In 1962, the then French culture minister André Malraux - reportedly bored by the ballet he was watching at the Paris Opera - looked up at the classical ceiling and decided it needed a refresh.
Malraux commissioned his friend, the artist Marc Chagall, who spent the next two years working in secret and without compensation to create 24 enormous, colourful, wedge-shaped canvases. They were mounted over the original 19th-century ceiling, painted by the now-forgotten artist Jules-Eugène Lenepveu.
Now one of Lenepveu's descendants is taking legal action to have the original ceiling uncovered and restored, The Guardian reports.
Arnaud Carayon says he has been “kindly asking” for this to happen for three years, including by writing two letters to French President Emmanuel Macron. He has now instructed a lawyer to pursue the matter in court.
The Lenepveu ceiling is classified as a historical monument, but it hasn't been seen in 60 years and we have no idea what condition it is in, says Carayon.
The Palais Garnier opera house, named after architect Charles Garnier, will close for renovation from 2027 to 2032. In his letter to Macron, Carayon proposed alternating the ceiling paintings by Lenepveu and Chagall after the reopening, displaying each for ten years at a time.
According to Carayon, the Élysée Palace has responded that the president is “particularly attentive” to the issue.