Animals of the Louvre
A grand journey across the museum, made for children, following animals real and mythical through art and history.
Animals have been in art since the very beginning, painted on cave walls, carved into palace gates, cast in bronze, sketched again and again in notebooks. This tour uses them as a way into the whole Louvre, designed especially for children. Through animals they already know, and a few mythical ones they will love discovering, we talk about art, history and how things were made, in language that speaks to young visitors.
It is a grand tour of the museum, moving from room to room across paintings, sculpture and the ancient world. The route adapts to whichever galleries are open on the day, so the path is never quite the same twice. For curious children, that turns the largest museum in the world into something closer to an adventure.
What you will see
We cross the whole museum: the colossal winged bulls of Assyria, the Egyptian gods with animal heads, a wonderfully odd Roman dolphin, and Dutch paintings where animals turn up in the most unexpected places. Real creatures and mythical ones sit side by side, and each one opens a small door onto a different culture, or a different way of working.
This is not a tour built around the Louvre's three famous ladies, the Mona Lisa among them. We can always make time for them if your children are curious, but the real fun here lies everywhere else.
It is built around children and works just as well for the whole family. The aim is simple: to talk about art and history through animals, and to keep young explorers looking, asking and walking. If your child has a favourite animal, or a favourite kind of art, mention it when you enquire and we will weave it in.
Animals · antiquities · paintings · sculpture
Pépin's advice
A treasure hunt, not a lecture. The animal thread keeps young guests looking from room to room and turns a vast museum into a kind of game.
Come ready to walk. We travel right across the museum, so comfortable shoes help, and a small bottle of water and a snack for breaks are always a good idea with children.
Good to know
The Louvre does not open every gallery every day. The museum is closed on Tuesdays, which is the only day this tour cannot run. Any other day works well. Very occasionally a room opens late, or not at all, for operational reasons the museum does not announce in advance. If that happens it is beyond anyone's control, and we simply turn to another part of the collection so your time is never lost. With more than thirty-five thousand works on display, the Louvre is never short of something remarkable, and a private guide can reshape the visit on the spot in a way a fixed group tour never could.
