PARIS (AP) — A glittering exhibition of royal jewels is opening Wednesday in Paris even as the city still reels from the brazen crown-jewel heist at the nearby Louvre Museum.
The four-minute operation in October emptied cases in the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery, forced its closure and rattled public confidence in France’s cultural security.
With the plundered gallery still sealed off, another museum nearby is showcasing diamonds and tiaras that endured revolutions, exile and empire: treasures that have managed to escape the type of plunder now afflicting the Louvre’s own jewels.
A loaded location
The “Dynastic Jewels” exhibition at the Hôtel de la Marine — itself the site of an infamous 1792 crown-jewel theft — opens at a moment of national sensitivity.
Spread across four galleries, the exhibit unfurls more than a hundred pieces that dazzle in both sparkle and scale. Its objects are drawn from the Al Thani Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and major lenders including King Charles III, the Duke of Fife, Cartier, Chaumet and France’s own national collections.
Some of the most striking loans include the giant 57-carat Star of Golconda diamond; a sapphire coronet and emerald tiara designed by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria, reunited here for the first time in more than 150 years; and Catherine the Great’s diamond-encrusted dress ornaments. A Cartier necklace created for an Indian ruler blends European platinum-age design with centuries-old gems.
Security front and center
Curators didn’t comment on details of operational security. But the Hôtel de la Marine stresses that it was rebuilt with modern, high-grade security when it reopened in 2021, and that its galleries were conceived with robust protections in mind. The museum did not say whether any measures had been strengthened in response to the Louvre heist.
Last month, Louvre director Laurence des Cars announced that roughly 100 new surveillance cameras and upgraded anti-intrusion systems will be installed, with the first measures rolled out in weeks and the full network expected by the end of next year. The Louvre investigation remains active; meanwhile, none of the stolen pieces have been recovered.
Arthur Brand, an Amsterdam-based art detective, said the Louvre heist will have sharpened vigilance at institutions like the Hotel de la Marine.
“Authorities have learned from the Louvre’s lacking security,” he said. “The thieves know that the security people here aren’t going to be sloppy. They will have learned their lesson. It’s a good thing this exhibit is going on. Life goes on. You should not give in to thieves. Show these precious items!”
With the Apollo Gallery closed, the Hôtel de la Marine is suddenly poised to become a prime stop for jewel-lovers — an unfortunate coincidence, or unexpected advantage — a place where visitors shut out of the Louvre’s Crown Jewels displays may naturally gravitate.
Power, prestige and unease
“We show how great gemstones, tiaras and objects of virtuosity reflected identity in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries,” said Amin Jaffer, director of the Al Thani Collection and one of the exhibition’s curators. “They were expressions of power, reflections of prestige and markers of passion.”
That display of privilege and power lands differently today. Just this weekend in Britain, protesters at the Tower of London splattered custard and apple crumble on the display case of a royal crown at an anti-inequality demonstration.
The Louvre robbery has sharpened scrutiny of where such jewels came from. Museums are increasingly pressured to confront provenance more honestly and address the exploitative networks that made the treasures possible.
For some in Paris, the celebration of jewels so soon after the Louvre heist doesn’t feel right.
“Honestly, the timing feels off,” said Alexandre Benhamou, 42, a Paris gift shop manager. “People are still upset about what happened at the Louvre, and now there’s another jewel exhibition opening just down the street. It’s too soon; we haven’t even processed the first shock.”
A building with a memory
Before the Revolution, what was then known as the Hôtel du Garde-Meuble housed the Crown Jewels and royal collections — a history the exhibition directly invokes. That the building’s 18th-century jewels were stolen in 1792 only deepens the irony: this stretch of Paris has witnessed such crimes before.
Despite the charged backdrop, curators say they want visitors to marvel, to dream and to explore the layers of “affection, love, relationships, gift-giving” embedded in the objects.
“Every object here tells a story,” Jaffer told AP. “They’ve changed hands ever since they were made, and they continue to survive.”
Paris prosecutor reports 4 more arrests in connection with Louvre jewel heist
Paris prosecutor has been giving more details about the latest on the investigation into the heist at the Louvie Museum, confirming many of the details that we had understood already about the two men currently in custody that they are in their 30s, that they were known to police before the heist for things like low level delinquency, petty thefts, and that they had been tracked down thanks to DNA that had been found on one of the helmets they left behind. They are of Algerian nationality. And come from the outskirts of Paris. What the prosecutor said though is that they do believe that there were 4 people involved in the heist on the day itself. 2 others remain at large, and that she wouldn’t give that many details because this was an ongoing investigation. She also pointed out that whilst these other two were at large and they were looking for altogether they had not excluded the possibility that someone else may have been involved, whether to commission the theft or in other ways. She also added that there was no suggestion that anyone on the inside of the Louvre had been complicit in the heist. The latest details then an investigation that continues and no sign yet, she explained of the jewels themselves. Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
Paris prosecutor reports 4 more arrests in connection with Louvre jewel heist
The Paris prosecutor is reporting four more arrests in connection with the jewel heist at the Louvre Museum in October. Two men and two women from the Paris region were taken into custody on Tuesday morning.The loot, valued at around $102 million, hasn’t been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.This is a breaking news story and will be updated.Video below shows Louvre thieves escaping via truck-mounted lift
PARIS —
The Paris prosecutor is reporting four more arrests in connection with the jewel heist at the Louvre Museum in October. Two men and two women from the Paris region were taken into custody on Tuesday morning.
The loot, valued at around $102 million, hasn’t been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Video below shows Louvre thieves escaping via truck-mounted lift
PARIS (AP) — The dragnet tightened around the Louvre thieves on Thursday. Five more people were seized in the crown-jewels heist — including a suspect tied by DNA — the Paris prosecutor said, widening the sweep across the capital and its suburbs.
Authorities said three of the four alleged members of the “commando” team, as French media have dubbed the robbers, are now in custody.
The late-night operations in Paris and nearby Seine-Saint-Denis lift the total arrested to seven. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau told RTL that one detainee is suspected of belonging to the brazen quartet that burst into the Apollo Gallery in broad daylight on Oct. 19; others held “may be able to inform us about how the events unfolded.”
Beccuau called the response an “exceptional mobilization” — about 100 investigators, seven days a week, with roughly 150 forensic samples analyzed and 189 items sealed as evidence.
AP AUDIO: 5 more arrests as Louvre jewel heist probe deepens and key details emerge
AP correspondent Karen Chammas reports on the latest arrests in the Louvre museum heist.
