Louvre reopens Wednesday after flood threat shut doors

PARIS – The Louvre says it is reopening on Wednesday after shutting its doors for four days at the height of the Paris flooding to transfer works of art in the massive museum’s lower levels to higher ground.

The closure cost the Louvre 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million) in unsold tickets and denied 120,000 visitors a chance to be awestruck by masterpieces like the Mona Lisa.

A museum statement said 35,000 artworks were removed from storage areas and lower exhibition rooms considered at risk, then transferred back once the Seine River reached its peak on Saturday and danger from the worst flooding in three decades dissipated. The Louvre said the famed Paris sewers posed the biggest threat.

The Orsay Museum, with its famed collection of Impressionists, also was closed by the floods.