Louvre Museum, Cour Napoleon Pyramid.

The Louvre building complex underwent a major remodeling in the 1980s and '90s in order to make the old museum more accessible and accommodating to its visitors. To this end, a vast underground complex of offices, shops, exhibition spaces, storage areas, and parking areas, as well as an auditorium, a tourist bus depot, and a cafeteria, was constructed underneath the Louvre's central courtyards of the Cour Napoleon and the Cour du Carrousel. The ground level entrance to this complex was situated in the centre of the Cour Napoléon and was crowned by a controversial steel-and-glass pyramid designed by the American architect I.M. Pei. The underground complex of support facilities and public amenities was opened in 1989. In 1993, on the museum's 200th anniversary, the rebuilt Richelieu wing, formerly occupied by France's Ministry of Finance, was opened; for the first time, the entire Louvre was devoted to museum purposes. The new wing, also designed by Pei, had more than 230,000 square feet of exhibition space, housing collections of European painting, decorative arts, and Islamic arts. Three glass-roofed interior courtyards display French sculpture and ancient Assyrian artworks.

The Louvre's painting collection is one of the richest in the world, representing all periods of European art up to Impressionism. The Louvre's collection of French paintings from the 15th to the 19th century is unsurpassed in the world, and it also has many masterpieces by Italian Renaissance painters and Flemish and Dutch painters of the Baroque period.

The department of medieval, Renaissance, and modern art objects displays the treasures of the French kings--bronzes, miniatures, pottery, tapestries, jewelry, and furniture--while the department of Greek and Roman antiquities (which includes Etruscan art) features architecture, sculpture, mosaics, bronzes, jewelry, and pottery. The department of Egyptian antiquities was established in 1826 to organize the collections acquired during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. The department of Oriental antiquities is most important for its collection of Mesopotamian art. In 1954 a section of Christian antiquities was established to group Early Christian, Byzantine, and Coptic works including ivories, glass, ceramics, textiles, gold, and Greek and Russian icons.

Page 1 is Louvre Museum Cour Napoleon Pyramid.Page 2 is Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities. Page 3 is Egyptian Antiquities,Page 4 is Paintings and Decorative Art

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