Or create a separate museum for Monalisa and few top exhibits for tourists interested only in them.

They're already working on doing exactly that. The construction work that the thieves hid with is to restore all the previous doors of the museum so they can start being used as entrances again to reduce the strain on the I.M. Pei pyramid, the modern entrance of the Louvre. Coupled with that, they're building the first temporary exhibit space of the museum, with an adjacent permanent exhibit space. That permanent exhibit's subject? Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa, with a special ticket to visit only that already in the plans.

In 10 years, bus full of tourists will go straight to the pyramid, then straight to the Da Vinci exhibit, take their goddamn selfie, and leave. The rest of the visitors will mostly enter through the historical entrances and never interact with those throngs of Mona Lisa lookie loos.

The Louvre is doing exactly what makes the most sense; they're not stupid, they're just not very fast, as is usual for a museum.

It makes so much sense on one level. At the same time, I worry in the long run this could have the effect of trimming the budget for less selfie-worthy exhibits. I love stuff like the Napoleon III apartments.

Nope, they're not talking about reducing access to anything existing. It's a win-win.

They're not talking about it because they have the best intentions; the problem isn't this administration, it's market forces.

When I visited the Louvre it was absolutely wild to me how many people were just there for the Mona Lisa. I took a look at it in person because of course I did, but I don't think it was anywhere close to the most interesting piece the museum has on display (I preferred the classical sculptures), nor even the best painting. It seems like such a waste for people to fawn over that one painting and pretty much ignore all the other masterpieces you can see there.

> it was absolutely wild to me how many people were just there for the Mona Lisa

> It seems like such a waste for people to fawn over that one painting and pretty much ignore all the other masterpieces you can see there

I think you're making the rather large assumption that everyone is into art in the first place, and thus find it surprising that they would fail to appreciate everything other than the Mona Lisa.

In reality, I suspect a lot of folks just weren't going to go to the museum at all otherwise. They only go to see the Mona Lisa, not because they think it's a particularly magnificent piece of art, but simply because:

(a) they don't want to look silly saying they visited Paris but didn't see the most famous painting in the world there, and/or

(b) the whole world talks about it, and they naturally want to experience whatever it is, to maybe see what all the fuss is about.

Such reasons are pretty natural, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the intrinsic merits of -- or appreciation of -- the Mona Lisa relative to whatever else is there. It could've just been a hole in the wall, and if it had been the most famous thing in the world, it would've prompted a similar reaction.

The Louvre was a royal palace, the rooms and halls are all quite stunning. It was originally built in the 12th century and expanded through the 17 century, so as historical artifacts go, it's definitely a thing on its own. It is worth visiting even if there were no art at all inside it. YMMV.

I agree!

The Mona Lisa isn't even the most interesting piece in the room it's shown in.

I think it would also be more interesting if you could really approach it and have the time to look at it like other pieces.

My memories of the Mona Lisa is of a rather small paint behind dirty glasses with a large group of japanese tourists grouped in front of it and I simply didn't have the patience to wait and I just really glanced at it while passing by.

Also like most paints of its age, it is seriously damaged, colors aren't the original one and paint is cracked. I wish there was a way to actually enjoy in person those paints as they were when they were delivered to their customers.

There was a digital reconstruction using the pigments analysis https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/digital-restoration...

My memories of the few times I've been to the Louvre are exactly the same as yours.

Musee d'Orsay down the river is a much better museum in my opinion and the one I never skip when I'm in Paris, the Louvre I'll only go to if someone I'm with has never been and really wants to.

It's a bit of a paradox because in a way d'Orsay is much more “pop” than Louvre. I think people would generally enjoy d'Orsay more than historic focused Louvre.

I work part-time at an art gallery (not a museum) with 300 pieces from 300 artists, on two floors. The typical visitor walks through, looking but not stopping, often not bothering with upstairs. It's rare for anyone to take more than 20 minutes.

I will say, the quality of exhibition in even the biggest most popular art museums is pretty poor.

The number of times a glare on the glass obscured the work, or I've walked through a room completely befuddled about what I'm looking at until finally on my way out discovering that I entered from the "wrong" direction and they intended that I take one very specific weird meandering path through the halls, and I get no info until the end of an exhibit otherwise, is ridiculous. On top of that, I feel like I get some history and analysis per artist or per period when what I really want is per work, explaining how they painted it, what they were thinking about or referring to (since art is almost always part of a conversation), and what's notable about that specific work. I'd also probably like fewer pieces from a given artist in a row and just have more a collection of contemporaries that drew inspiration from each other in a sequence so I can see how techniques and vocabularies developed, rather than "Here's the artist room. He was very famous and used a lot of color. We have access to these for a month, so take a good look."

It's weird just how much better science museums are at exhibit building. Please, art museums, crib their notes!

Problem is most museums are visited by tourists which by the time they reach the museum already have sore feets from strolling around the city and can't stand comfortably more than a couple seconds. There are a few museums that put benches which allows to actually take the time to enjoy watching a piece but there is always someone who decides to stand in front of you.

