Mona Lisa's smile a touch clearer through Louvre's new protective glass
The Mona Lisa has been behind safety glass since the early 1950s, when it was damaged by a visitor who poured acid on it. Since then there have been several other unsuccessful attempts at vandalising the painting.
Visitors take pictures in frront of Mona Lisa after it was returned at its place at the Louvre Museum in Paris on October 7, 2019. Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, the "Mona Lisa," returned to her usual spot in Paris' Louvre Museum on October 7 following a two-month renovation for the gallery housing the world's most famous painting.
Visitors to the Louvre in Paris should have a clearer view of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" after the museum installed a new, more transparent form of bullet-proof glass to protect the world's most famous painting.
The Mona Lisa has been behind safety glass since the early 1950s, when it was damaged by a visitor who poured acid on it. Since then there have been several other unsuccessful attempts at vandalising the painting.
Vincent Delieuvin, curator of 16th-century Italian art at the museum told Reuters Television that glass technology has improved significantly in recent years and the painting's previous 15-year old bullet-proof glass no longer gave the best possible viewing experience.
"Today, the Mona Lisa is behind extremely transparent glass, which really gives the impression of being very close to the painting," Delieuvin said.
On October 24, the Louvre will open an exhibition celebrating the works of Leonardo da Vinci to mark the 500th anniversary of his death.
The exhibition will feature nearly 120 pieces, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and manuscripts from European and American institutions, but not the "Mona Lisa" which will remain in its dedicated room in the Louvre's Denon wing.
A woman walks into the Louvre Pyramid after overnight snowfall in Paris on March 1, 2018.
New art centre
The Louvre opened a new sprawling art conservation centre Tuesday some 200 kilometres from Paris to protect the museum's priceless artworks from its flood-prone storage reserves.
The Louvre Conservation Center in Lievin, northern France, will help protect valuable works from the swelling Seine River as major floods grow more frequent and the riverside museum has found itself lacking safe storage space.
Protecting the museum's works — many of which are out of public view in the belly of the former palace — has taken on added urgency in recent years after severe floods in 2016 and 2018 forced the Louvre to evacuate endangered artworks from basements and to close exhibits.
Officials boast that the newly-constructed Lievin site, which lies a short distance from the museum's other outpost the Louvre-Lens, will store some 250,000 works within a five year period.
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