The Louvre Museum was forced on Monday to close to the public the well-known Campana Gallery, with its unique display of ancient Greek ceramics, due to the "fragility of the building". The news has once again raised concerns about the maintenance and security of the museum four weeks after the spectacular robbery of eight jewels from Napoleon and the Empress's collection valued at 88 million euros.
According to the museum's management on its website, the preventive closure of the Campana Gallery occurred after the discovery of "the fragility of certain beams" in one of its wings, under "special building surveillance" during an inspection. "In order to carry out the necessary work as soon as possible, the Campana Gallery will remain closed to the public as a precautionary measure," the museum stated in its brief informational note.
Comprising nine rooms along the Seine (like the Apollo Gallery, where the robbery took place), the affected gallery is named after Marquis Giampetro Campana, whose collection of ceramics was one of the most prized in the 19th century. The gallery is organized into three spaces: an introductory room (number 659 within the museum), three study rooms, and five successive rooms in chronological order.
Originally designed by architect Pierre Fontaine in 1825, it is profusely decorated with frescoes on the ceiling depicting historical scenes. It was renovated in 1963 by Hector Lefuel to house since then, and with elegant display cases, one of the largest collections of ancient Greek ceramics in the world.
The closure of the Campana Gallery was preceded by a new incident last Friday when two Belgian influencers with over 48,000 followers on TikTok, Neal and Senne, bypassed Louvre's security devices and managed to hang their portrait near the Mona Lisa.
The initial intention was to hang the portrait next to Leonardo Da Vinci's work, "but realizing that the surveillance made this action impossible, they stuck it on a wall in the lobby in a matter of seconds." According to the museum, none of the items they brought into the museum were among those "prohibited" by the security rules.
Another influencer, Abdoulaye N., known on social media as Doudou Cross Bitume for his motocross stunts, is currently the main suspect in the robbery committed on October 19, when four men disguised as workers ascended on a moving platform to the first floor of the Louvre and used glass cutters to break the windows and urns protecting the stolen jewels from Napoleon and the Empress, which are still missing.