Louvre Tour: French Painting History Crash Course

An amazing Louvre tour to follow the evolution of the French art of painting from the 14th century to the mid-19th century. A three-hour challenge with your own licensed guide-lecturer.

💡 Looking for all Louvre tour options? See our complete Louvre Tours guide with highlights tours, themed tours, and evening tours.

Photo of bookshelves full of references books to illustrate the synthesys of 500 years of pictural arts knowledge of our Louvre French painting challenge crash course.

Our French painting crash course Louvre tour is a synthesis of 500 years of the evolution of painting. Credit: Joshua Coleman, Unsplash.

French Painting History Crash Course in the Louvre

From €319 for 1 to 2 people + €25 for any extra person

+/- 3-hour guided tour in English
Really private tour = your party only (6 people max.)
Postgraduate (MPhil) certified French national guide
Flexible schedule
Not available on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays
Not available January 1st, May 1st & December 25th

Price does not include Louvre special tour tickets (€ 28 for people over 18, free under 18) and mandatory € 20 "right to speak" Louvre fees.

We will purchase both for you, as you can't buy them yourself.

Tickets you can purchase online yourself are not tour compatible. See our clarification about these abusively called skip-the-line tickets.

KNOW MORE / BOOK NOW

Your Private Tour Guide in the Louvre

Certified French national guide
BA, Magna Cum Laude, Heritage Development & Preservation
from Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers (Grande Ecole established in 1794)
Postgraduate from Paris Dauphine-PSL University

Know more about Yves, your private tour guide in Paris

What's in the Tour?

15th-century beginnings

16th century Renaissance

17th century Classicism

17th century Baroque

18th century Enlightenment

18th century Rococo

18th & 19th centuries Neoclassicism

19th century Romanticism

The Tour Masterpieces

"Jean II, King of France"; "Charles VII, King of France" & "Portrait of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins" by Jean Fouquet; "François I, King of France" by Jean Clouet; "Artemisia Drinking the Ashes of Mausolus" by Niccolò dell'Abbate; "The Charity of St. Martin" by Martin Fréminet and other works of the Fontainebleau School.

"Three Girls Playing Dice" by Laurent de La Hyre; "Hesselin Madonna" & "Presentation of Christ in the Temple" by Simon Vouet; "Still Life with Wafer Biscuits" by Lubin Baugin; "The Judgment of Solomon" by Nicolas Poussin; "The Judgment of Solomon" by Valentin de Boulogne; "Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene" by Georges de La Tour; "The Disembarkation of Cleopatra at Tarsus" by Claude; "Peasant Family in an Interior" by the Le Nain brothers.

"The Embarkation for Cythera" by Watteau; "The Ray" by Chardin; "Diana Leaving the Bath" by François Boucher; "Madame de Sorquainville" by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau; "Marie Leszczyńska, Queen of France" by Louis Tocqué; "Peace Bringing Back Abundance" by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun; "Abbé de Saint-Non (Fanciful Figure)" by Fragonard; "The Broken Pitcher" by Jean-Baptiste Greuze; "Psyche Receiving Cupid's First Kiss" by François Gérard; "Portrait of Madeleine" by Marie-Guillemine Benoist.

"The Valpinçon Bather" by Ingres; "The Derby at Epsom" by Géricault; "Orphan Girl at the Cemetery" by Delacroix; "The Death of Géricault" by Ary Scheffer; "The Toilette of Esther" & "Venus of the Sea" by Théodore Chassériau.

Other carefully selected masterpieces to better explain the historical context and artistic evolution of French painting.

Why a French Painting Crash Course at the Louvre?

Because the Louvre is obviously the best place in the world for that.

It is the best place to understand the evolution of French painting from the Middle Ages (1350) to the pre-industrial era of the mid-19th century.

The French painting collections in the Louvre are huge, so the problem is: where to look? How not to get lost in the never-ending corridors while trying to understand things?