Even so, she said the latest arrests did not uncover the loot — a trove valued around $102 million that includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise as a wedding gift, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
Only one relic has surfaced so far — Eugénie’s crown, damaged but salvageable, dropped in the escape.
Beccuau renewed her appeal: “These jewels are now, of course, unsellable… There’s still time to give them back.”
Experts warn the gold could be melted and the stones re-cut to erase their past.
From Louvres to the Louvre: Planning a 4-minute crime
Key planning details have snapped into focus. Nine days before the raid, a mover who owns a truck-mounted lift — the kind movers use to hoist furniture through Parisian windows — was mysteriously booked for a “moving job” on the French classifieds site Leboncoin, a site similar to Craigslist, Beccuau said Wednesday.
When he arrived in the town of Louvres, north of Paris, around 10 a.m. on Oct. 10, two men ambushed him and stole the lift truck.
On the day of the heist itself, that same vehicle idled beneath the Paris museum’s riverside façade.
Online observers have noted a remarkable coincidence: How a plot that began in Louvres ended at the Louvre.
At 9:30 a.m. the basket lift rose to the Apollo Gallery window; at 9:34 the glass gave way; by 9:38 the crew was gone — a four-minute strike. Only the “near-simultaneous” arrival of police and museum security stopped the thieves from torching the lift and preserved crucial traces, the prosecutor said.
Security footage shows at least four men forcing a window, cutting into two display cases with power tools and fleeing on two scooters toward eastern Paris. Investigators say there is no sign of insider help for now, though they are not ruling out a wider network beyond the four on camera.
The reckoning over security
French police have acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defenses, turning an audacious theft — carried out as visitors walked the corridors — into a national reckoning over how France protects its treasures.
Paris police chief Patrice Faure told senators the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s security systems but from a cyclist outside who dialed the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift. He acknowledged that aging, partly analog cameras and slow fixes left seams; $93 million of CCTV cabling work won’t finish before 2029–30, and the Louvre’s camera authorization even lapsed in July. Officers arrived fast, he said, but the delay came earlier in the chain.
Speaking to AP, former bank robber David Desclos characterized the heist as textbook and said he had warned the Louvre of glaring vulnerabilities in the layout of the Apollo Gallery. The Louvre has not responded to the claim.
Who’s charged already
Two earlier suspects, men aged 34 and 39 from Aubervilliers, north of Paris, were charged Wednesday with theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy after nearly 96 hours in custody. Beccuau said both gave “minimalist” statements and “partially admitted” their involvement.
One was stopped at Charles-de-Gaulle Airport with a one-way ticket to Algeria; his DNA matched a scooter used in the getaway.
French law normally keeps active investigations under a shroud of secrecy to protect police work and victims’ privacy. Only the prosecutor may speak publicly, though in high-profile cases police unions have occasionally shared partial details.
The brazen smash-and-grab inside the world’s most-visited museum stunned the heritage world. Four men, a lift truck and a stopwatch turned the Apollo Gallery’s blaze of gold and light into a crime scene — and a test of how France guards what it holds most dear.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The stakes. The famous faces. The posh private rooms. The clever cheating schemes.
The federal indictment of a big-money poker ring involving NBA figures on Thursday, in which unsuspecting rich players were allegedly enticed to join then cheated of their money, echoed decades of movies and television, and not just because of the alleged Mafia involvement.
Fictional and actual poker have long been in sort of a pop-cultural feedback loop. When authorities described the supposed circumstances of the games, they might’ve evoked a run of screen moments from recent decades.
Poker in ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Molly’s Game’ and ‘The Sopranos’
A 2004 episode of “ The Sopranos ” showed a very similar mix of celebrities and mobsters in a New York game whose players included Van Halen singer David Lee Roth and football Hall-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor, both playing themselves.
In 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven,” George Clooney finds his old heist buddy Brad Pitt running a poker game for “Teen Beat” cover boys including Topher Grace and Joshua Jackson, also playing themselves. Clooney spontaneously teams with Pitt to con them. And the plot of the 2007 sequel “Ocean’s Thirteen” centers on the high-tech rigging of casino games.
Asked about the relevance of the films to the NBA scandal, which came soon after a story out of Paris that could’ve come straight out of “Ocean’s Twelve,” Clooney told The Associated Press with a laugh that “we get blamed for everything now.”
“‘Cause we also got compared to the Louvre heist. Which, I think, you gotta CGI me into that basket coming out of the Louvre,” Clooney said Thursday night at the Los Angeles premiere of his new film, “Jay Kelly.” He was referring to thieves using a basket lift to steal priceless Napoleonic jewels from the museum.
2017’s “Molly’s Game,” and the real-life memoir from Molly Bloom that it was based on, could almost serve as manuals for how to build a poker game’s allure for desirable “fish” in the same ways and with the same terminology that the organizers indicted Thursday allegedly used.
The draw of Bloom’s games at hip Los Angeles club The Viper Room were not NBA players, but Hollywood players like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and “The Hangover” director Todd Phillips. (None of them were accused of any wrongdoing.)
In the movie written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Bloom, played by Jessica Chastain, describes the way a famous actor acts as an attractor for other players, the same way officials said Thursday that NBA “face cards” did for the newly indicted organizers.
The unnamed actor, played by Michael Cera, was at least partly based on the “Spider-Man” star Maguire.
“People wanted to say they played with him,” Chastain says. “The same way they wanted to say they rode on Air Force One. My job security was gonna depend on bringing him his fish.”
In her book, Bloom described the allure for the players she drew.
“The formula of keeping pros out, inviting in celebrities and other interesting and important people, and even the mystique of playing in the private room of the Viper Room added up to one of the most coveted invitations in town,” she writes, later adding that “I just needed to continue feeding it new, rich blood; and to be strategic about how to fill those ten precious seats.”
Bloom would get caught up in a broad 2013 nationwide crackdown on high-stakes private poker games, probably the highest profile poker bust in years before this week. She got a year’s probation, a $1,000 fine, and community service.
There were no accusations of rigging at her game, but that didn’t make it legal.
The legality of private-space poker games has been disputed for decades and widely varies among U.S. states. But in general, they tend to bring attention and prosecution when the host is profiting the way that a casino would.
A brief history of movies making poker cool
Poker — and cheating at it — has run through movies, especially Westerns, from their silent beginnings.
