From its beginning to the recent construction of the Pei pyramid, the Louvre has continuously changed shape over the course of seven hundred years. Many powerful men have left their imprint on this Parisian monument which is now the largest art museum in the world.

Charles V installed his library there, giving the Louvre its first collection. François I brought in paintings by Raphael, Titian and da Vinci. The Louvre held over 200 paintings at the time of Henri IV, and almost 2500 under the reign of Louis XIV!!

When Louis XIV left the Louvre for Versailles, the palace was taken over by the five Academies. Since the royal court had moved out, official artists settled in with their families and servants. Partitions were erected and walls were pierced to make way for stove pipes. Dance halls and cabarets were even installed on the ground floor!

In 1754 all these inhabitants were ousted except for the academics, who were in turn expelled by Napoleon fifty years later.  Napoleon celebrated his wedding there shortly after.

The French Revolution transformed the Louvre into a museum – the “palace of the people”! It was opened to the public in 1793. In 1815, the art “conquests” which Napoleon had brought back to Paris from all over Europe, had to be returned to their respective countries.

In September 1981, President Mitterand commissioned the Chinese-American artist Icoh Ming Pei to reorganize the museum. The exhibition surface doubled (now 60,000 sq. meters), and the 19-meter high glass pyramid was built in the Napoleon courtyard.

Although controversial, the idea of a pyramid was not new. In 1794, a short-lived pyramid was built there in memory of Mr Marat who had been assassinated the previous year. Also, in 1809, Balzac’s father had proposed to raise a pyramid in the middle of the Louvre courtyard in honor of Napoleon, with a statue of the emporor on its top.