Water leak in the Louvre damages hundreds of works, museum says

A water leak in late November damaged several hundred works in the Louvre’s Egyptian department, the Paris museum said on Sunday, weeks after a brazen jewel theft raised concerns over its infrastructure.

“Between 300 and 400 works” were affected by the leak discovered on 26 November, the museum’s deputy administrator, Francis Steinbock, said, describing them as “Egyptology journals” and “scientific documentation” used by researchers.

The damaged items dated from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and were “extremely useful” but “by no means unique”, Steinbock added.

“No heritage artefacts have been affected by this damage,” he said. “At this stage, we have no irreparable and definitive losses in these collections.”

The incident comes after a theft in October in which a four-perso