PARIS • From her bulletproof case in the Louvre Museum, Mona Lisa's smile met an unfamiliar sight the other morning: emptiness.
The gallery where throngs of visitors swarmed to ogle her was a void, deserted under France's latest coronavirus confinement.
Around the corner, the Winged Victory of Samothrace floated quietly above a marble staircase, majestic in the absence of selfie sticks and tour groups. In the mediaeval basement, the Great Sphinx of Tanis loomed in the dark like a granite ghost from behind bars.
Yet, out of the rare and monumental stillness, sounds of life were stirring in the Louvre's great halls.
The rat-a-tat of a jackhammer echoed from a ceiling above the Sphinx's head. Rap music thumped from the Bronze Room under Cy Twombly's ceiling in the Sully Wing, near where workers sawed parquet for a giant new floor. In Louis XIV's former apartments, restorers in masks climbed scaffolding to tamp gold leaf onto ornate mouldings.
The world's most visited museum - nearly 10 million visitors in 2019 - is grappling with its longest closure since World War II as pandemic restrictions keep its treasures under lock and key.
But, without crowds that can swell to as many as 40,000 people a day, museum officials are seizing the opportunity to finesse a grand refurbishment for when visitors return. "For some projects, the lockdown has allowed us to do in five days what would have previously taken five weeks," said Mr Sebastien Allard, general curator and director of the Louvre's paintings department.
Louvre lovers have had to settle for seeing masterpieces through virtual tours and the hashtag #LouvreChezVous and the account @MuseeLouvre.
Millions of viewers also got a spectacular fix this month from the Netflix series Lupin, in which actor Omar Sy, playing a gentleman thief, stars in action-filled scenes in the Louvre's best-known galleries and under I.M. Pei's glass pyramid.
But virtual reality can hardly replace the real thing. Louvre officials hope the government will reopen cultural institutions to the public soon, although the date depends on the course of the virus.
In the meantime, a small army of around 250 artisans has been working since France's latest lockdown went into effect on Oct 30.
Instead of waiting until Tuesdays - the sole day the Louvre used to close - curators, restorers, conservators and other experts are pressing ahead five days a week to complete major renovations that had started before the pandemic, and introduce beautifications they hope to finish this month.
Some of the work is relatively simple, like dusting the frames of nearly 4,500 paintings. Others are herculean, like makeovers in the Egyptian antiquities hall and the Sully Wing. Nearly 40,000 explanatory plaques in English and French are being hung next to works.
Even before the pandemic, the Louvre was taking a hard look at crowd management because mass tourism had choked many galleries with tour groups.
While travel restrictions have slashed the number of visitors, the museum will limit entry to ticket holders with reservations when it reopens to meet health protocols.
Other changes are planned - like interactive experiences, including yoga sessions every half-hour on Wednesdays near masterpieces by Jacques-Louis David and Peter Paul Rubens, and workshops in which actors play scenes from famous tableaux in front of the canvas.
"It's a call-out to say the museum is living and that people have the right to do these things here," said Ms Marina-Pia Vitali, a deputy director of interpretation who oversees the projects.
When I walked the halls recently, I felt a thrill upon seeing the Venus de Milo rise from her pedestal - minus the glow of iPhones - and admired, at leisure, the drape of sheer fabric chiselled from unblemished marble.
In the cavernous Red Room - home to monumental French paintings including the coronation of Napoleon as emperor in Notre Dame - it felt uplifting not to be swept along by throngs.
The pandemic has also wreaked havoc with planning for special exhibits. The Louvre lends about 400 works a year to other museums and receives numerous loans for special shows. As governments order new restrictions to contain a resurgence of the virus, special shows are being pushed back.
A loan reserved for exhibits at several museums may get caught in confinements, making it tricky to deliver the promised artwork, said Mr Allard.
"Covid-19 has been a force majeure," he said. "At the moment, we have so many question marks - it's hard to know what the situation will be in two, three or four months. But despite Covid-19, we continue to work as always. We must be ready to welcome back the public."
NYTIMES
