PREFACEThe door of the Louvre opened to the public for the very first time exactly two hundred years ago. The Museum Central des Arts, as it was then called, was established by the young republic in 1793, though the idea of turning the palace of the French kings into a museum had already been considered at that time of the ancien regime. The majority of paintings, drawings, statues, and decorate art objects in the "museum of the nation" came from the royal collections. Since then the museum has progressively spread out into the different parts of the palace itself and into the adjoining buildings constructed subsequently, most notably the Ministry of Finance. Today the Musee du Louvre stretches over an enormous architectural ensemble running parallel to the Seine, right in the heart of the city of Paris and its gardens. Operation "Grand Louvre," currently underway, is in the process of literally transforming the museum from top to bottom. As part of this enormous enterprise, the palace itself is being restored the medieval ramparts of the fortress have been uncovered, and a vast underground area contraining all the indispensable visitor services and technical equipment has been created. This gradual but total metamorphosis facades of the courtyards; the installation of a new entrace in the center of the Cour Napolean, featuring architect I. M. Pei's famous glass pyramid; a new display space for French painting around the Cour Carree; and the incorporation of the Ministry of Finance into the museum. The display area has been doubled so that in the future the museum's collections can be totally reorganized into a more logical and ample presentation. This radical program of modernization goes hand in hand with a legitimate respect for the past, a policy apparent not only in the obvious care given to the design of new rooms and of the original structures. This regard for the past extends to the traditions of the museum itself as they have evolved over the past two centuries from the museum's formation through the various phases in its development. The history of the collections begins with the transfer to the Louvre palace of the artistic treasures in the royal collections first assembled by Francis I (1494-1547). During the Revolutionary period this prestigious core was enriched with treasures taken from the nationalized collections of emigrants and churches and by purchase,to which were addwd,during the Republic and the Empire, the victorious allies forced Franced to resitute all but a few of the paintings and ancient sculptures seized in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium that had been on display at the Louvre in the ephemeral and outstanding"Musee Napoleon." The collections have been growing ever since. Throughout the noneteenth century, existing departments were methodically enlarged while new sections were opened: the Egyptian Museum was formed by Champollion in 1826, and the Assyrian Museum was forms in 1847. The "primitives," the long-forgotten arts of the Middle Ages, the paintings and decorative arts of the eighteenth century that had been held in contempt during the neo-classic period, and the then-modern art of the nineteenth century are but a few examples of the range of artistic traditions that gradually found their place in the museum. The Louvre has alway endeaveaored to perfact its representation of the most siginficant centers and moments in the history of art in Europe, a policy that has been made possible by continual acquisitions and the enlightened and uninterrupted generosity of more than three thousand philanthropists. In this way the encyclopedic ideals that presided over the foundation of the museum itself in the eighteenth century have been extended and kept alive in the Louvre's comprehensive approach. The collections today are divided into seven departments. Through a broad range of works and without respect to technical distinctions, the first three departments---Oriental Antiquities; Egyptian Antiquities; and Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities ---illuatrate the art and culpture of the ancient Near East and Middle East (including Islamic art), and the Mediterranean countries. The other four so-called "modern" departments are based on artistic categories---painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawing ---and span Western art from the height of the Middle Ages to the mid-nineteenth century.
