Denon wing

Let your eye follow the length of the palace beside the river. That stretched shape gives you a clue to one of Denon’s earlier purposes: the Grande Galerie linked the Louvre to the former Tuileries palace. A building made to connect royal spaces now gathers visitors around works of art. The wing is named for Dominique-Vivant Denon, the museum’s first director during the Napoleonic era. His name helps you keep your bearings across a large and varied part of the Louvre. On the lower level, European sculpture and early Greek antiquities offer close encounters with bodies and materials. Level 0 includes further sculpture and the Gallery of Five Continents. Level 1 brings the long painting galleries and the Winged Victory on the Daru landing. Choose the kind of looking that appeals to you: a figure occupying real space, or a painted scene opening within a wall. The upper outline of Denon can also appear on a level 2 map as building context; the visitor galleries described here belong to its lower levels.