The Louvre first opened as a public museum in 1793. Its inaugural opening took place on 10 August during the French Revolution, when it was called the Muséum central des Arts de la République.
The museum emerged from a revolutionary decision to turn the former royal palace into a national institution. In 1791, France’s National Constituent Assembly declared that the Louvre should bring together monuments of the arts and sciences. After the monarchy fell, the royal collections became national property, while confiscated works from émigrés and the Church were added to the planned museum.
The opening exhibition contained 537 paintings and 184 other objects. Access was free, but it was not immediately equivalent to modern all-day public access: the revolutionary calendar reserved some visiting days for artists and foreign visitors and others for the general public. Structural problems forced the museum to close in 1796; it reopened in 1801 with a reorganised display.
The dates 1789 and 1800 can seem plausible because the French Revolution began in 1789 and the Louvre’s collections and galleries were being reorganised around the turn of the century. Neither is the museum’s first public opening date. Napoleon later expanded the collection and renamed it the Musée Napoléon.