The Louvre open, but closed

1. The Galerie Campana, always closed
Photo: Didier Rykner

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During Jean-Luc Martinez’s directorship, we devoted two articles to the Louvre’s public closure (see here and there). Is the situation any better today? Obviously not.
Theoretically, there are no longer any sections of the Louvre that are closed (except on Tuesdays) two days a week or even three days as was the case in September-October 2019. But in reality it is much worse. On the one hand because there are so many rooms closed for renovation, and on the other hand because those that are theoretically open are often closed, as the opening plan, although updated very frequently [1] is rarely reliable. As the reception staff under the pyramid told us: "it changes all the time, even during the day, and we can’t give visitors any information".

We mainly visited, on several occasions and on different days, the painting rooms, sometimes adding those on the first floor in the east wing of the Cour Carrée, which lead from the Salle des Sept Cheminées to the staircase connecting to the paintings on the second floor. This allowed us to observe that the rooms of the Galerie Campana, which are part of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (Greek vases are kept there), but which display very beautiful painted decorations from the first half of the 19th century, are always closed (ill. 1), even on days when they should be open. We have not been able to visit them for years.

2. Rooms open, but closed, seen through the transparent door on 20 March 2025 at the Louvre
Photo: Didier Rykner

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3. Rooms open, but closed, on 20 March 2025 at the Louvre
Photo: Didier Rykner

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On the afternoon of Thursday 20 March, we went to the Louvre to see which rooms were open. It was not a brilliant experience. The large-format French painting galleries, including Champaigne (ill. 2) and Le Brun, which were supposed to be open according to the « gallery opening plan », were inaccessible. The same goes for Valentin and Poussin (ill. 3). 17th-century French painting doesn’t seem to matter to the Louvre. Of course, the galleries that were supposed to be closed were indeed closed.

4. Closed room with invitation to find out more on the Louvre website (see ill. 5)
Photo: Didier Rykner

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5. Screen capture from the Louvre website indicating that the closed rooms (see ill. 4)
are open...

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6. The Salle des Sept Mètres,
open but closed
Photo: Didier Rykner

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Two weeks later, on Thursday 3 April around midday, it happened again. The document distributed to visitors, this time supposedly valid from 26 March to 12 May, was no more reliable. On the second floor, only the Paintings of Northern Europe 1600-1850, with the exception of the Galerie de Marie de Médicis by Rubens, were to be closed. However, the Paintings of Northern Europe 1600-1850 section, which was indicated as open, was also closed ("it closed quickly this morning", a security guard told us). At the entrance to this section, there was a sign indicating that you should consult the information on the Louvre website (ill. 4), which nevertheless clearly indicated that it was open (ill. 5). It is now impossible to come to the Louvre to see a specific section and be certain of being able to access it.
Rooms that are theoretically open but closed can be found on every floor, and we are only talking about paintings! Another example: the Salle des Sept Mètres between the Daru staircase and the Grande Galerie, which displays Italian primitives, was supposed to be open. It was closed (ill. 6).

6. These 17th-century Italian paintings are often invisible to visitors who have not booked for the Cimabue exhibition (however, some understanding security guards sometimes let them in).
Photo: Didier Rykner

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7. Queue for the Cimabue exhibition. At the Louvre, you wait to enter under the Pyramid, you wait under the Pyramid to enter the museum, and now you can also wait in the museum.
Photo: Didier Rykner

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These rooms closed unexpectedly are therefore added to the rooms closed in a planned and regular manner, and to the rooms closed for works. For example, the large room of the Spanish painters, and therefore the small adjacent cabinets of Italian painting, have been closed for many months because they are being renovated. And as if that were not enough, the room known as Salvator Rosa, which precedes it when coming from the Grande Galerie, has been transformed into an exhibition room for Cimabue (see the article). This has several consequences for visitors. On the one hand, those who want to see the paintings at the end of the Grande Galerie are prevented from doing so if they do not have a reservation for the exhibition (ill. 7). Sometimes, even the Friends of the Louvre have to queue in the museum (ill. 8) to see this exhibition (we once waited for a quarter of an hour). As for the paintings usually on display in this area, such as the 17th-century Genoese, they have been sent to the reserve. It should be remembered that until recently part of this room was still used as a restoration workshop, at the same time blocking the view of the Seine.
To compensate - if one dares say so - for the closure of the Spanish rooms, a room dedicated to temporary exhibitions on the second floor at the beginning of the Richelieu wing houses a total of five paintings from this school (ill. 9 and 10). An alms-giving to visitors, an absurd hanging of which the museum is very proud when at least eight additional paintings could easily be added.