I also which a normal entry fee would allows you to comeback several times in a period. I don't have the stamina to contemplate 300 art pieces in a row. Can I watch 300 movies in the same day or can I even listen to 300 music records while giving them my full attention in a day? Nope.

Shh—don’t tell them! Their ticket dollars count the same as yours and mine, and their preferences leave us plenty of breathing room in the sculpture gallery!

basically the story for any popular tourist destination - people go so that they can tell their friends they went, not for the actual experience. and so the most important part of the experience is doing exactly the same thing your friends did, so you can say "i did it too".

Yeah, this can lead to awkward small talk between people who like doing the big name tourist stuff and people who like doing things off the beaten path when they discover they both visited the same place and have surprisingly little experience in common.

The funny thing about the Mona Lisa is that the public only became enamoured with it after it was stolen from the Louvre and subsequently recovered, it's more famous for having been stolen than for what it actually is.

Well it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, not exactly a nobody. That alone is enough for it to be famous. He's probably more famous than the Mona Lisa.

Of course, it was already notable enough to be featured in the Louvre, but there are tens of thousands of items on display there and half a million more in storage. There's quite a gap from that standing to becoming one of the most well known paintings in history and the Louvre's #1 attraction, probably forever.

So what you're saying is that this theft was an inside job by the museum in order to gain attention for a few more pieces of art. /s

I'm thinking "The Producers", retold as "The Docents".

Slap a copyright on that post and DM me!

You don’t understand. ITS FAMOUS!!!!!!

It’s amazing how much fame sort circuits reasoning in the human mind.

a lot of people just don’t really like museums. they’re boooooooring.

Then just don't go?

It’s already the case.

Poland does this for their Leonardo (Lady With An Ermine). It is housed in a separate room, tickets are separate and it is sometimes rotated between different museums (at least I saw her in two different ones by now). It it really helpful plus it saves money if you don't want to see it.

The Louvre understaffed? It's one of the most visited places in the world and would still be, even if the double the ticket price. The "Louvre understaffed" sounds like a management failure more than anything else.

I don't know how easy it is to increase prices in France but in some places they sell tickets in advance and there are only a limited number of them. Something like movie theaters.

In which case visitor numbers won’t swell

It's already like that, and it sucks. I remember a time when you could spontaneously decide "I'm going to the museum today!" then go there, wait a bit in line and get in. Now you have to book it weeks in advance, then get in line anyway, or show up without a reservation and be told the museum is full.

Sure, it does suck. But things change, and this is one of those things. The present solution has the Louvre closing without warning because they are short staffed, and that will only become a more frequent problem if they can't find some solution. Would you rather live in a world where you have to plan your visit to the Louvre, or where the Louvre will be randomly closed 5% of the time?

First and foremost, any implementation where staff walk off the job is not a solution. So status quo is worse than any alternative plan that addresses that issue.

France is the only place in the world you can have so many visitors that you…. Can’t hire more staff?!? For a paid venue?

Did you not read the thread? They are not paying enough to keep their staff working. Their options are to increase prices, decrease availability, or do nothing and hope it works out.

No kidding, thanks for summarizing what I’m saying.

Ah sorry, i misunderstood the sarcasm. You’re totally right, it’s absurd

Oh interesting we secured tickets in Sept for the winter. It sounds like there's a chance we wont get in...

The beauty of not being the center of the universe, or having a passion that almost nobody else has. When it comes to appreciating say the art, I see no issue there.

Your right ends where other's same rights begin and all that.

You misunderstood me. I don't lament not having the museum to myself. I lament the loss of a time when we could go to places without planning to weeks in advance.

Nowadays, we still need to wait in line to get in the museum, as we always needed to, the only difference is that there's a panel that reads "online reservations" in front of the line, and that you get bounced if you don't have a reservation.

I think a better way of looking at it might be that there are plenty of other museums that fit the bill, but the Louvre is no longer one of them.

Yes, let's price out everyone but the rich from seeing art. Let the free market decides who deserves to see culture in real life.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me pricing everything at its actual correct price is the best way; do not subsidize consumption or production, do not protect producers. All of these things are firstly political footballs and secondly only act to consume wealth inefficiently (which is to say, to mis-allocate resources).

Then work on making everyone as wealthy as possible, by encouraging economic growth, so we have as much personal, individual wealth as possible, and so can buy as much of what we want or need as possible.

> it seems to me pricing everything at its actual correct price is the best way

It seems to me that the "actual correct price" is the one that doesn't prevent everybody but the rich from being able to experience the art and cultural heritage.

There are many alternatives for dealing with crowds available. It's also just good business since those artistic works are a huge draw for tourists being outside money into Paris and into the country as well.

The Louvre ticket price is around $18 right now. I think they could stand to increase it a bit without pricing out “everyone but the rich”.

