Louvre of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof (fashioned from almost 9,000 steel tubes that form an interior web) that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing. The galleries, which the museum had initially hoped to open by 2009, represent the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since the addition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989. On 5 February 2015, about one hundred archaeologists, protesting against commercial private involvement to protect France's heritage, blocked Louvre's ticket desks to facilitate free access to the museum. At
Art in Paris Central des Arts in the Grande Galerie was opened to the public. Under Napoleon III, Louvre was further enlarged, and as completed, it has two main quadrilaterals and within two large courtyards. It is considered to possess one of the richest art collections in the world. Its collection is now mainly European art up to the Revolutions of 1848 as paintings of later date have been moved to the Orsay Museum that opened in 1986. Some of the master pieces held by the museum are of the Italian Renaissance painters, and Flemish and Dutch painters of the Baroque period. Some