Prominent poker scenes feature in 1944’s “Tall in the Saddle” with John Wayne and 1950’s “The Gunfighter” with Gregory Peck.
“The Cincinnati Kid” in 1965 was dedicated entirely to poker — with Steve McQueen bringing his unmatched cool to the title character.
A pair of movies co-starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman really raised the game’s profile, though.
In the opening scene of 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ a hyper-cool Redford is playing poker and refuses to leave until another player takes back a cheating accusation.
In 1973’s Best Picture Oscar winner “The Sting,” 1930s con-men Newman and Redford seek revenge against a big fish and run a series of increasingly bold gambling scams that could’ve come from Thursday’s indictments. Newman out-cheats the man at poker to set him up for the big con, a phony radio horse race.
The 1980s saw a dip in screen poker, with the subject largely relegated to the TV “Gambler” movies, starring Kenny Rogers, based on his hit song.
But the end of the decade brought a poker boomlet from the increased legalization of commercial games.
Then, at possibly the perfect moment, came “Rounders.” The 1998 Matt Damon film did for Texas Hold ’em what “Sideways” did for pinot noir and “Pitch Perfect” did for a cappella: it took an old and popular phenomenon and made them widespread crazes.
Soon after came explosive growth in online poker, whose players often sought out big face-to-face games. And the development of cameras that showed players’ cards — very similar to the tech allegedly used to cheat players, according to the new indictments — made poker a TV spectator sport.
The “Ocean’s” films and the general mystique they brought piled on too.
Clooney, talking about the broader set of busts Thursday that included alleged gambling on basketball itself, pointed out that his Cincinnati Reds were the beneficiaries of sport’s most infamous gambling scandal, the 1919 “Black Sox” and the fixing of the World Series, “so I have great guilt for that.”
“But you know there — we’ve never had a moment in our history that we didn’t have some dumb scandal or something crazy,” he said. “I feel very bad for the gambling scandal ’cause this was on the night that, you know, we had some amazing basketball happen.”
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Associated Press writer Leslie Ambriz contributed to this report.
PARIS (AP) — The robbery at the Louvre has done what no marketing campaign ever could: It has catapulted France’s dusty crown jewels — long admired at home, little known abroad — to global fame.
One week on, the country is still wounded by the breach to its national heritage even as authorities Sunday announced arrests tied to the haul.
Yet the crime is also a paradox. Some say it will make celebrities of the very jewels it sought to erase — much as the Mona Lisa’s turn-of-the-20th-century theft transformed the then little-known Renaissance portrait into the world’s most famous artwork.
In 1911, a museum handyman lifted the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece off its hook. The loss went unnoticed for more than a day; newspapers turned it into a global mystery, and crowds came to stare at the empty space. When the painting resurfaced two years later, its fame eclipsed everything else in the museum, and that remains so today.
That’s the uneasy question shadowing Sunday’s robbery: whether a crime that cut deep will glorify what’s left behind.
“Because of the drama, the scandal, the heist, the Apollo Gallery itself and the jewels that remain will likely receive a new spotlight and become celebrities, just like the Mona Lisa after 1911,” said Anya Firestone, a Paris art historian and Culture Ministry licensed heritage expert. She toured the gallery the day before the robbery and did not think it looked sufficiently guarded.
Bringing celebrity through theft
The heist has electrified global media. Nightly newscasts from the U.S. to Europe and across Latin America and Asia have beamed the Louvre, its Apollo Gallery and the missing jewels to hundreds of millions — a surge of attention some say rivals, or even surpasses, the frenzy after Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2018 “Apeshit” video filmed inside the museum. The Louvre is once again a global set.
For generations, the British monarchy’s regalia has captured the popular imagination through centuries of coronations and drawing millions every year to their display in the Tower of London. Meanwhile, France’s jewels lived in the shadow. This week’s heist tilts the balance.
One early emblem of that celebrity effect could be the survivor piece itself — Empress Eugénie’s emerald-set crown, dropped in the getaway and studded with more than 1,300 diamonds — which may now become the gallery’s most talked-about relic.
“I’d never even heard of Eugénie’s crown until this,” said Mateo Ruiz, a 27-year-old visitor from Seville. “Now it’s the first thing I want to see when the gallery reopens.”
Among the treasures that escaped the thieves’ grasp are storied gems still gleaming under glass — the Regent Diamond, the Sancy and the Hortensia. Authorities say one other stolen bejeweled piece, besides Empress Eugénie’s damaged crown, has since been quietly recovered, though they have declined to identify it.
The heist has not dented the Louvre’s pull. The palace-museum reopened to maximum crowds Wednesday, even as the jewels remain missing. Long before the robbery, the museum was straining under mass tourism — roughly 33,000 visitors a day — and staff warn it cannot easily absorb another surge, especially with the Apollo Gallery sealed and security resources stretched.
Jewels represent French history itself
For France, the loss is more than precious stones and metal totaling over $100 million; it is pages torn from the national record. The Apollo Gallery reads as a timeline in gold and light, carrying the country from Bourbon ceremony to Napoleon’s self-fashioned empire and into modern France.
Firestone puts it this way: The jewels are “the Louvre’s final word in the language of monarchy — a glittering echo of kings and queens as France crossed into a new era.” They are not ornaments, she argues, but chapters of French history, marking the end of the royal order and the beginning of the country France is today.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the theft an “immeasurable” heritage loss, and the museum says the pieces carry “inestimable” historic weight — a reminder that what vanished is not just monetary.
Many also see a stunning security lapse.
“It’s staggering that a handful of people couldn’t be stopped in broad daylight,” said Nadia Benyamina, 52, a Paris shopkeeper who visits the gallery monthly. “There were failures — avoidable ones. That’s the wound.”
Investigators say the thieves rode a basket lift up the building’s Seine-facing façade, forced open a window, smashed two display cases and fled on motorbikes — all in minutes. Alarms sounded, drawing security to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt, officials say. The haul spanned royal and imperial suites in sapphire, emerald and diamond — including pieces tied to Marie-Amélie, Hortense, Marie-Louise and Empress Eugénie.
In Senate testimony, Louvre director Laurence des Cars acknowledged “a terrible failure,” citing gaps in exterior camera coverage and proposing vehicle barriers and a police post inside the museum. She offered to resign; the culture minister refused. The heist followed months of warnings about chronic understaffing and crowd pressure points.
Drawing crowds to see what isn’t there
Outside the blocked doors, visitors now come to see what cannot be seen.
