Louvre Galleries
The Louvre Galleries involve both the public galleries where artefacts and important pieces of art are kept, the rooftops and the private offices and restoration suites used by the curators. Lara must gain access to the continuing Archaeological Dig below.
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Summary
Lara begins in a stairwell leading to the galleries. Negociating her way past security cameras, lasers and Louvre Guards, she will make her way to a special gallery where hangs the famous Mona Lisa, or La Joconde. Above the famous painting is a ventilation shaft leading to the rooftops of the galleries.
Making her way carefully around the rooftops Lara will reach another ventilation shaft that leads to a storage cupboard. It opens onto a corridor, where she will find and access the late Mademoiselle Margot Carvier's office. Here she will gain more information about the Obscura Paintings and the digs going on beneath the Museum.
From then on, Lara will be able to make her way back through the public galleries and eventually reach the digsite.
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Notes
The Louvre was built as a fortress for King Philip II of France in the 12th century, and there is a strong posibility that there were structures there previously. Continuously altered throughout the medieval period by the kings of France. The Royal Collection was first shown here in 1750, only a few decades before the French revolution.
After the revolution, the Louvre was re-opened as a public museum in 1793. It has remained a museum throughout the turbulent nineteenth and early twentieth century, and has always been a focus by rulers of Paris for expansion of the buildings and the collection.
In the Second World War, most of the present collection was removed by truck convoy before the Nazi invasion and kept safe. Once the war was over, the collection began to return to the museum.
The Louvre is one of the largest museums in the world, the most visited and, arguably, the most famous. It also has one of the largest and most valuable collections of artefacts, paintings and statuary in the world, with over 380,000 individual objects and 35,000 pieces of artwork.
While the general decoration of both the inside and outside of the galleries is fairly accurate, the seemingly random arrangement of artefacts and art is not.
