Leak damages 19th Century painting in latest Louvre setback

A water leak at the Louvre has caused damage to 19th Century ceiling painting, in the latest major setback for the Parisian museum.

Water damage was discovered in room 707, also known as the "Duchâtel" room, late on Thursday night, the museum said. The room houses multiple 15th and 16th Century artworks.

The museum said the leak - from a heating pipe - was stopped shortly after midnight and the only painting damaged was Charles Meynier's The Apotheosis of Poussin, Le Sueur and Le Brun.

It comes a day after French police reportedly detained nine people - including two museum staff - over a suspected ticket fraud scheme.

The Louvre said Thursday night's leak occurred at the entrance to the paintings department in the Denon wing.

It said firefighters responded "immediately" and the leak was stopped 40 minutes after it began.

A painting restorer inspected Meynier's ceiling painting on Friday morning and found it had "two tears in the same area, caused by the water, and the paint layer on the ceiling and its arches has lifted".

The ceiling painting, signed by Meynier in 1822, depicts lauded French painters Nicolas Poussin, Eustache Le Sueur, and Charles Le Brun, who appear in the clouds among angelic figures.

Rooms 706, 707 and 708 in the Denon wing on the building's first floor were closed on Friday morning, but are expected to reopen later in the day.

The chief architect of historic monuments also came to assess the condition of the ceiling, the Louvre said, but found there were no structural problems.

A union representative told news agency Reuters that scaffolding had been erected in the affected area.

The cost of the damage to the painting and the building remains unclear.

This leak is the latest in a long series of problems faced by the museum, which is the most visited in the world, in the recent past.

The month prior, structural weaknesses prompted the partial closure of one of the galleries hosting Greek vases and offices.

This came shortly after a high-profile heist on 19 October in which four burglars made off with historic jewellery worth €88m (£76m; $102m), exposing glaring gaps in the musuem's security.

The brazen theft involved a stolen vehicle-mounted mechanical lift, which was used to gain access to the Galerie d'Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine.

A report published in October by France's public audit body criticised the museum's excessive spending on artwork, which it said was "to the detriment of the maintenance and renovation of buildings."