“I came to see where it happened,” said Tobias Klein, 24, an architecture student. “That barricade is chilling. People are looking with shock and curiosity.”
Others feel a flicker of hope. “They’re ghosts now — but there’s still hope they’ll be found,” said Rose Nguyen, 33, an artist from Reims. “It’s the same strange magnetism the Mona Lisa had after 1911. The story becomes part of the object.”
Curators warn that recutting or melting the jewels would be a second violence. In museums, authenticity lives in the original: the mount, the design, the work of the goldsmith’s hand — and the unbroken story of who made, wore, treasured, exhibited and, yes, stole the object.
Whether loss now brings legend is the Louvre’s uneasy future.
“In the strange economy of fame, even bad news becomes attention — and attention makes icons,” Firestone said.
Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.
PARIS —
Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.
The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.
French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.
Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”
Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”
The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.
The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.
The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.
They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.
One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.
Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.
PARIS —
Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.
The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.
French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.
Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”
Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”
The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.
The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.
The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.
They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.
One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.
PARIS — It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates.
Instinctively, he took the shot.
It wasn’t a particularly great photo, with someone’s shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.
But it did the job – showing French police sealing off the world’s most-visited museum after the brazen daylight robbery last Sunday.
Plus, Camus figured, the guy walking past the officers was unusually well dressed, in a coat, a jacket and tie and wearing a fedora, adding a touch of Paris couture to the scene.
And so off went the photo to AP’s worldwide audiences.
From there, fertile imaginations sprung into high gear – whipping up an online buzz.
Posts on social media declared the well-dressed man to be a French detective – if you will, a more dashing version of the famed Inspector Clouseau from “Pink Panther” movies – even though AP’s photo caption had not identified him.
It simply read: “Police officers block an access to the Louvre museum after a robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.”
A post on X that now has 5.6 million views says: “Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre.”
Another poster – with 1.2 million followers – claimed the man “who looks like he came out of a detective film noir from the 1940s is an actual French police detective who’s investigating the theft.”
Camus says nothing he saw led him to that conclusion – the man was just someone who streamed away from the Louvre as authorities evacuated the area, Camus says.
“He appeared in front of me, I saw him, I took the photo,” Camus says. “He passed by and left.”
If the unidentified man really is one of the more than 100 investigators hunting for the jewel thieves, the authorities are keeping it very hush-hush.
“We’d rather keep the mystery alive ;)” the Paris prosecutor’s office said with a wink in an email response to AP questions.
Five days after the spectacular break-in at the Louvre in Paris, part of the museum’s valuable jewellery collection was transferred to the Banque de France for security reasons, local media reported on Friday.
The pieces were transported under police escort to the nearby vaults of the French central bank, radio station RTL reported, citing corroborating sources. Broadcaster BFMTV also reported that the information had been confirmed.
The Louvre was evacuated and shut down on Sunday morning after four masked thieves broke into the Apollo Gallery, home to France’s remaining crown jewels.
They broke into two display cases and made off with eight pieces of jewellery once owned by French queens and empresses, with an estimated value of €88 million ($102 million).
The daring break-in also sparked a debate about security measures at the museum.
It wasn’t initially clear which exhibits were affected by the transfer. The crown jewels on display in the Apollo Gallery and other jewellery are said to have been moved. There is still no trace of the perpetrators or the stolen jewels.
According to the RTL report, the jewels were deposited in a high-security vault 26 metres underground. Around 90% of France’s gold reserves are also stored there.
Such a transfer is considered extraordinary. Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, estimated to be worth over €600 million, have been kept in those vaults for several years.
PARIS (AP) — It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates.
Instinctively, he took the shot.
It wasn’t a particularly great photo, with someone’s shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.
Plus, Camus figured, the guy walking past the officers was unusually well dressed, in a coat, a jacket and tie and wearing a fedora, adding a touch of Paris couture to the scene.
And so off went the photo to AP’s worldwide audiences.
From there, fertile imaginations sprung into high gear — whipping up an online buzz.
Posts on social media declared the well-dressed man to be a French detective — if you will, a more dashing version of the famed Inspector Clouseau from “Pink Panther” movies — even though AP’s photo caption had not identified him.
It simply read: “Police officers block an access to the Louvre museum after a robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.”
A post on X that now has 5.6 million views says: “Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre.”
Another poster — with 1.2 million followers — claimed the man “who looks like he came out of a detective film noir from the 1940s is an actual French police detective who’s investigating the theft.”
Camus says nothing he saw led him to that conclusion — the man was just someone who streamed away from the Louvre as authorities evacuated the area, Camus says.
“He appeared in front of me, I saw him, I took the photo,” Camus says. “He passed by and left.”
If the unidentified man really is one of the more than 100 investigators hunting for the jewel thieves, the authorities are keeping it very hush-hush.
“We’d rather keep the mystery alive ;)” the Paris prosecutor’s office said with a wink in an email response to AP questions.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday denounced the spectacular theft of jewellery from the Louvre Museum in Paris as an attack on France’s cultural history.
“The theft from the Louvre is an attack on a cultural asset that we value because it is part of our history,” said Macron. “We will recover the works and bring the perpetrators to justice. Under the leadership of the Paris public prosecutor’s office, everything is being done everywhere to achieve this.”
Macron said that a project to modernize the Louvre that was presented in January provides for a strengthening of security measures.
“It will ensure the preservation and protection of what makes up our memory and our culture,” said the president.
Broadcaster BFMTV has released extracts from an amateur video showing the burglars carrying out their spectacular coup in the exhibition room containing the French crown jewels.
One of the perpetrators can be seen wearing a high-visibility waistcoat and forcibly opening one of the display cases.
Public prosecutor Laure Beccau told broadcaster BFMTV that eight precious pieces of jewellery were taken. They included a necklace and an earring belonging to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s second wife.
Another necklace, a pair of earrings and a diadem from the collections of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense were also stolen, along with two brooches and a diadem belonging to Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III.
Eugénie’s crown, a priceless item decorated with emeralds and hundreds of diamonds, was lost by the thieves during the heist and later recovered. The crown was reportedly damaged.
A manhunt is under way for a gang of thieves who carried out a broad daylight raid on Paris’s Louvre Museum and stole jewels described as priceless.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said it took just minutes for the masked suspects to carry out the burglary on Sunday morning, shortly after the museum opened to visitors.
The gang appear to have used a mechanical ladder to reach a first-floor window, before breaking into display cases and escaping on mopeds.