There is more culture outside of the Louvre than inside it.

The Louvre is a national museum. Access by lottery with affordable ticketing would be more democratic than access by riches over others by pricing out working class visitors.

Just do the classic developing country thing and charge non-french people significantly more. 2x the price if you live outside paris, 5x the price if you live outside of France, and 20x the price if you live outside the EU.

Charging EU citizens more than French citizens would be illegal discrimination under EU law. (It might be legal to charge local Parisians less.)

For example see https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/12/ec-demands-end-to-portugal...

I wonder if the Paris city hall can do a rebate program of "Dear Paris residents, mail in your ticket stub and we'll give you a partial refund" - this is a first draft of an idea, it's flawed because it would lead to opportunistic Parisians asking tourists for their ticket stubs, and then telling the city hall that they visited the Louvre 30 times last month.

No, they can't, EU courts would strike that in a heartbeat.

Some time ago Germans tried to tax foreign drivers on their roads, so they introduced toll, nominally for all, but also lowered the same amount another car-related tax that was paid only by Germans. EU bodies saw through the scheme just fine and now they're on hook for returning the toll money to anyone still keeping the invoice/receipt.

Seems worthwhile, nobody will actually keep the receipt

Half yes, probably discarded, but the other half are in company books, because those were accounted as costs of operations. Even then, yes, probably worth it for the time.

There are only charging Germans right now. They wanted to extend that to foreigners, so if you wouldn't lower the tax that pays for this right now, you would charge Germans double.

Of course this is against the interest of other countries, which is why they prevented that, but it wasn't unfair or discrimination.

What's wrong with what I stated?

What is the difference? The key idea still work …

My point is you can make things cheaper for locals. But local means local: it doesn't mean national.

There's a significant ethical issue involved here though. Museums in former colonial nations frequently contain artifacts that were, ironically, stolen from other countries, often through violent means. Charging people from these former colonies to view their own national treasures is deeply problematic.

From the Web-site of the Louvre:

  Admission is free for the following visitors:
  
  Under 18s
  Proof of ID required.
  
  Under 26 year-old residents of the European Economic Area (EU, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein)
  Proof of ID and residency required.

  All visitors
  On the first Friday of the month after 6 p.m. (except in July and August)

(Source: https://www.louvre.fr/en/visit/hours-admission)

Don't forget teachers, and unemployed people.

This is true for every national muséum in France and it is awesome !

> Access by lottery with affordable ticketing would be more democratic than access by riches over others by pricing out working class visitors

Do both. Lottery tickets the day of. Advance-rate tickets at a premium price. Mix and match with a non-EU premium for both.

I don't know about the Louvre, but national amenities usual charge more to tourists. You can rise tourist fares as much as needed. They aren't poor nationals, and it's their number which is causing problems.

You cannot have any different pricing for all EU nationals.

I'm not sure they can legally charge more for other European citizens than French citizens though.

The UK's Natural History Museum is quite instructive. No staff anywhere apart from where money gets taken for food and souvenirs. Free entry to hordes and hordes of children with parents and grandparents in tow.

So how do they manage it?

There is ticket booking, which is done in advance or else there is a queue. Once in, you are just following the same walk as everyone else to see the dinosaurs - what else?!? After the dinosaurs have been seen people can tire themselves out seeing some of the rest of the museum, but most don't see a lot else and head for the gift shop before going home.

At the Louvre they have the slight problem that the hordes are there to see that one painting, the one that isn't exactly massive. Everyone knows exactly what it looks like before taking the pilgrimage. Really they should just get rid of it and put it in on a regional tour indefinitely, so as to share the tourist money elsewhere.

I agree. But not at the cost of the working class workers.

Exactly. Japan has been raising prices to help to curb the crowded tourism. Such a simple supply/demand solution

Keep it up, and you ensure only foreigners and rich people will be able to visit important or desirable things in your own country. I live in Lisbon, and see this happening all the time.

It's pretty common for museums here (in Lisbon/Portugal) to offer discounted entry to residents. I was just a the MAAT (for example) and I asked for and got the resident discount.

And there's the scheme which allows residents 52 museum entries per year for free: https://www.museusemonumentos.pt/pt/noticia-com/novo-regime-...

It's tourists tax for the foreigners, it's not for the locals. Maybe Lisbon should consider charge the foreigners to help fund the locals too?

There are two things you can do about the law of supply and demand. Believe in it and act accordingly, or don't believe in it and be victim to it.

Any reasonable place doing this offers discounts in various formats for locals. San Francisco has some museums like this with discounts for locals.

I'm willing to guess that securing that window was in no one's backlog, and this was not an issue of either swelling crowds not of stretched staff. It was a security failure.

Why optimize for profit? These institutions have far greater cause of providing the population with culture. In UK for example, most museums are free - at least the best and most important ones.

You don’t need to optimize for profit. Optimize for operation efficiency. You can easily still do that using the pricing function.