It’s no secret that the Louvre is creaking; in a leaked memo to the French culture ministry that was published in Le Parisien in January, the museum’s director – Laurence des Cars – noted that there was “structural damage” everywhere, threatening the collection. He also said some parts of the building were “no longer watertight.”
It may come as no surprise, then, that like the memo, the museum’s roof was also leaking last Saturday. A powerful hailstorm breached the Louvre’s roof in the afternoon, causing water to drip into the Salle Rosa room hosting its headline exhibition, “A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting,” which runs through May 12.
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The Art Newspaper’s Martin Bailey was in the museum last weekend and reported that he spotted the water coming in before the guards. It narrowly missed Giovanni Cimabue’s unprotected Maestà wooden panel painting (circa 1280, acquired by the Louvre in 1812, and susceptible to water damage). It’s still in its original decorated frame.
“Had the leak in the ceiling been just two meters away from where the water fell in, the effect on Maestà could have been disastrous,” Bailey wrote. (The painting was only recently restored for the first time in two centuries, which was the main reason for hosting the Cimabue show now.)
The base of sculptor Nicola Pisano’s Three Acolytes (1264-67), which is on loan from Florence’s Museo Nazionale del Bargello, was not so lucky. Some drips hit it – and the label got wet.
Two museum staff were forced into the unenvious task of holding a tarpaulin over the artwork as a makeshift umbrella while backup was called.
Then, another near miss – this time, droplets fell no more than a meter away from Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna of the Franciscans (1285-88). Unlike the towering Maestà, it is covered by glass. It was lent by the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena for the show.
A Louvre spokesperson confirmed to The Art Newspaper that it “did experience some water infiltration in areas where the glass roofs are location.” The museum stressed that “no works were damaged.”
The museum closed the show to the public just before 5 p.m., 30 minutes after the first signs of leakage. A Louvre spokesperson said it was so firefighters could inspect the roofs. Immediately after, they said “the cause was identified – a damaged glass seal.” The exhibition was opened again to the public on Sunday morning after the seal was replaced.
In January, French president Emmanuel Macron said the Louvre needed to embark on a roughly €750-million ($850-million) restoration project, which probably won’t start until the 2030s.
It’s not the only major French museum in a state of disrepair. The Centre Pompidou will close its doors in September for five years while it undergoes a €262 million ($283.6 million) renovation. French officials said Paris’s top museum for modern and contemporary art needs the closure so it can perform upkeep on its famed building, designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. According to the museum, the structure has weathered significant damage since it was first built in the ’70s.