This is what our tour is for: to show you a selection of works of art in a coherent order, to make the whole thing manageable and understandable.

Organization of the Tour

The tour is organized based on two pillars.

Chronology
Historical & art context

The tour is designed to help you understand the evolution of French painting during the half-millennium covered. We show you famous masterpieces but also some less famous works when they are useful to clarify the context.

We don't go to the Denon Wing, home to the famous huge 19th-century French paintings (Coronation of Napoleon, etc.), but we will discover the sketches of some of the most famous ones, first of all "The Raft of the Medusa" by Géricault.

FAQ: Should We Follow the Crash Course or the Full Series of 4 French Painting Tours?

If you want to go into more detail, or if you are a French painting enthusiast, it is obviously better to follow the full series. Yes, you will learn more in 4 tours of 2 hours than in one tour of 3 hours. Nevertheless, you have to take into account that for each 2-hour tour, we spend some time passing through the museum's gates, reaching the tour's gallery, presenting the previous period, and concluding with the next period. All that 4 times for the 4 tours. In the 3-hour crash course, we do all that only once. All the French galleries we see are one after the other in (mostly) the right chronological order. So yes, in the 3-hour tour, there are fewer details, less content, and fewer paintings, but clearly more efficiency. So it is your choice. One last point: a 3-hour painting tour in one go at the Louvre is a little challenging.

Don't miss the opportunity to discover French painting through some of the world's most famous dedicated galleries in the Louvre Museum!

Content of the Tour

14th & 15th centuries

1350 Jean Le Bon Portrait
Tempera and gold leaf
International Gothic
Burgundy and the Early Flemish

16th century

Italian influence
French Renaissance
Court Portraits
Fontainebleau Schools I & II

17th century

Styles: from Baroque to Classicism and Parisian Atticism.
Classification: History painting, Portrait, Genre painting, Landscape, Still life.
Creation of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture or how France took the lead in art in Europe.

18th century

The influence of the new ideas of the Enlightenment on the arts, for example how the notion of the portrait changed during the 18th century.
The frivolity of the Regency and the reign of Louis XV with the Rococo style.
The Neoclassical reaction or the return to a "serious painting".

19th century

The Salons de Peinture: their influence on the evolution of art.
Styles: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Saint-Sulpician, Academicism, Historicism, Orientalism, beginning of the Barbizon School.

Things to Know Before Booking

Louvre Museum Tickets Fare

Price does not include Louvre special tour tickets (€ 28 for people over 18, free under 18) and mandatory € 20 "right to speak" Louvre fees.

We will purchase both for you, as you can't buy them yourself.

Louvre tours are not compatible with the tickets you can buy yourself online!

Restrictions

Private tour means a tour for you & your party only, not that the museum is privatized.
Tour duration & content are purely indicative; they may vary due to contingencies.
In case of unexpectedly closed galleries, you accept that a tour content substitution will apply.
Prices do not include transportation, food, drinks, or any other extra services.

Attention Points for the Louvre

Check the Louvre's gallery closures schedule before planning your visit.
Tours are on foot in the Louvre's huge galleries, so good health & comfortable shoes are mandatory.
Photos are authorized but without flash. Selfie sticks are not allowed.
WARNING: In case of free ticket, the corresponding proof is mandatory!

Meeting Point

Outside the museum, close to the Louvre Pyramid (detail during booking)

Access: Metro Line 1 or 7 station Palais-Royal - Musée du Louvre

Book your Louvre Private Tour

Just request the date, time, and number of people you want for your Louvre tour on our calendar, then follow the 3 steps below for an easy online process.

(1) Receive our OK email (48h free pre-booking)

(2) Pay your tour, via the payment link in our email

(3) Receive our
confirmation (email)

(4) We buy the louvre tickets for you. If we don't get them (very rare case) you are fully refund!

Nota bene: Step (1) free pre-booking is lost if no step (2) payment is received after 48 hours.