It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward). At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet). Attendance in 2021 was 2.8 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic, up five percent from 2020, but far below pre-COVID attendance. Nonetheless, the Louvre still topped the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2021.The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 square metres (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds...
AbstractSouthwest and Central Asia were pivotal regions for the domestication and dispersal of domestic herbivores. Here we investigate long-term variation in bony labyrinth morphology of domestic bovids (sheep, goats and cattle) across the last 10 000 years. We focused on the osseous cavity of the inner ear, located within the petrous bone. We analysed semicircular canal (SC) size and shape using micro-computed tomography and geometric morphometrics (GMM) on 78 modern reference specimens and 234 archaeological petrous bones from 51 sites spanning the Iranian Plateau, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Indus Valley. Bony labyrinth morphometrics yielded a strong taxonomic signal, enabling species-level identification of 228 out of 234 specimens and revealing greater diversity than anticipated. Comparative analyses further documented contrasting, nonlinear diachronic trajectories in SC size and shape among sheep, goats and cattle, reflecting species-specific responses to domestication and long-term herd management. Together, these results demonstrate that bony labyrinth GMM provides a robust, non-destructive framework for taxonomic identification and evolutionary inference and underscore how long-term, interdisciplinary approaches can capture the complex, nonlinear dynamics of animal domestication across the longue durée.
Bast fibres have been critical materials in the evolution of human history. In particular, their use in fishing technology as well as in maritime transport has enabled mobility, livelihoods, and the exchange of goods and transmission of cultures in human societies. Here, we compare fishing nets from two distant but contemporaneous groups at the end of the 4th millennium BCE: one from Neolithic period in Egypt and the other from the Middle Preceramic Peruvian Pacific coast. The fishing nets possess substantially similar textile architectures even though they use bast fibres from different species: domesticated cf. Linum usitatissimum L. (flax linen) by the Ancient Egyptians and cf. Asclepias. (milkweed) by the coastal Peruvian community. We examine these two fibre types and show that despite their distinct morphological and ultrastructural characteristics, their processing and manufacture share some similarities, both 2-ply with Z final torsion. Multiphoton, atomic force, and scanning electron microscopy are supplemented by 3D micro-computed X-ray phase-contrast tomography to investigate the unique architectures of the yarns and their fibres’ artefacts. We demonstrate the use of state-of-the-art micro-spectroscopy techniques for archaeobotanical studies and use fishing nets as a new lens to unravel the episteme and techne of fibre and textile production in the past.
To reconstruct the history of Egyptian blue use in Renaissance painting, we conducted a systematic survey of Italian works in the Louvre collection, including both storage facilities and the Grande Galerie housing major Italian masterpieces. The investigation employed recently developed modified night-vision goggles to detect the characteristic infrared luminescence of Egyptian blue. Due to the presence of unshieldable sunlight in the Grande Galerie, we adapted the technique by utilizing the laser pointer integrated in the night-vision goggle as a marker to enhance pigment detection under ambient lighting conditions. Perugino's painting was subsequently relocated for detailed analysis under controlled lighting, while Lo Spagna's work was identified in the storage and directly examined using high-resolution imaging techniques. This study significantly expands our knowledge by adding two important artists to the three previously documented Renaissance masters (Raphael, Garofalo, l'Ortolano) who employed Egyptian blue pigment. The identification of Egyptian blue in Perugino's work is of particular historical significance as it predates its earliest known occurrence in the Renaissance by nine years. Given Perugino's role as Raphael's master, this suggests a potential transmission of this specialized technical knowledge as a workshop secret, from teacher to student within Perugino’s entourage, a hypothesis that warrants further systematic investigation across Perugino's broader oeuvre.
Over the course of his career, Federico Zuccari employed a variety of graphic techniques according to the intended function of his drawings. His use of black and red chalk for portraits and scenes of everyday life, which was remarkable for its modernity, profoundly influenced an entire generation of artists. Ludovico Carracci travelled to Florence, including to the site of Santa Maria del Fiore, and may have had access to this type of production by Federico. A group of Ludovico’s early drawings, some of which bear earlier attributions to Federico Zuccari, attests to this influence. Several sheets further suggest that this interest in the technique of black and red chalk was also transmitted to Agostino and Annibale Carracci.
