A crowd of visitors always stands around Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’
Despite the fact that on Friday, July 26, the Louvre announced the sale of additional tickets, visits must be booked three to four days in advance. Vincent Pomarède, deputy general administrator of the Louvre, says that huge queues in summer were also common in the past, but it was not customary to discuss this.
Nevertheless, as RFI notes, the statistics speak for themselves: in the 1980s, the number of visitors was two million per year; in 1999 it already exceeded five million. In 2018, a record was set – 10.2 million visitors. It is expected that in 2019, 12 million people will visit the Louvre.
The ‘Grand Louvre’ with almost 73,000 square meters of exhibition space is becoming too small to accommodate everyone who wishes to visit. Online ticket sales are constantly increasing, and the museum is even considering making advance booking mandatory.
In the summer of 2019, the Louvre faced another additional problem: due to restoration work in the State Hall, Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ was moved from the Denon Wing to the Medici Gallery in the Richelieu Wing, where Rubens’ paintings are displayed. The passages there are significantly narrower, and the influx of visitors constantly creates bottlenecks. Previously, those wishing to meet the Mona Lisa passed by the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Now the museum’s management has been forced to develop a new route that leads the visitor directly to the famous painting.
‘The Mona Lisa is an incomprehensible phenomenon for us,’ says Vincent Pomarède. ‘People’s behavior in front of this work is absolutely irrational. They act as if they have met a pop star.’
Not long ago, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo published a photograph showing that next to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting in the Medici Gallery there is a huge sign with the inscription ‘Place for selfies.’ Many readers considered this image an internet meme. But the Louvre’s management confirmed that such a sign does indeed exist, and visitors stand in line for two hours to capture themselves with the Mona Lisa. ‘Fortunately, not all visitors want to take a selfie. Therefore, selfie lovers can go to the designated spot, which allows others to move faster,’ the museum administration explains.
The heat causes additional trouble for the Louvre’s staff. ‘Some galleries are air-conditioned, but there are so many people that it is still very hot. During the hottest period, in the gallery where the Mona Lisa is located, people sometimes even faint,’ one of them says.
By autumn, the work will be completed, and the ‘Mona Lisa’ will return to its rightful place. But the opening on October 24 of an exhibition of works by Leonardo da Vinci does not allow hope for a decrease in the flow of visitors. As the museum administration explains, it is impossible to organize the exhibition in the Napoleon Hall, where temporary exhibitions are usually held – it cannot accommodate everyone who wishes to attend.