The Louvre welcomes nearly 9 million visitors each year, and most of them make a beeline for the same three works: the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. They snap their photos, check the box, and leave exhausted after two hours in the world’s largest art museum—a place that would take weeks to see properly.
There’s a better way. The Louvre’s 35,000 works span 9,000 years of human creativity, and some of its most breathtaking galleries stand nearly empty while crowds jostle in front of Leonardo’s portrait. Here’s how to experience the museum like someone who actually loves art.
Start Where No One Else Does
Most visitors enter through I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid and follow the signs to Denon Wing, where the Mona Lisa holds court. Instead, enter through the Porte des Lions entrance on the Seine side (Quai François Mitterrand). It’s rarely crowded, and you’ll start in the overlooked sections of the museum.
Head straight to the Spanish paintings on the first floor of Denon. Murillo’s luminous religious scenes hang in galleries where you might have ten paintings to yourself. The adjacent Italian Primitives—pre-Renaissance works by Cimabue and Giotto—get a fraction of the attention given to the High Renaissance stars upstairs, but they’re where you can actually see the birth of Western painting.
The Islamic Art galleries beneath the Cour Visconti, covered by an undulating golden roof, opened in 2012 and remain one of Paris’s best-kept secrets. The collection spans three continents and thirteen centuries, with Persian ceramics, Mughal miniatures, and Ottoman textiles displayed in a space that feels like a contemporary art installation.
The French Paintings Everyone Ignores
While tourists queue for Italian Renaissance masterpieces, the Louvre’s French painting collection—the finest in existence—sits practically empty. The massive canvases in the Mollien rooms show French academic painting at its most theatrical: Jacques-Louis David’s The Coronation of Napoleon spans 33 feet and depicts 150 identifiable figures. You can stand inches from it.
Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa hangs in the Grande Galerie, a haunting 16-by-23-foot depiction of shipwreck survivors that caused a scandal in 1819. On a Tuesday morning in February, you might be the only person in the room with it.
Don’t miss the Rococo rooms upstairs in Sully Wing, where Fragonard’s frothy love scenes and Watteau’s melancholy outdoor parties capture 18th-century aristocratic life before the Revolution swept it away. These galleries have benches, windows with courtyard views, and almost no crowds.
Sculpture: The Louvre’s Secret Strength
The two glass-roofed courtyards—Cour Marly and Cour Puget—contain French sculpture moved from the gardens of Marly-le-Roi and other royal estates. Guillaume Coustou’s Marly Horses, rearing dramatically on their plinths, once guarded the entrance to the Champs-Élysées. The scale and ambition of these Baroque works rival anything in marble, but most visitors walk right past.
The medieval sculpture in the Richelieu lower ground floor comes from French churches and châteaux. The Tomb of Philippe Pot, with its eight hooded mourners carrying the deceased on their shoulders, is one of the most moving works in the museum. You’ll likely have it to yourself.
Timing and Practicalities
The Louvre opens at 9 a.m. every day except Tuesday (when it’s closed) and stays open until 6 p.m. most days, 9:45 p.m. on Fridays. The first Saturday evening of each month is free, which makes it the worst possible time to visit.
The best time is Wednesday or Thursday morning in winter, arriving right at opening. Friday evenings after 6 p.m. are surprisingly calm—most tourists have moved on to dinner, and you’ll have the Egyptian antiquities nearly to yourself.
The Paris Museum Pass covers admission and lets you skip the ticket line (though not security). If you’re spending more than a few days in Paris and plan to visit multiple museums, it pays for itself quickly.
Bring water and snacks—the museum café is overpriced and underwhelming. The medieval Louvre, visible in the basement beneath the pyramid, is included with admission and worth 20 minutes. Those are the foundations of the original 12th-century fortress, before it became a palace.
A Strategy for Actually Seeing Art
Here’s the truth about the Louvre: you cannot see it in a day, or even two. Pick three galleries or periods that genuinely interest you, spend an hour in each, and leave. Return another day for three more.
The Northern European paintings (Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Eyck) occupy relatively compact galleries in Richelieu second floor and reward slow looking. Vermeer’s The Lacemaker, smaller than a sheet of notebook paper, contains more mystery than a room full of bombastic history paintings.
The Egyptian collection rivals the British Museum’s and the Cairo Museum’s. The Seated Scribe from 2500 BCE, with his eerily lifelike eyes, sits alone in a gallery that most visitors bypass on their way to Greek sculpture.
Whatever you choose, resist the urge to see everything. The Louvre rewards depth, not breadth. One painting truly seen is worth more than a hundred glanced at while your feet hurt and your brain rebels.
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