The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa,Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to museums, maintaining formal relations with UNESCO and having a consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Founded in 1946, ICOM also partners with entities such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, Interpol, and the World Customs Organization in order to carry out its international public service missions, which include fighting illicit traffic in cultural goods and promoting risk management and emergency preparedness to protect world cultural heritage in the event of natural or man-made disasters. Members of the ICOM get the ICOM membership card, which provides free entry, or entry at a reduced rate, to many museums all over the world.
EDHEC Business School is a French business school with campuses in Lille, Nice, and Paris, as well as in the United Kingdom and Singapore.
The Ministry of Culture is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of national museums and the monuments historiques. Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and protection of the arts on national soil and abroad. Its budget is mainly dedicated to the management of the Archives Nationales and the regional Maisons de la culture.
An ecomuseum is a museum focused on the identity of a place, largely based on local participation and aiming to enhance the welfare and development of local communities. Ecomuseums originated in France, the concept being developed by Georges Henri Rivière and Hugues de Varine, who coined the term ‘ecomusée’ in 1971. The term "éco" is a shortened form for "écologie", but it refers especially to a new idea of holistic interpretation of cultural heritage, in opposition to the focus on specific items and objects, performed by traditional museums.
The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage, usually known by its acronym TICCIH, is the international society dedicated to the study of industrial archaeology and the protection, promotion and interpretation of the industrial heritage. TICCIH's Nizhny Tagil Charter (archived), signed in 2003, is the international guidance document for the industrial heritage. In 2011, the Joint ICOMOS – TICCIH Principles for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage Sites, Structures, Areas and Landscapes, also called "The Dublin Principles", were adopted in Paris.
The Blue Shield, formerly the International Committee of the Blue Shield, is an international organization founded in 1996 to protect the world's cultural heritage from threats such as armed conflict and natural disasters. Originally intended as the "cultural equivalent of the Red Cross", its name derives from the blue shield symbol designed by Jan Zachwatowicz, used to signify cultural sites protected by the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict.
Australia ICOMOS is a peak cultural heritage conservation body in Australia. It is a branch of the United Nations-sponsored International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a non-government professional organisation promoting expertise in the conservation of place-based cultural heritage. Its secretariat is based at the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific at Deakin University.
International Museum Day (IMD) is an international day held annually on or around 18 May, coordinated by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The event highlights a specific theme which changes every year reflecting a relevant theme or issue facing museums internationally. IMD provides the opportunity for museum professionals to meet the public and alert them as to the challenges that museums face, and raise public awareness on the role museums play in the development of society. It also promotes dialogue between museum professionals.
Félix-Alexandre Desruelles was a French sculptor who was born in Valenciennes in 1865. He was runner up for the Prix de Rome in 1891, won the Prix national des Salons in 1897 and a Gold Medal at l'Exposition Universelle in 1900. He died in La Flèche in 1943. He was a member of the Institut de France and of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Jean-Luc Martinez, born on March 22, 1964, is a French archaeologist and art historian specializing in ancient Greek sculpture. Currently serving as a thematic ambassador responsible for international cooperation in the field of heritage, he was previously the president-director of the Louvre Museum from 2013 to 2021.
Anne-Catherine Robert is a Belgian museum professional and lecturer at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne who also served as Director General of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), from May 2014 through November 2016.
Hans-Martin Hinz is a German museum professional. From 2010 to 2016 he was President of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
Georges Salles was a 20th-century French art historian and curator.
Jean-Yves Marin is an archeologist, medievalist and chief curator of French heritage. He was born in Caen in 1955.
André Desvallées was a French museologist and Honorary General Conservator of Heritage. For 18 years, from 1959 to 1977, he was assistant to Georges Henri Rivière, considered the "father of French museology". He had a leading role in the development of this discipline, and in the creation and definition of several concepts, including "New Museology." An active member of the International Committee of Museology, the ICOFOM, he was the author of a hundred books and articles in the areas of ethnology and museology.
Christina Cameron is a Canadian scientific writer, a former public servant and, from 2005 to 2019, a professor of Heritage conservation and World Heritage. Cameron has been awarded the prestigious Public Service Outstanding Achievement Award, inducted as a Fellow into the Royal Society of Canada, was the 2014 recipient of the National Trust for Canada's Gabrielle Léger Medal for Lifetime Achievement, and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2014. In 2018, she was awarded the Gérard-Morisset Prix du Québec. One of her former superiors, a chief executive officer of Parks Canada, said that she was "unquestionably the great lady of Canada's cultural heritage."
Claude Sintes is a French archaeologist and curator.
Françoise Benhamou is a Moroccan-born French economist, columnist, and professor. A specialist in the economics of the arts and literature, she serves on the faculties of Sciences Po Lille, Sciences Po Paris, the École Normale Supérieure, and the Sorbonne Paris North University. She is also a member of the Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques, des Postes et de la Distribution de la Presse (ARCEP) from 2012 to 2018.
