A view of the Louvre's pyramid and the southern wing of the Louvre building in Paris in April 2006. Its exhibits are viewable online.A view of the Louvre's pyramid and the southern wing of the Louvre building in Paris in April 2006. Its exhibits are viewable online. (Associated Press)

The Louvre museum in Paris has launched an English-language version of the online database that catalogues most of its works of art and antiquities.

The database, called Atlas, was launched Wednesday with the aid of a $380,000 US grant from the American Friends of the Louvre.

About 22,000 of the Paris-based museum's 35,000 works are shown in high-resolution images, with text that describes their provenance and location in the museum.

New items are constantly being added. The French version of Atlas has 26,000 items in its catalogue.

Users can search by room or by department as well as by the names of an artist or work. The Louvre has departments dedicated to Islamic art, Near Eastern antiquities, Egyptian antiquities, Greek, Roman and Tuscan antiquities as well as sculpture and painting.

The American Friends of the Louvre is a group dedicated to making the museum exhibits more accessible to anglophones.