The gallery targeted houses France’s royal jewels. Officials said nine items were taken. One – a crown belonging to Napoleon III’s wife – was seemingly dropped and found nearby.
The Louvre was evacuated and remained closed on Sunday.
The jewellery was stolen from the Galeria d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) at around 09:30 local time (08:30 GMT), the French interior ministry said.
The thieves used battery powered disc cutters to gain access to the building, Paris prosecutors told the BBC.
Four people were involved in the robbery, with two entering the building and threatening guards once inside, they added.
A vehicle-mounted extendable ladder was seen leading up to a window a stone’s throw from the River Seine, apparently left behind by the gang.
The gang appear to have used a ladder to reach a first-floor window [DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images]
France’s culture ministry said the gang tried to set fire to the vehicle before they left but they were prevented by a member of museum staff.
No one was injured in the incident.
The nine items stolen from the gallery all date from France’s 19th century royalty and are encrusted with thousands of diamonds and other precious gemstones.
Among them was a brooch that once belonged to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, and a pair of emerald earrings.
Empress Eugénie’s crown was found near the scene, apparently dropped by the thieves in their haste to get away.
[BBC]
The ornate crown features golden eagles and is covered in 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the Louvre’s website. Investigators are checking it for damage.
It is thought that criminals prefer to steal jewels because they can be broken down and sold for cash, whereas it is more difficult to make money from precious stolen artworks which are easily recognisable.
Beyond their commercial value, Nuñez said the stolen pieces have a cultural and historical value that could not be calculated, describing them as “priceless” and “of immeasurable heritage value”.
Police were seen turning tourists away from the museum, the world’s most visited, throughout Sunday as people continued to arrive oblivious to the closure and investigation.
American tourists Jim and Joan Carpenter said they were about to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa when security guards “swept us out of the gallery”.
The couple were ushered past the Galeria d’Apollon and out through an emergency exit, Mrs Carpenter told Reuters news agency.
Mr Carpenter said there was “lots of confusion” in the museum, and guards told the couple there were “technical difficulties” when they asked what was going on.
“I knew something was up because of the way they swept the whole museum,” Mrs Carpenter said.
Mr Carpenter added: “But it’s great. This is our last day of a long trip and it’s the most exciting part today.”
In a brazen, seven-minute strike, thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre on Sunday morning and, as tourists were already inside, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with jewels of “inestimable value,” France’s interior minister said.The world’s most visited museum closed for the day as police sealed gates and ushered visitors out during the investigation.“A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre Museum,” Culture Minister Rachida Dati wrote on X. The museum cited “exceptional reasons” for the closure. No injuries were reported.Around 9:30 a.m. several intruders forced open a window, stole jewels from vitrines and escaped on two-wheelers, according to the Interior Ministry. It said forensic work is underway and a precise inventory of the stolen objects is being compiled, adding that the items have “inestimable” historical value. Dati and Nuñez were on site with museum leadership.Video from the scene showed confused tourists being ushered out of the glass pyramid and surrounding courtyards as officers shut the iron gates and closed nearby streets along the Seine.Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called it a “major robbery,” saying the intruders entered from the outside using a basket lift. He said on France Inter radio that the heist took seven minutes and the thieves used a disc cutter to slice through the panes. He said it was “manifestly a team that had done scouting.”The heist occurred in the Galerie d’Apollon, a vaulted hall in the Denon wing that displays part of the French Crown Jewels beneath a ceiling painted by King Louis XIV’s court artist, according to the ministry.French daily Le Parisien reported the thieves entered via the Seine-facing facade, where construction is underway, and used a freight elevator to reach the gallery. After breaking windows, they reportedly took nine pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress. One stolen jewel was later found outside the museum, the paper reported, adding that the item was believed to be Empress Eugénie’s crown and that it had been broken.Security and staffing at the Louvre in the spotlightSecurity around marquee works remains tight. The Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass and a custom high-tech display system as part of broader anti-theft measures across the museum.Staffing and protection have been flashpoints at the Louvre. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions have warned that mass tourism strains security and visitor management.It wasn’t immediately clear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday’s theft.In January, President Emmanuel Macron announced a decadelong “Louvre New Renaissance” plan — roughly €700 million to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece its own dedicated gallery by 2031 — but workers say relief has been slow to reach the floor.Other European museums have been robbedThe theft, less than half an hour after doors opened, echoes other recent European museum raids.In 2019, thieves smashed vitrines in Dresden’s Green Vault and carried off diamond-studded royal jewels worth hundreds of millions of euros. In 2017, burglars at Berlin’s Bode Museum stole a 100-kilogram (220-pound) solid-gold coin. In 2010, a lone intruder slipped into Paris’s Museum of Modern Art and escaped with five paintings, including a Picasso.The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat. It was recovered two years later in Florence — an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait the world’s best-known artwork.Home to more than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and painting — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters — the Louvre’s star attractions include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The museum can draw up to 30,000 visitors a day.
PARIS —
In a brazen, seven-minute strike, thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre on Sunday morning and, as tourists were already inside, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with jewels of “inestimable value,” France’s interior minister said.
The world’s most visited museum closed for the day as police sealed gates and ushered visitors out during the investigation.
“A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre Museum,” Culture Minister Rachida Dati wrote on X. The museum cited “exceptional reasons” for the closure. No injuries were reported.
Around 9:30 a.m. several intruders forced open a window, stole jewels from vitrines and escaped on two-wheelers, according to the Interior Ministry. It said forensic work is underway and a precise inventory of the stolen objects is being compiled, adding that the items have “inestimable” historical value. Dati and Nuñez were on site with museum leadership.
Video from the scene showed confused tourists being ushered out of the glass pyramid and surrounding courtyards as officers shut the iron gates and closed nearby streets along the Seine.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called it a “major robbery,” saying the intruders entered from the outside using a basket lift. He said on France Inter radio that the heist took seven minutes and the thieves used a disc cutter to slice through the panes. He said it was “manifestly a team that had done scouting.”
The heist occurred in the Galerie d’Apollon, a vaulted hall in the Denon wing that displays part of the French Crown Jewels beneath a ceiling painted by King Louis XIV’s court artist, according to the ministry.
French daily Le Parisien reported the thieves entered via the Seine-facing facade, where construction is underway, and used a freight elevator to reach the gallery. After breaking windows, they reportedly took nine pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress. One stolen jewel was later found outside the museum, the paper reported, adding that the item was believed to be Empress Eugénie’s crown and that it had been broken.
