A water leak at the Louvre has damaged hundreds of books – just weeks after jewels worth £76m were stolen from the famous Paris museum.
The Louvre’s deputy administrator Francis Steinbock told French broadcaster BFM TV the leak affected one of the three rooms of the Egyptian antiquities department’s library.
He said staff have identified “between 300 and 400 works” that have been damaged, adding that “the count is ongoing”.
The volumes lost were “those consulted by Egyptologists but no precious books”, he added.
Mr Steinbock also acknowledged the problem had been known for years and said repairs were scheduled for September next year.
The leak, which took place last month but has only been revealed today, underscores concerns over the deteriorating state of the world’s most-visited museum.
In November, the Campana gallery – which houses ancient Greek ceramics – was temporarily closed due to structural weaknesses.
The gallery’s nine rooms are adjacent to the Apollo gallery, which was targeted by thieves who stole items some of the French Crown Jewels in October.
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The audacious smash-and-grab saw two men escape with £76m-worth of jewels after accessing the museum’s first floor with a furniture lift and cracking open display cases with angle grinders – all while the Paris museum was open to visitors.
French police have made multiple arrests in relation to the theft but the stolen artefacts have not been recovered.
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Before the heist, the Louvre’s top administrator had warned about conditions inside the museum, which was visited by 8.7 million people last year.
Valerie Baud from the CFDT, a French trade union federation, said staff representatives had been warning about the state of the building for years because “it affects working conditions and visitors”.
“But we didn’t realise it was this bad,” she said. “It is a major deterioration in the situation.”
