Louvre Museum Guide: Tickets, Opening Hours and 10 Famous Paintings

1. Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci · 1503 to 1519

Leonardo da Vinci collection

The Mona Lisa is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Its familiarity can obscure the painting itself. Look at the folded hands before returning to the face: their stillness anchors a figure who seems to turn towards the viewer. Beyond her, roads and water disappear into a landscape that becomes less distinct with distance.

Leonardo's sfumato, the soft transitions between tones, keeps the features from resolving into hard outlines. The Louvre's protective case also serves conservation needs, since the portrait is painted on a wooden panel. Expect a shared viewing space rather than a private encounter. The Salle des États guide explains the display and the other paintings in the room.

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2. The Wedding at Cana

Paolo Veronese · 1562 to 1563

Paolo Veronese collection

Veronese turns the biblical wedding at Cana into an expansive banquet, with musicians, servants, guests and architecture competing for attention. Christ sits at the centre, but the miracle is embedded in a busy social world. Follow the people handling vessels and serving the meal; the story is carried through their work as much as through the principal figures.

At approximately 6.77 by 9.94 metres, this is a painting to see at two distances: first for the breadth of the gathering, then for gestures and objects. It was made for the Benedictine refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice and brought to the Louvre after its removal during the French military campaigns in Italy. In the Salle des États, it faces the much smaller Mona Lisa.

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3. Liberty Leading the People

Eugène Delacroix · 1830

Eugène Delacroix collection

The raised tricolour identifies the painting immediately, but the bodies across the foreground give that upward movement its cost. Delacroix painted the work in response to the July Revolution of 1830. The central woman is Liberty personified, bringing an allegorical figure into the smoke and physical danger of a street uprising.

Look at how different figures join the advance: the boy with pistols, the man in a top hat and the people emerging through the haze. Their clothes and positions create a crowd rather than a uniform army. The composition rises towards the flag, while the fallen figures keep pulling the eye back down. It brings celebration and violence into the same field of view.

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4. The Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault · 1818 to 1819

Théodore Géricault collection

Géricault's painting responds to the wreck of the French frigate Méduse in 1816. The makeshift raft holds people at different limits of endurance: some lie motionless, others turn or climb, and a group at the far right signals towards a tiny vessel on the horizon.

Stand back to see how the figures build into a rising structure. Then follow the change from the heavy, slumped bodies at the front to the man waving cloth above the others. The distant ship is small enough to miss, which makes the separation between the survivors and possible rescue feel painfully large. The picture makes a contemporary disaster occupy the space and scale associated with grand historical subjects.

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5. The Coronation of Napoleon

Jacques-Louis David · 1805 to 1807, with later retouching

Jacques-Louis David collection

The ceremony took place at Notre-Dame in Paris on 2 December 1804; David worked on this monumental canvas afterwards. Despite the familiar title, the central action shows Napoleon holding the crown over the kneeling Joséphine. Watching that gesture makes the scene easier to read than trying to identify every face at once.

From there, follow the horizontal gathering of dignitaries, the pope seated behind Napoleon and the architecture that encloses them. Rich fabrics and repeated verticals turn a crowded occasion into an ordered public image. This is a carefully constructed imperial representation, rather than an unmediated view of the ceremony. David's Louvre canvas should also be distinguished from versions and copies held elsewhere.

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6. Oath of the Horatii

Jacques-Louis David · Dated 1784; completed in 1785

Jacques-Louis David collection

Three brothers reach towards the swords held by their father. To the right, seated women fold into one another, their curved bodies answering the men's straight arms and legs. The contrast makes the demands of public duty and the pain of family separation visible before the ancient Roman story is explained.

Notice how the three arches divide the figures into groups, and how the swords concentrate attention near the middle. The painting is signed with the date 1784, although the Louvre records its execution and completion in Rome in 1785. Keeping that distinction is more useful than forcing the work into a single uncomplicated date.

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7. Virgin of the Rocks: the Louvre version

Leonardo da Vinci · About 1483 to 1494

Leonardo da Vinci collection

The Louvre's Virgin of the Rocks gathers Mary, the infant Christ, the young John the Baptist and an angel inside a rocky landscape. Hands connect the group: Mary's protective reach, the child's blessing and the angel's pointing gesture create relationships across the space. The opening beyond the figures draws the eye into a cooler, more distant world.

This is the Louvre version, dated by the museum to about 1483 to 1494. Another version is held by the National Gallery in London. They should not be treated as interchangeable illustrations of the same museum object. Our Virgin of the Rocks story examines the London version and offers a useful comparison.

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8. The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin

Jan van Eyck · About 1430 to 1435

Jan van Eyck collection

Nicolas Rolin kneels opposite the Virgin and Child in a room that opens onto an extraordinarily detailed landscape. An angel holds a crown above Mary, while columns frame the meeting. The picture sets a recognisable individual within a sacred encounter without abandoning the textures of brocade, stone, tile and skin.

Let the eye move beyond the main figures. A garden leads to a river, a bridge and buildings that grow smaller towards distant mountains. The Louvre notes that the town has not been securely identified with a real place. Its precision is therefore not a licence to give the landscape a definite modern name. This is one of the works in the selection that repays a slower second look.

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9. The Astronomer

Johannes Vermeer · 1668

Johannes Vermeer collection

A scholar leans forward to touch a celestial globe, with an open book on the table and daylight entering from the left. Vermeer builds the scene from attention rather than action. The reach of the hand, the face turned towards the globe and the folds of the sleeve make a small movement feel consequential.

The Louvre identifies the globe as a model by Jodocus Hondius and the book as an astronomy manual by Adriaan Metius. Those objects give the activity specificity; the man's identity is less secure. The suggestion that he is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek is not proven. The museum's current gallery schedule should be consulted before planning to see this work in person.

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10. The Lacemaker

Johannes Vermeer · About 1669 to 1670

Johannes Vermeer collection

After the monumental French canvases, The Lacemaker asks for a different kind of looking. A young woman bends over work held close to her hands. Her concentration directs the whole scene, while loose red and pale threads in the foreground become patches of colour rather than equally sharp descriptions.

Compare those foreground threads with the delicate activity near her fingers. Vermeer varies what the eye can resolve, making attention part of the painting's subject. The Louvre cautions against identifying the woman as the artist's wife without evidence, or simply assuming she is a professional lacemaker. As with The Astronomer, check the current availability of the Dutch galleries.

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