Security and staffing at the Louvre in the spotlight
Security around marquee works remains tight. The Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass and a custom high-tech display system as part of broader anti-theft measures across the museum.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday’s theft.
In January, President Emmanuel Macron announced a decadelong “Louvre New Renaissance” plan — roughly €700 million to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece its own dedicated gallery by 2031 — but workers say relief has been slow to reach the floor.
Other European museums have been robbed
The theft, less than half an hour after doors opened, echoes other recent European museum raids.
In 2019, thieves smashed vitrines in Dresden’s Green Vault and carried off diamond-studded royal jewels worth hundreds of millions of euros. In 2017, burglars at Berlin’s Bode Museum stole a 100-kilogram (220-pound) solid-gold coin. In 2010, a lone intruder slipped into Paris’s Museum of Modern Art and escaped with five paintings, including a Picasso.
The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat. It was recovered two years later in Florence — an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait the world’s best-known artwork.
Home to more than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and painting — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters — the Louvre’s star attractions include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The museum can draw up to 30,000 visitors a day.
PARIS (AP) — When Olivier Baroin moved into an apartment in Montmartre about 15 years ago, it felt like he was living in a village in the heart of Paris. Not anymore.
Stores for residents are disappearing, along with the friendly atmosphere, he says. In their place are hordes of people taking selfies, shops selling tourist trinkets, and cafés whose seating spills into the narrow, cobbled streets as overtourism takes its toll.
Baroin has had enough. He put his apartment up for sale after local streets were designated pedestrian-only while accommodating the growing number of visitors.
“I told myself that I had no other choice but to leave since, as I have a disability, it’s even more complicated when you can no longer take your car, when you have to call a taxi from morning to night,” he told The Associated Press.
AP AUDIO: Paris residents fight overtourism and ‘Disneyfication’ of beloved Montmartre neighborhood
AP correspondent Mimmi Montgomery reports on mass tourism affecting the Montmartre district in Paris.
Overtourism in European cities
From Venice to Barcelona to Amsterdam, European cities are struggling to absorb surging numbers of tourists.
Some residents in one of Paris’ most popular tourist neighborhoods are now pushing back. A black banner strung between two balconies in Montmartre reads, in English: “Behind the postcard: locals mistreated by the Mayor.” Another, in French, says: “Montmartre residents resisting.”
Atop the hill where the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur crowns the city’s skyline, residents lament what they call the “Disneyfication” of the once-bohemian slice of Paris. The basilica says it now attracts up to 11 million people a year — even more than the Eiffel Tower — while daily life in the neighborhood has been overtaken by tuk-tuks, tour groups, photo queues and short-term rentals.
A banner reading “Montmartre under threat. Are residents being forgotten?” hangs at windows in the Montmartre district in Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
A banner reading “Montmartre under threat. Are residents being forgotten?” hangs at windows in the Montmartre district in Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
“Now, there are no more shops at all, there are no more food shops, so everything must be delivered,” said 56-year-old Baroin, a member of a residents’ protest group called Vivre a Montmartre, or Living in Montmartre.
The unrest echoes tensions across town at the Louvre Museum, where staff in June staged a brief wildcat strike over chronic overcrowding, understaffing and deteriorating conditions. The Louvre logged 8.7 million visitors in 2024, more than double what its infrastructure was designed to handle.
A postcard under pressure
Paris, a city of just over 2 million residents if you count its sprawling suburbs, welcomed 48.7 million tourists in 2024, a 2% increase from the previous year.
Sacré-Cœur, the most visited monument in France in 2024, and the surrounding Montmartre neighborhood have turned into what some locals call an open-air theme park.
Local staples like butchers, bakeries and grocers are vanishing, replaced by ice-cream stalls, bubble-tea vendors and souvenir T-shirt stands.
Paris authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Visitors seemed largely to be enjoying the packed streets on a sunny Tuesday this week.
“For the most part, all of Paris has been pretty busy, but full of life, for sure,” said American tourist Adam Davidson. “Coming from Washington, D.C., which is a lively city as well, I would say this is definitely full of life to a different degree for sure.”
Europe’s breaking point
Tourists stroll in the Montmartre district in Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Tourists stroll in the Montmartre district in Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
In Barcelona, thousands have taken to the streets this year, some wielding water pistols, demanding limits on cruise ships and short-term tourist rentals. Venice now charges an entry fee for day-trippers and caps visitor numbers. And in Athens, authorities are imposing a daily limit on visitors to the Acropolis, to protect the ancient monument from record-breaking tourist crowds.
Urban planners warn that historic neighborhoods risk becoming what some critics call “zombie cities” — picturesque but lifeless, their residents displaced by short-term visitors.
Paris is trying to mitigate the problems by cracking down on short-term rentals and unlicensed properties.
But tourism pressures are growing. By 2050, the world’s population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion, according to United Nations estimates. With the global middle class expanding, low-cost flights booming and digital platforms guiding travelers to the same viral landmarks, many more visitors are expected in iconic cities like Paris.
The question now, residents say, is whether any space is left for those who call it home.
François-Xavier Lalanne, Lapin à vent Tortour, 2002; Patinated bronze, 72 ⅜ x 21 ¼ x 98 ⅜ in. (184 x 54 x 250 cm) (ears backward), 72 ⅜ x 21 ¼x 122 in. (184 x 54 x 310 cm) (ears forward). Courtesy of Christie’s
Les Lalanne, one of the most dynamic and inspiring art couples of the 20th Century, earned admiration from Surrealists and celebrities alike. Though often linked to the Surrealist movement, they rejected formal associations, creating a distinct artistic language that blended fine and decorative arts. Their work, largely inspired by naturalistic forms with sophisticated nods to classical literature, has garnered intense market attention in recent years, fetching record-breaking prices at auctions and being featured in exhibitions worldwide.
This October, Christie’s will host a special auction of works by François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008) from the collection of his daughter, Dorothée Lalanne. French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus will curate a unique exhibition in conjunction with the sale, offering his fresh perspective on the remarkable collection, on view at Christie’s New York from October 4 to October 10.