8. The temporary Spanish hall, with a very sparse hanging.
Photo: Didier Rykner

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9. The temporary Spanish hall, where large calico banners are preferred to paintings.
Photo: Didier Rykner

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10. Jean Restout Room supposedly closed for years for renovation work
Photo: Didier Rykner

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While some works are genuine, these closures of rooms due to a lack of security are often justified by imaginary building sites. Nothing new, this was already the technique used under Jean-Luc Martinez: shamelessly lying to visitors to explain that they cannot access the rooms they want. This is still the case, for example with the Jean Restout room (ill. 11) in the middle of the Colonnade on the first floor, which has been partially closed for ages (again, it is a restoration workshop). A sign on the partition indicates that work to "maintain and renovate" these areas is in progress, "with a constant concern for improving visitor comfort and the presentation of the collections". It is more or less the same text that appears on the room opening sheets distributed to the public who request them, or on the museum’s website. On the latter, we can indeed read: "In order to offer you the most comfortable welcome and a better visiting experience, the Louvre Museum is carrying out major maintenance and renovation work on its spaces. Additional closures may be necessary due to weather conditions or technical issues". Technical issues and the inevitable excuse of weather conditions are used as an excuse... Not only are the public being deprived of the works they have paid to see, but they are also being openly mocked.

11. These rooms are closed,
but why is that?
Fortunately, a poster
indicates the reason (see ill. 12)...
Photo: Didier Rykner

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12. A big lie, in four languages, does not become the truth.
Photo: Didier Rykner

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On Sunday 6 April, we repeated the experiment. This time, all the rooms described as open that day [2], except of course the Galeries Campana, were indeed open. Almost all the rooms in the Louvre were therefore accessible... except for those closed due to actual work, which is already quite a lot.
On Wednesday 9 April, i.e. today, we went to the Louvre at the end of the morning. To find that a large part of the Richelieu wing on the second floor was closed to the public, as is indicated on the "room opening plan" (the eastern part, i.e. the paintings of Northern Europe 1400-1650 and the French paintings 1350-1650). Visitors are once again told that work is in progress (ill. 12 and 13), which, we repeat, is not the case. As for the Sully wing (around the Cour Carrée), a large part of it that was supposed to be open (corresponding more or less to painting in the time of Louis XV) was closed (ill. 14 and 15). The Louvre is first and foremost the museum of French painting, and this is often invisible there.

13. Open, in theory...
Photo: Didier Rykner

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14. Open, in theory...
Photo: Didier Rykner

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But while Poussin, Vouet, Chardin, Greuze and Boucher are often invisible in the Louvre today, from 24 May last year, and for a month afterwards, four paintings by Luc Tuymans (ill. 16) could be seen every day! We have nothing against this artist, who is quite talented, but what is he doing in the Louvre, in place of the paintings by Valentin de Boulogne when these are not on display? Is the vocation of the Louvre to exhibit a contemporary painter or to show 17th- and 18-th-century French painting?
Finally, it should be noted that the Galerie Campana was, of course, closed as it is every day.

13. Exhibition at the Louvre of four paintings by Luc Tuymans, open every day, it
Photo: Didier Rykner

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The security guards, whose kindness we must emphasise, are regularly questioned by us and are categorical: these closures of rooms, whether planned or unplanned, are due to their insufficient number. And this can be easily seen by counting the guards in the open rooms. One wonders, moreover, why rooms are closed due to a lack of guards when others are open without any surveillance. Under these circumstances, why not open everything?
It should be noted that it is sometimes difficult to be precise. Some of the guards we came across were just passing through, probably leaving their shift or going to lunch. Whenever we had any doubt, we always counted them as if they were actually on duty. We also counted the few agents who are there without really supervising, too absorbed in watching a video or tapping on their phone. Can we really blame them for this? Nothing is done to motivate them. One agent told me that some who wanted to do mediation can no longer do so: it was only planned in the "Petite Galerie" set up by Jean-Luc Martinez. This has been removed, which is a good thing, but the opportunity for guards to do a little more than just supervise has also disappeared. When will we realise that there is nothing more thankless than supervising museum rooms, and that the role of these agents could be enriched with training that would enable them to effectively inform visitors and even help those who wish to better understand the works, for the benefit of all, for them and for the public, and therefore for the Louvre?

