The most popular exhibits at the Louvre are Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo, followed by masterpieces such as Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, the Assyrian lamassu and the Code of Hammurabi. If you only have a couple of hours, plan your route around these and you will see the museum’s greatest hits.

The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world. Housed in the former royal palace of the kings of France, its collection holds roughly half a million objects, of which around 35,000 are on display, from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to 19th-century European painting. For tickets, hours and planning, see our guide to visiting the Louvre and is the Louvre worth it.

Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Lisa Gherardini, painted in the early 16th century, is the most famous painting in the world. It is not the largest or most dramatic work in the Louvre, but it combines technical mastery, a celebrated artist and an extraordinary history.

Leonardo was famous in his own lifetime as a painter, engineer and polymath, and only a handful of his paintings survive. In the Mona Lisa he used sfumato, building up very thin, translucent layers of paint to create soft transitions between light and shadow. That technique is behind the famous smile, which seems to change depending on where you look, and which art historians have debated for centuries.

The painting’s fame grew enormously after it was stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former museum worker. It was missing for more than two years before being recovered in Florence in 1913. Today it hangs behind protective glass in the Salle des États, usually in front of a large crowd. For a calmer view, go right at opening time or during the late opening on Wednesday or Friday evening.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Many “Greek” statues in museums are actually Roman copies of lost Greek originals. The Winged Victory of Samothrace is the real thing: a Hellenistic Greek marble from around the early 2nd century BC, found on the island of Samothrace in 1863. It represents Nike, the goddess of victory, landing on the prow of a ship.

The sculptor is unknown, but the sense of movement, with wind pressing the drapery against her body, makes it one of the most admired sculptures in Western art. It stands at the top of the Daru staircase, one of the most dramatic settings in the museum.

Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo, or Aphrodite of Milos, is the Louvre’s other ancient superstar. Found on the Greek island of Milos in 1820 and presented to King Louis XVIII the following year, the statue dates from the Hellenistic period, roughly the 2nd century BC. Her missing arms have only added to her mystique.

The French promoted the statue enthusiastically, and its early history has a scandal attached: at the time, art from the Classical period was valued above Hellenistic art, and some argued the Venus was older and linked to the great sculptor Praxiteles. A base fragment with an inscription that pointed to a later Hellenistic sculptor disappeared after the statue arrived in Paris. Whatever her date, she remains one of the defining images of ideal beauty.

Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio

Caravaggio was the great rebel of early 17th-century painting, and the Death of the Virgin shows why. Where other painters showed saints as idealized figures, Caravaggio painted ordinary people overwhelmed by grief, and the Virgin herself as a real, lifeless woman. The church in Rome that commissioned the work rejected it, and it later entered the French royal collection. A huge red drapery hangs over the scene, adding to its theatrical intensity.

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss

The love story of Cupid and Psyche is one of the great romances of classical mythology. Antonio Canova, the leading Neoclassical sculptor of his day and a favorite of Napoleon, captured its most tender moment: Cupid reviving Psyche with a kiss. Completed in the 1790s, the marble group seems almost weightless, and visitors often walk all the way around it to see how the two figures interlock.

The Lamassu of Khorsabad

These colossal winged bulls with human heads once guarded the gates of the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II at Khorsabad, in present-day Iraq, in the late 8th century BC. Look closely and you will notice they have five legs: seen from the front, they stand still; seen from the side, they appear to stride forward.

French archaeologists excavated Khorsabad in the 19th century. Moving such huge sculptures was a dangerous business, and in 1855 a later shipment of antiquities from the site was lost when the boats and rafts carrying it were attacked and sank in the Tigris.

The Code of Hammurabi

This black stone stele, more than 2 m tall, records the laws of Hammurabi, king of Babylon in the 18th century BC. It is one of the oldest and most complete legal codes known, with nearly 300 laws covering trade, property, family, wages, debts and crimes. It is famous for the principle of “an eye for an eye,” although penalties varied with the social status of the people involved. At the top, the king is shown receiving authority from the sun god Shamash.

The Raft of the Medusa

In 1816 the French frigate Méduse ran aground off the coast of present-day Mauritania. Around 150 people were crowded onto a makeshift raft, and over almost two weeks adrift they suffered starvation, mutiny and cannibalism. Only 15 were alive when the raft was found.

Théodore Géricault turned the disaster into a vast painting, completed in 1819, that caused a scandal and became a manifesto of French Romanticism. It marked a shift away from the calm, idealized subjects of Neoclassicism toward raw emotion and contemporary events.

The Dying Slave by Michelangelo

Michelangelo carved the Dying Slave in the 1510s for the tomb of Pope Julius II, a project that was eventually scaled down. The sculpture, displayed alongside its companion, the Rebellious Slave, combines sensuality and suffering in a way that recalls his David in Florence. It is one of the few major works by Michelangelo outside Italy.

More Highlights Worth Finding

• Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, the defining image of the 1830 revolution.
• The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, a gigantic canvas full of detail.
• The Wedding Feast at Cana by Veronese, the Louvre’s largest painting, opposite the Mona Lisa.
• The Seated Scribe and the Great Sphinx of Tanis in the Egyptian galleries.
• The Napoleon III Apartments, a lavish suite of 19th-century state rooms.

Tips for Seeing the Famous Works

• Book a timed ticket online in advance. See should you book a fast-track ticket to the Louvre.
• Start with the Mona Lisa at opening time, or leave it for a late opening, when crowds thin.
• Download the museum map and plan a route by wing: Denon for Italian painting and the big French canvases, Sully for Egypt and the Venus de Milo, Richelieu for Mesopotamia and Napoleon III’s apartments.
• Give yourself breaks; the museum is enormous. Our guide to things to do near the Louvre has ideas for afterward.

If you are not sure the crowds are for you, read our honest take on why you might skip the Louvre, and if you want to stay close by, see budget hotels near the Louvre.

Summary

The Louvre’s most popular exhibits are the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo, but the Raft of the Medusa, Canova’s Psyche, Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, the Assyrian lamassu and the Code of Hammurabi are just as rewarding. Plan a route, book ahead and focus on a handful of works rather than trying to see everything.