In its 129 year history, the Eiffel Tower has had 19 different paint jobs. And when the monument undergoes its 20th painting later this year, the Ministry of Culture and the City of Paris will decide if its current subdued metal color will remain — or if something else will take its place.

Since its completion in 1889, the Eiffel Tower has been completely repainted 20 times. Gustave Eiffel famously stated that "painting is the essential ingredient to protecting a metal structure," and the tower undergoes a massive repainting project roughly every seven years to prevent the 18,000 iron parts from rusting. Over its history, the tower has changed colors significantly; it was originally "Venetian Red," then transitioned to ochre, yellow, and various shades of orange-brown. Since 1968, it has used a specially designed "Eiffel Tower Brown," which is applied in three different shades—darker at the bottom and lighter at the top—to ensure the color looks uniform against the Parisian sky. The most recent campaign, which began for the 2024 Olympics, saw the tower returning to a more "yellow-brown" or golden hue, reminiscent of one of Gustave Eiffel's preferred colors. The process is incredibly labor-intensive, requiring 60 tons of paint and about 20 months to complete, all while being applied by hand by a team of painters who use traditional brushes rather than sprayers to ensure the best adhesion and thickness of the protective layers.