The Louvre Museum and the Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac Museum have jointly inaugurated the Gallery of Five Continents, a renovated exhibition space at the Louvre dedicated to bringing together arts and civilizations from around the world. This groundbreaking collaboration between the two prestigious institutions presents an unprecedented dialogue between artworks from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.
The new gallery represents a significant evolution from the Pavillon des Sessions, which operated from 2000 to 2024 and served as a manifesto for cultural equality. Twenty-five years later, the Gallery of Five Continents embodies a barrier-free approach to global art history through encounters between different eras, continents, and artistic objects. This innovative presentation interweaves diverse narratives of art and human creativity while fostering a more open and universal understanding of cultural heritage.
The gallery showcases 130 major works from world heritage collections, drawing from the Louvre, the Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac Museum, and other institutions. These carefully selected pieces establish connections between artworks, objects, forms, and symbols from all geographical and cultural regions. The exhibition is accompanied by a dedicated section exploring the provenance of objects, providing visitors with insights into the history of these collections.
Architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte's original clear museographic design now enables this new, open and universal reading of the objects. Located in the Denon wing of the Louvre Museum, near the newly renovated Lions Gate, the Gallery of Five Continents marks a new chapter in the museum manifesto that began in 2000 under the impetus of President Jacques Chirac. The original Pavillon des Sessions had allowed arts from African, Asian, Oceanic, and American civilizations to enter France's largest museum institution, fully integrating masterpieces from non-Western cultures into the narrative of art history.
For the first time, forty-two works from the Louvre's collections are displayed alongside seventy-seven masterpieces from the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum. The Louvre pieces include sculptures, decorative arts objects, Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities, Islamic arts, and Byzantine arts. These are supplemented by loans from the Guimet Museum, the Aquitaine Museum, the Château-Museum of Boulogne-sur-Mer, the National Library of France, the National Maritime Museum, and Nigeria. The works are connected through thematic, conceptual, and formal relationships, creating groupings and pairings that visitors are invited to discover.
The shared curatorship between the Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac Museum and the Louvre fully embodies the spirit of collaboration and mutual respect. The goal is to weave sensitive and meaningful correspondences between works, telling together the story of humanity in its diversity and richness. The exhibition is organized around major universal themes including the representation of power, forms of the sacred, conceptions of the world, and relationships with natural elements – fundamental concepts that each culture has interpreted in its own way.
This thematic thread reveals formal and symbolic correspondences between objects that are distant in space and time. Each section is accompanied by trilingual texts in French, English, and Spanish, while each artwork features enhanced bilingual labels to provide visitors with interpretive keys. Approximately twenty objects include more detailed descriptions tracing their trajectory, usage, and journey through history.
This mediation work, central to the project, aims to renew the public's perspective and convey the richness of the objects' original contexts while emphasizing their place in a shared global heritage. Access to the Gallery of Five Continents is through the Lions Gate, located between the Flore wing and the Denon wing on the Seine side. The gate opens in a completely new configuration, providing quick access to the recently renovated 17th and 18th-century Italian and Spanish painting galleries on the first floor.
The reception areas have been completely redesigned while respecting the architectural work, better meeting public expectations with the creation of self-service cloakrooms, a new reception area, a café, accessibility compliance updates, and opening of the door to the Tuileries quay. The Louvre Museum thanks the Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière Foundation for financing the reception spaces and exterior development of the Gallery of Five Continents.
The Café des Lions, located at the entrance to the Gallery of Five Continents, offers a gourmet break in an exceptional setting with a breathtaking view of the Carrousel garden. Combining dark wood and raw stone, the space invites visitors to gather around a large communal table or enjoy the intimacy of alcoves for an authentic, distinctly French and Parisian experience. The menu celebrates the excellence of French baking tradition and the refinement of French pastry, featuring chocolate croissants, apple pastries, madeleines, macarons, and a variety of sandwiches prepared daily at the Louvre Bakery.
The museum has chosen to invite master bakers Pascal Rigo and Arnaud Chevalier to showcase their artisanal expertise at the café through a selection of products from the Louvre Bakery, installed under the Pyramid since June 5, 2025. For the first time in a major museum, this bakery features a real bakehouse where bread is kneaded, risen, and baked daily with care, using exceptional flours and sourdough. The café operates daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., except Tuesdays.