Fashion designer Simon Porte Jacquemus is curating a special exhibition at Christie’s on the occasion of the upcoming auction “François-Xavier Lalanne, Sculpteur | Collection Dorothée Lalanne.” Brian McCormick
Beginning in 1966, Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, known collectively as Les Lalanne, developed artistic practices that were deeply intertwined. Claude’s sculptures often evoke flora, reimagining elements like ginkgo leaves, branches or apples with Renaissance and Baroque influences. François-Xavier, on the other hand, became renowned for his life-size animal sculptures, inspired by his time working as a guard in the Louvre Museum’s Egyptian and Assyrian galleries, where he absorbed the rich symbolism of ancient mythologies and civilizations. As he once remarked, “The animal world offers an infinite repertory of forms connected to a universal symbolism” that “children as well as adults are sensitive to.”
The couple’s surreal take on naturalism appeals across generations, tapping into a timeless desire to reconnect with nature and to integrate natural motifs—something modern man has sought since the onset of industrialization. Les Lalanne’s visionary work anticipates a profound reintegration of the relationship between humans and the natural world.
The upcoming auction at Christie’s will feature seventy lots, marking the auction house’s first solo presentation of François-Xavier Lalanne’s works. This follows a series of record-breaking sales of pieces from Dorothée Lalanne’s collection, including a landmark Sotheby’s auction in November 2021 that brought in €129 million—double the high estimate, making history as the highest-grossing collection sold in France in over a decade. In December of 2022, another record auction at Christie’s, “Sculpting Paradise: The Collection of Marie Lalanne,” featuring works owned by another daughter, Marie, fetched a staggering $77,043,008, with 100 percent of lots sold, 88 percent surpassing high estimates and eighteen works crossing the $1 million mark. Last year, François-Xavier achieved a new auction record at Christie’s with the sale of his Rhinocrétaire I (1964) for $19,418,556.
François-Xavier Lalanne, Tortue Topiaire III, 2000; Copper, stainless steel, 17 ¼ x 48 ⅜ x 29 ½ in. (44 x 123 x 75 cm. Courtesy of Christie’s
“A beloved post-war sculptor, François-Xavier Lalanne continues to amaze us with his joyful, highly refined work,” Alex Heminway, international head of design at Christie’s, said in a statement. “It’s been a thrilling few years for the artist’s market with significant institutional and gallery exhibitions.”
Recently, Kasmin Gallery in New York showcased a curated selection of Les Lalanne’s works, further cementing the couple’s boundless creativity in the American art world. The exhibition primarily featured pieces from the collection of their eldest daughter, Caroline Hamisky Lalanne. The family’s close involvement in their work has contributed to their success, allowing them to maintain a controlled market. At the same time, in Venice, Ben Brown orchestrated a curated exhibition titled “Planète Lalanne,” coinciding with this year’s Biennale. This comprehensive show created a captivating dialogue between the couple’s imaginative artistry and the opulent interiors of Palazzo Rota.
François-Xavier Lalanne, Très Grand Ours, 2009; Patinated bronze, 124 x 58 ¼ x 59 ½ in. (315 x 148 x 151 cm). Courtesy of Christie’s
François-Xavier’s whimsical animal sculptures and furniture, combining extraordinary sculptural talent, craftsmanship and imagination, possess a timeless charm that transcends cultural boundaries. Despite a market slowdown, demand for Les Lalanne pieces remains strong, and we’re likely to see record prices again. Among the highlights of the upcoming sale at Christie’s is one of François-Xavier’s most celebrated works, Le Très Grand Ours (2009), with a high estimate of $3 million, along with Lapin À Vent De Tourtour (2002), with a high estimate of $1.5 million. Both works were previously featured in the major institutional exhibition “Les Lalanne à Trianon” at the Château de Versailles in 2021. Additionally, the auction will include Oiseleur II (2003), which is being offered for the first time.
JR, the French photographer and street artist, and Sandra Laoura, a French skier, hold the Olympic Flame on July 14. Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images
The Paris Olympics don’t kick off until July 26, but the iconic Olympic Torch is already in town. The Flame arrived in Paris on Bastille Day (July 14), borne by 2016 gold medalist Col. Thibaut Vallette, and was integrated into France’s National Day celebrations. The torch, carried by a motley assortment of bearers that included World Cup winner Thierry Henry, K-Pop icon Jin and garbage collector and environmentalist Ludovic Franceschet, made its way through iconic locations in Paris, including some of the city’s most important cultural spots, including the Louvre. Notably, the torchbearer who carried the Flame into the museum was the French artist JR, known for his large-scale public installations that engage communities with some of the most pressing social issues through a powerful blend of photography, street art and social activism.
We reached out to the artist to ask what he was feeling in that special moment. “I have a lot of memories with the Louvre, a lot of special ones,” JR told Observer. “I had the chance to exhibit there twice… This is also where I learned of the death of Agnes Varda in 2019 while I was pasting the giant collage on the square. We had filmed part of our film inside the Louvre with Agnes. Going back there and carrying this torch, taking it from the pyramid to the inside, was a very special memory for me, with a lot of emotion behind it.”
JR says his return to the Louvre was an emotional one. Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images
The artist’s relationship with the Louvre runs deep, stemming from his memorable, monumental intervention of 2016, in which he covered the Pritzker Prize-winning architect I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid with a gigantic black-and-white photographic collage that made it appear to disappear. Then, in 2019, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, JR created another massive optical illusion, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, making the same pyramid emerge from inside a deep crater apparently excavated in the surrounding ground. True to JR’s style, the artwork was created with the help of collective action by thousands of local volunteers and was ephemeral and temporary: visitors were invited to walk over the collage, gradually destroying it, symbolizing the impermanence of art. By the end of the weekend, the piece was almost entirely worn away and then removed, leaving just great pictures as its memory.
JR is also no stranger to working with the Olympic Games, having installed another of his large-scale projects for the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro. There, with The Chronicles of Rio, the French artist embarked on one of his most ambitious projects of community recording and awareness, collecting a series of portraits of Rio’s inhabitants to shed light on the everyday lives and stories of people from various neighborhoods, particularly those from underrepresented areas. These portraits were then transformed into enormous posters and displayed in locations around the city.
JR, The Secret of the Great Pyramid (2019). Courtesy the artist
The history of the Olympic Flame
The tradition of the Olympic Torch is rooted in customs established in Ancient Greece: at the ancient Olympic Games, a sacred flame burned at the altar of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, in Olympia, as a symbol of purity, the endeavor for perfection and the struggle for victory. The tradition was restored in modern times at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, with the Flame lit in Olympia and carried to Berlin through a relay of runners, symbolizing the link between the ancient and modern Games. Since then, torchbearers have carried the Flame at every Olympic Games on a journey from Greece to the host city, with thousands of participants from diverse backgrounds traversing countries and continents in an action symbolizing peace and unity.
