THE LOUVRE

The Louvre generates significant income through ticket sales, merchandise, and events, driven by its millions of annual visitors. For example, with over 9 million visitors in a typical year, ticket sales alone can generate substantial revenue, supplemented by earnings from guided tours, shops, and cafes. This income is crucial for covering the museum's extensive expenses, which include conservation of the art, building maintenance, security, staffing, and special exhibitions. The upkeep of the Louvre's historic building and its vast art collection requires continuous investment, ensuring that the museum remains a world-class cultural institution and can accommodate future visitors.

According to French historian Patrice de Moncan, “the Louvre, minus its contents, is worth a staggering $10.5 billion,” and its artworks and objects “have a likely MINIMUM value of $35 billion.” To put this into perspective, it would take someone with a $10 million annual salary 3,500 years to accumulate this wealth.

The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world. Prior to the pandemic it received around 10 million visitors according to theartnewspaper.com. Since the pandemic, they have decided to limit daily entries to 30,000, which should stabilise attendance at between 7.5 million and 8.5 million.

The Louvre was established as a royal palace in the 12th century and was transformed into a public museum in 1793 during the French Revolution. While the museum itself predates Napoleon's expeditions, the plunder brought from Egypt to France contributed significantly to the museum we know today. The term “acquisition of Egyptian artefacts” is misleading since violence was used and Napoleon did not remove Egyptian artefacts with any permission from the native Egyptians.

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