Louvre: Water leak damages hundreds of historic books

Jon Shelton with AFP, Reuters

8 hours ago8 hours ago

Compounding embarrassment over the state of the Louvre's security system, upkeep and bureaucracy are now in the spotlight in the wake of a foreseeable water leak that damaged hundreds of historically important books.

Officials at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, on Sunday confirmed that a large collection of historically important books had been damaged in November as a result of a water leak.

The leak affected the Mollien Wing of the museum, where the Department of Egyptian Antiquities is located.

What do we know about the Louvre water leak?

Deputy Administrator Francis Steinbock downplayed the leak, discovered on November 26, saying that "300 to 400 works" from the late 19th and early 20th centuries had been damaged. Steinbock went on to describe the historic books as "extremely useful but by no means unique."

"No heritage artefacts have been affected by this damage," said Steinbock, adding, "at this stage, we have no irreparable and definitive losses in these collections."

Steinbock said the damaged books will be "dried, sent to a bookbinder to be restored, and then returned to the shelves."

Those claims were directly rebutted in an article on the incident that was published on Saturday in the specialist online magazine La Tribune de l'Art.

The article said that some book bindings had been irreparably damaged and further accused museum administrators of ignoring repeated requests from the Egyptian department for building improvements and other measures to protect the collection.

Another embarrassing preventable mishap at France's flagship Louvre Museum

The leak is just the latest in a series of recent disastrous headlines for the world's most visited museum.

In October, the world awoke to news of a brazen Sunday morning heist in which four made off with bags of historic crown jewels worth over $102 million (€87.6 million). Arguably, the jewels' historical provenance would make them priceless and officials fear that they have most likely been destroyed and sold for their materials.

In November, the museum was forced to close a gallery exhibiting Greek vases due to structural concerns.

Experts at the Department of Egyptian Antiquities have long pleaded for something to be done to protect the collection, yet funds have so far been delayedImage: Joel Saget/dpa/picture alliance

Now the museum says it will conduct an investigation into the November 26 water leak.

The incident was not unexpected. Steinbock said the threat was known and that the old piping system had been shut down and was scheduled for replacement in September 2026.

It appears that a valve in the old heating system was erroneously opened, leading to the soaking of carpets on the floor above the books. When the carpets could no longer absorb the leaking water, it began to drip through the ceiling and onto the historic books below.

Louvre: Spending priorities called into question by auditors, journalists

In order to bolster its coffers and finance improvements at the massive cultural complex, Louvre management recently announced an adjustment to their entrance fees.

The museum said a 45% entrance price hike for non-EU visitors to €32 will boost annual revenues by $23 million.

Some 69% of the Louvre's 8.7 million annual visitors come from abroad.

The French Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) recently called out the museum's art purchasing policies when assessing spending priorities for the house, saying that big spending on new art acquisitions had meant budget shortfalls elsewhere.

La Tribune de l'Art also cited a major imbalance in the way the museum weighs its priorities, pillorying profligate spending on designer furniture and renovations for general management offices as the rest of the museum is forced to wait on improvements to infrastructure, security and safety.