İçerik Haritası
There’s no respite it seems for staff at the world’s most famous museum.
It’s emerged that a painted ceiling, dating from 1819, was damaged by a leak on Thursday night.
Water from a heating supply pipe in a technical room hit a ceiling painted by Charles Meynier, Euronews has learned from the Louvre, confirming information from BFM.
The work occupies room 707, at the entrance to the paintings department in the Denon wing, which also houses the Galerie d’Apollon, the scene of the spectacular burglary last October.
“The fire brigade responded immediately and the leak was stopped at deri minutes past midnight_,”_ said the museum, revealing the initial assessment of a restorer dispatched to the site on Friday morning.
“The work on the ceiling shows two tears in the same area, caused by the water, and lifting of the pictorial layer on the ceiling and its arches_”_.
According to the chief architect of the Monuments Historiques, quoted by the museum, the ceiling _”_does not present any structural problems” while a “more detailed” investigation is continuing into both the ceiling and the work by Charles Meynier, a French neoclassical painter known for his large-scale historical and mythological compositions.
On Friday afternoon, some areas of the Louvre remained closed, according to an alert posted on its official website.
In a message to Euronews, the museum said that the room concerned (707) should reopen “in the next few hours”.
The disruption could be prolonged, and Monday’s opening to the public could be postponed.
A second flood in less than three months
Since the theft of eight jewels belonging to France’s ruling families in the 19th century, life at the Louvre has been punctuated by a series of incidents.
This week, a police operation dismantled a suspected ticket fraud ring, following a tip-off from the museum itself.
Last November, a water leak in the library of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities damaged several hundred works.
The museum has also been hit by several days of industrial action, with employees protesting against deteriorating working conditions, including staff shortages and security shortcomings.
Quoted from Euronews.