Here is the tally of security guards in the painting rooms on Thursday 3, Sunday 7 and Wednesday 9 April.
On Thursday 3 April and Sunday 7 April (we did not go on the 9th), there were no guards in the two rooms of Italian frescoes, before the Salon Carré. In the latter, there was only one guard near the entrance to the Apollo gallery. For the Grande Galerie, we counted a total of nine guards on 3 April, two of whom were looking at their mobile phones, and six of whom were in pairs, which reduced the area under surveillance. This may seem like a lot, but given the size of the venue, it is quite a few. On 7 April, there were only five left in the whole gallery. A ridiculous figure that prevents any effective surveillance, also taking into account the crowds that gather there.
On 3 April, in rooms 700, 701 and 702, i.e. those where the paintings by David and Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa are located, we did not see any guards. The only one in room 701 was mainly concerned with preventing access to the Mona Lisa room, which is a one-way system to the exit, with visitors only able to enter via the Grande Galerie. To be precise, the States room had several guards, mainly responsible for managing the crowd in front of the Mona Lisa.

In the Sully wing, on the second floor of the Cour Carrée, the number of guards was as follows:
– Eleven for forty-two rooms open on Thursday 3 April,
– Thirteen for the same number of rooms on Sunday 6 April,
– Eight guards for thirty rooms open on Wednesday 9 April,

On Sunday 6 April, the entire Richelieu wing on the second floor was open: we counted only 10 guards for 65 rooms. In the same wing, on Wednesday 9 April, all the rooms to the west of the Richelieu wing (paintings of Northern Europe 1600-1850) were open. In the 32 rooms, we counted nine guards, while the gallery of the Rubens of the Life of Marie de Medici had none.

There is therefore on average one guard for three to six rooms depending on the area and the day (never more, but sometimes less), an extremely small number, especially when these guards work in pairs, which leaves very large spaces without any surveillance, which is a risk for the works. To ask why the Galerie Campana was closed when it should have been open, we even went through ten rooms on the first floor of the east side of the Sully wing one day without finding a single guard to give us any information.

This is further proof of the complete lack of organisation at the Louvre. On the one hand, visitors are lied to and led to believe that rooms are closed for renovation, which, let us repeat, is untrue for many of them. Moreover, the guards are asked not to give the real reason, but to confirm that it is work or the moving of works, but it must be admitted that this instruction is rarely applied. On this point, therefore, nothing has changed since the Jean-Luc Martinez era.
Not only is the public deprived of a large number of works, but it is impossible for a visitor who would like to see some of them in particular (in particular the paintings of the Northern Schools or 17th- and 18-th century French painting, or even sometimes the Italian primitives) to know before coming to the Louvre whether they will be able to do so. Yet they are made to pay the full price, with no possibility of a refund.

We could also mention the late-night openings on Wednesdays and Fridays, when even more rooms are closed. To be able to open rooms in the evening, the Louvre relies on the voluntary work of agents, offering them a bonus. As this is attractive, the result was not long in coming: on Wednesday and Friday late-night opening days, many agents have staggered hours, starting later in the morning and finishing later in the evening. What will be will be, of course, since there are not more staff: at nine o’clock, some rooms that are supposed to be open have to remain closed, and only open later in the day. To solve the problem, the plan is to limit the number of volunteers. More rooms planned on the map will therefore be visible from the moment they open, but even fewer during the late-night opening.

How does the management of the Louvre intend to manage a new huge entrance, new exhibition rooms and the Mona Lisa space when it is totally incapable of opening the Louvre properly today? We could go on and on about this subject. But of course there are others, and our series of articles is not finished... We should also mention those of Vincent Noce in the Gazette Drouot and those of Hervé Liffran in Le Canard Enchaîné. Today, the latter tells us that the French President of the Republic - who already has a model of the project [3] - has asked the Heritage Department "to give its full approval without a murmur" and to speed up the administrative procedures as much as possible. Unfortunately, he has no control over heritage protection associations, which will certainly oppose his disastrous projects, as they did with Notre-Dame.