Flood adds to Louvre museum misery

Insult has been added to injury at the world's most visited museum, the Louvre in the French capital Paris, as weeks after a high-profile daylight break-in saw pieces of jewelry valued at around 88 million euros ($102 million) stolen, a water leak has reportedly damaged hundreds of items, and workers have announced strike plans.

The Louvre drew nearly 9 million visitors in 2024 and contains many works by the world's most famous artists, including Leonardo da Vinci's painting the Mona Lisa.

According to the museum's deputy administrator, Francis Steinbock, between 300 and 400 works have been affected by the water leak, which occurred in the museum's Egyptian department.

"No heritage artifacts have been affected by this damage," he said. "At this stage, we have no irreparable and definitive losses in these collections."

It is understood that the items affected are research books for Egyptologists, rather than valuable pieces from the museum collection. They will be sent away for restoration before being returned to the shelves.

However, the fact that the leak, the full impact of which was only discovered recently, had been known about for some time and was scheduled for repair in September next year, comes as another major embarrassment to one of France's most esteemed cultural jewels.

In October, France's public audit body criticized the museum's excessive spending on pieces for its collection, "to the detriment of the maintenance and renovation of buildings", a short time before the break-in, from which many of the stolen items have not been recovered. The audit body also made the comments ahead of the discovery of structural weaknesses that led to the closing of several offices and galleries.

Online art magazine La Tribune de l'Art said some of the Egyptian books had been damaged beyond repair, and museum bosses had ignored repeated requests from the department for repair work to be done, instead choosing to focus on refurbishing offices and buying designer furniture.

To make things worse at a time of year when Paris will be packed with visitors, unions have called on workers to begin strike action from Dec 15.

In a joint letter to Culture Minister Rachida Dati, the unions said parts of the building were having to be closed due to "insufficient staff numbers as well as technical failures and the building's ageing condition", and that this meant, for visitors, "a visit to the Louvre has become a real obstacle course".

The museum estimates that around 6 percent of its visitors are from China.

Visitors will be affected by entrance price rises next year that are being brought in to pay for much-needed modernization. From Jan 14, visitors from countries outside the European Economic Area, a bloc including European Union member states and selected other European countries, will have to pay an additional 10 euros to access the collections.

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com