Times are getting tough for the largest art museum in the world. While the astonishing news is that the Louvre is coping, the not-so-good news is that it is in danger of running into trouble by 2010. A string of successes scored against the odds in 2008 and even in the first five months of 2009 might paradoxically cause it as much harm in the future as they have done good so far, by creating an illusion of financial security. If measured by its acquisitions, the museum's record last year was undoubtedly impressive. The director, Henri Loyrette, showed this writer the museum's internal document listing all purchases, donations, and works of art given to the nation in lieu of estate taxes with the corresponding prices or valuations. The museum will announce in the next few weeks that the list includes a major painting recently reattributed to Louis Le Nain, one of the three brothers famous for their portraits of poverty-stricken day laborers in 17th-century France. Saint Peter's Recantation, a large canvas dated 1648, is a religious scene unusual in the Le Nain brothers' oeuvre. The characters, their faces bathed in light falling from invisible source, emerge from shadows with illuminated expressions. The influence of Caravaggio is evident, but gone is the rage, giving way to a subdued atmosphere. The purchase was no easy deal. Mr. Loyrette, particularly keen that the picture should enter the national collection, was personally involved throughout the negotiation. It was concluded with the help of the insurance company Axa, which shouldered the financial burden. The price agreed, euro 11.5 million, or nearly 14.5 million, is considerable for a picture that will require a very delicate some old repainting. On the other hand, when offered in the open market these days, acknowledged masterpieces easily multiply the most optimistic forecasts four or five fold. The Le Nain was a must, and the museum got it, which, in the end, is all that will be remembered. Other great pictures were obtained by the Louvre. Niccolò di Pietro's Saint Augustin, a tempera on panel painted around 1405-1410, now on long-term loan to the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon, was received in lieu of inheritance taxes. It is the first work credited to the master to enter national collections. Some unobtrusive buys could be argued to be almost as important as spectacular acquisitions. Georges Michel, whose life spanned a crucial period in the history of French art, has long been underrated. The artist bridged the transition from the conventional landscape painting of the late l8th century to the observation of nature and the mood it inspires which defines the Romantic movement. The Diligence, a View of the River Seine, painted outdoors on paper later laid on panel, is one of Michel's masterpieces from the early 1800s. The price, euro 58,000, was money well spent in April 2008. Inevitably, not all of the museum's acquisitions call for similar celebration. While Luca Cambiaso is known for his astonishing sketches of human characters rendered as an accumulation of geometrical figures that herald Cubist stylization, his Venus and Adonis painted in the 1560s is not quite the masterpiece it is supposed to be. The scene of a man and a woman standing virtually in nature's apparel and caressing each other is a feeble attempt at eroticism on a mythological pretext. Mr. Loyrette points out that the 1.9 million picture, acquired by Les Amis du Louvre on behalf of the museum, is the only Cambiaso painting to enter the museum, which preserves some of his boldly rnodernist sketches. Cambiaso's pictures rarely appear on the market, and art historians may rejoice at the acquisition. Art lovers will not necessarily share their enthusiasm. This year, the museum continued to make acquisitions of national importance. The big catch was a portrait of the count Mathieu-Louis Molé, prime minister under King Louis-Philippe, painted by Ingres in 1834. The likeness, which remained his descendants' property until this year, is registered as a trésor national. When the family applied for an export license, there was no question of allowing the portrait to leave the country without putting up a grand battle. And battle the Louvre did, for 30 months. Sources say that the family initially suggested the figure of 30 million. Serious negotiation began when the Molé descendents mentioned a possible 24 million price tag. Eventually, the Louvre team, with Mr. Loyrette and Vincent Pomarède, chief curator of the paintings department, leading the charge, haggled it down to 19 million. The yearly acquisitions fund, euro 7.25 million, fed by entrance fees of which 20 percent are set aside for art purchases, carne nowhere near that astronomical amount, nor was it conceivable to deplete it atone go. The museum provided 5.5 million plus an additional 500,000 from a private legacy. More decisively, it called upon maecenases, a denomination describing companies willing to make donations to the institution, 90 percent of which can be knocked off their annual taxation. Together three companies the audit and consulting firm Mazars (euro 1 million), the engineering concern Eiffage (euro 4 million) and a third one requiring anonymity (euro 500,000) and the Banque de France (euro 3 million) put up 8.5 million. Les Amis du Louvre were tapped for 3 million. Other contributors were found at the 11th hour. Mr. Loyrette said that the deal is now final and that the money is due to be fully paid before July 20. Crushing as this burden may be, unforeseen circumstances still thrust into the market treasures seen as indispensable. In the first five months of the year, the value of the works acquired by the museum exceeded 38 million. Some works are donated, and this is just fine. Such was the case with the portrait of a young child, Don Luis Maria de Cistué y Martjnez, painted by Goya in 1791. If there might be any cause for hesitation, this lies in the badly worn paint surface. To purists, this is probably damning, making the estimated value, 15 million, seem exaggerated. To art lovers, the likeness of a small standing child who stares petrified at the viewer as if scared by a world alien to him is a gem that ranks among the Spanish master's greatest works. Yves Saint-Laurent had expressed the wish that the Goya be given to the Louvre and Pierre Bergé gladly donated it before his sale in February. Sadly, some works must be paid for. Forgotten art caches come to light at auction. On April 4 this year, the auctioneer Jack-Philippe Ruelian, based in the Breton city of Vannes, dispersed part of what had been the biggest collection of Greek antiquities in l9th-century Europe. Louis-Gabriel Belion, a friend of Corot and Daguerre, was an amateur archaeologist and passionate collector. is son Paul, keen to honor his memory, set up a museum at Saint-Nicolas-lezArras in northern. France where much of the collection perished under German bombs in 1914-1915. But, as the sale proved, important works had been spared, presumably in the family home. Some, like two white ground vases of the type called lekythos, were sheer rarities, matte more desirable by their remarkable condition. The Louvre had to have them, paying 17,400 for one and 11,400 for the other. There was also an exceedingly rare Laconian two-handled urn (a cantharos ) painted with nude characters dancing and juggling with vases from the mid-sixth century B.C. The Louvre had to have that one too and coughed up euro 110,397. And there was a unique Attic white ground mug painted around 500 B.C. with a young hunter confronting a panther, spear in hand. Naturally, the museum could not do without it. The trinket made 139,000 plus the sale charge, 17 times the high estimate. The museum bill for 12 works added up to 640,000. How long this pace, which is modest for a museum of the Louvre's size, can be sustained is the question that haunts Mr. Loyrette and the curators. Art acquisitions are only a fraction of the budget of an institution that has been deeply transformed since the appointment of its director in 2001. Its elaborate financial structure, fine-tuned over the last five years, suddenly looks too precarious for comfort.