Latest Louvre leak leaves 19th-century ceiling painting damaged

A leaky pipe at the Louvre damaged a ceiling painting from 1819, just months after another leaky pipe damaged books related to ancient Egypt.

The leak started in a technical room at the Parisian art museum at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, damaging the ceiling at the entrance to the paintings department in the museum’s Denon wing, the Louvre said Friday.

Museum officials said the damaged ceiling art, painted in 1819 by Charles Meynier, is titled “Triumph of French Painting: The Apotheosis of Poussin, Le Sueur and Le Brun,” and depicts three other French artists.

As a result of the leak, the Meynier work suffered two tears in one area and a lifting of the paint layer on the ceiling and vaults, museum officials said. The leak was stopped by firefighters at around 12:10 a.m. Friday.

Museum officials said the ceiling has no structural problems, and the area reopened to visitors by 3:30 p.m. Friday.

The leak comes months after a Nov. 26 leak that sent dirty water into the Louvre’s library of books about Egyptian antiquities. Louvre Deputy General Administrator Francis Steinbock told France’s BFM TV that 300 to 400 books were damaged.

“These are important works, periodicals, reference books, archaeological journals,” Mr. Steinbock told the station as translated from French, but “we are absolutely not dealing with precious books that would be lost.”

In addition to the leaks, the museum has been dealing with the aftermath of the heist of $102 million in French royal jewelry in October and an alleged decadelong ticket fraud scheme that included two museum employees and cost the Louvre at least $11.8 million.