Miss art museums? The Louvre has just put its entire online art collection

Composed of Alaa Elassar, CNN

There is nothing else to spend a rainy afternoon at a museum, to be softened by the beauty and wonder of art and history. Now the Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, allows you to do this right from home.

The French museum has launched an online platform that includes all the museum’s works of art, consisting of over 480,000 pieces, the Louvre announced on Friday in a press release.
Art lovers and researchers alike will now be able to view the entire Louvre collection online for free.

The website features works of art from collections in the museum’s eight departments, ranging from Islamic art and Renaissance sculptures to Egyptian antiques and paintings by artists from around the world.

“Today, the Louvre removes its dust from treasures, even the least known,” Jean-Luc Martinez, president and director of the Louvre, said in a statement. “For the first time, anyone can access the entire collection of works for free from a computer or smartphone, whether they are on display in the museum, borrowed, even long-term or stored.”

“The amazing cultural heritage of the Louvre is now just a click away!” he added. “I am sure that this digital content will inspire people to come to the Louvre to discover the collections in person.”

Visitors can search the museum’s massive collections through simple or advanced searches, entries by the curatorial department or thematic albums, the statement said.

The site has an interactive map that allows people to explore the museum and each of its works of art, room by room.

The site will be updated regularly by museum experts, as the museum’s collection is slowly expanding, according to the statement.

Blockade restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic closed the Louvre at the end of October, leaving world-famous works of art such as “Venus de Milo”, “Freedom leading the people” and “Mona Lisa” without their usual crowds of admirers.
While the museum is still closed to visitors, the Louvre is now undergoing long-planned renovations.

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