Paris. The Louvre was his daddy's palace, but it wasn't nice enough for him, so he built his own. It is on my list of Seven Wonders of the World. Worth a visit.

Always consider getting a guide. Check the price and listen to their accent before agreeing to it. There are some amazing people guiding tours that can point out tidbits that only the most educated art historian would know to look for. Why not take advantage of their PhD if you don't have your own? At the least, rent an audio-guide. It's like an iPod with selectable descriptions of what you are looking at. A bargain since most works have no English description.

I hope this helps.  Bon Vacance!

Answer 3

Check on-line. When I went to Paris, I found out they they rotate a lot of art and sometimes close off certain sections.

For what to see... I heard you can check it on-line.

Also check out the other museum. Sorry, but I can't remember the name of it, but it has that pyramid design on the street level outside the museum. They had some wonderful paintings and sculptures, including some of the wars of Heaven and h**l and a BEAUTIFUL painting of Cupid and his human lover among many others. I found it to be more comfortable than the Louvre, too.