As the world’s most visited museum awakens, escalators that once carried up to 40,000 pairs of feet a day loop quietly through the empty lobby.

Lockdown restrictions shuttered the Louvre in late October, leaving world-famous artworks like “Venus de Milo,” “Liberty Leading the People” and the “Mona Lisa” without their usual crowds of admirers.

But they’re not completely alone — the museum is making the most of the closures by carrying out long-planned renovations.

“(The Louvre) is still living, even though it seems really asleep from the outside,” says project manager Gautier Moysset, standing in front of a set of 19th-century doors that once opened onto the bedchamber of French kings.

Behind him, Gaëlle Dulac is carefully bringing the doors back to life, switching between paintbrushes made from hog bristle and badger hair as she recreates the grain of the wood with layers of paint.

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