One day after a suspected extremist fatally stabbed his former teacher in northern France, scores of people were evacuated from the Louvre Museum in Paris and Versailles Palace for fear of a possible terrorist attack.
Alarms ripped through the halls of Louvre — home to iconic works such as the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo — Saturday morning, alerting both art-lovers and staff to the potential threat. They were activated after the museum received written bomb threats, according to Paris police, who have since cordoned off the beloved landmark from all sides.
The Louvre communication service confirmed no one had been hurt.
Given “the current national context,” the museum — which sees between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors daily — decided to shut down for the day while authorities swept the premises, Coralie James, a spokeswoman for the museum, told the New York Times.
On Friday, a Chechen immigrant, who had been under surveillance by French security services over suspected Islamic radicalization, stabbed a teacher to death at a school in the city of Arras, about 115 miles north of Paris, near the border with Belgium. A colleague and a fellow teacher identified the dead educator as Dominique Bernard, a French language teacher at the Gambetta-Carnot school, which enrolls students ages 11-18 years old.
AP Photo/Michel Spingler
Police officers block the area after a man armed with a knife killed a teacher and wounded two others at a high school in Arras, France, on Oct. 13, 2023.
Three more people, including two security guards and a teacher, were also wounded in the attack. Police confirmed a suspect, identified by prosecutors only as as Mohamed M., was arrested at the scene, though they have since said he has refused to answer investigators’ questions.
Hours after the Louvre closed its doors, the Palace of Versailles — built for King Louis XIV — was also evacuated. In a statement on social media, police said a suspicious package had been found but did not provide further details.
Earlier Saturday, Sebastien Lecornu, France’s defense minister, announced up to 7,000 soldiers were being deployed to strengthen security at sensitive sites, at the request of President Emmanuel Macron.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Tourists are waiting more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens. Taxi lines at Rome’s main train station are running just as long. And so many visitors are concentrating around St. Mark’s Square in Venice that crowds get backed up crossing bridges — even on weekdays.
After three years of pandemic limitations, tourism is expected to exceed 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations this summer, from Barcelona and Rome, Athens and Venice to the scenic islands of Santorini in Greece, Capri in Italy and Mallorca in Spain.
While European tourists edged the industry toward recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, boosted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. Many arrive motivated by “revenge tourism” — so eager to explore again that they’re undaunted by higher airfares and hotel costs.
Lauren Gonzalez, 25, landed in Rome this week with four high school and college friends for a 16-day romp through the Italian capital, Florence and the seaside after three years of U.S. vacations. They aren’t concerned about the high prices and the crowds.
“We kind of saved up, and we know this is a trip that is meaningful,” said Gonzalez, who works at a marketing agency. “We are all in our mid-20s. It’s a (moment of) change in our lives. … This is something special. The crowds don’t deter us. We live in Florida. We have all been to Disney World in the heat. We are all good.”
Tourists visit the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Friday, June 30, 2023. Crowds are packing the Colosseum, the Louvre, the Acropolis and other major attractions as tourism exceeds 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. While European tourists helped the industry on the road to recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, who are lifted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Americans appear equally unperturbed by recent riots in Paris and other French cities. There was a small drop in flight bookings, but it was mainly for domestic travel.
“Some of my friends said, ‘It’s a little crazy there right now,’ but we thought summer is really a good time for us to go, so we’ll just take precautions,” Joanne Titus, a 38-year-old from Maryland, said while strolling the iconic Champs-Elysees shopping boulevard.
The return of mass tourism is a boon to hotels and restaurants, which suffered under COVID-19 restrictions. But there is a downside, too, as pledges to rethink tourism to make it more sustainable have largely gone unheeded.
“The pandemic should have taught us a lesson,” said Alessandra Priante, director of the regional department for Europe at the U.N. World Tourism Organization.
Instead, she said, the mindset “is about recuperating the cash. Everything is about revenue, about the here and now.”
“We have to see what is going to happen in two or three years’ time because the prices at the moment are unsustainable,” she said.
Tourists stabd behind a fence, visit the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Crowds are packing the Colosseum, the Louvre, the Acropolis and other major attractions as tourism exceeds 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. While European tourists helped the industry on the road to recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, who are lifted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
The mayor of Florence is stopping new short-term apartment rentals from proliferating in the historic center, which is protected as a UNESCO heritage site, as mayors of Italy’s other art cities call for a nationwide law to manage the sector.
Elsewhere, the anti-mass tourism movements that were active before the pandemic have not reappeared, but the battle lines are still being drawn: graffiti misdirected tourists in Barcelona away from — instead of toward — the Gaudi-designed Park Guell.
Despite predictable pockets of overtourism, travel to and within Europe overall is still down 10% from 2019, according to the World Tourism Organization. That is partly due to fewer people visiting countries close to the war in Ukraine, including Lithuania, Finland, Moldova and Poland.
In addition, Chinese visitors have not fully returned, with flights from China and other Asia-Pacific countries down 45% from 2019, according to travel data company ForwardKeys.
Tourism-dependent Greece expects 30 million visitors this year, still shy of 2019’s 34 million record. Still, the number of flights are up so far, and tourist hotspots are taking the brunt.
The Culture Ministry will introduce a new ticketing system for the Acropolis this month, providing hourly slots for visitors to even out crowds. But no remedy is being discussed for the parking line of cruise ships on the islands of Mykonos and Santorini on busy mornings.
Tourists visit the Acropolis ancient hill, in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Crowds are packing the Colosseum, the Louvre, the Acropolis and other major attractions as tourism exceeds 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. While European tourists helped the industry on the road to recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, who are lifted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis) –
Thanassis Stavrakis/AP
Revellers, mostly tourists, look on from balconies at the running of the bulls during the San Fermín fiestas in Pamplona, Spain, Saturday, July 8, 2023. Crowds are packing the Colosseum, the Louvre, the Acropolis and other major attractions as tourism exceeds 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. While European tourists helped the industry on the road to recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, who are lifted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos) –
Alvaro Barrientos/AP
Spain’s tourism minister, Héctor Gómez, called it “a historic summer for tourism,” with 8.2 million tourists arriving in May alone, breaking records for a second straight month. Still, some hotel groups say reservations slowed in the first weeks of summer, owing to the steep rise in prices for flights and rooms.
Costs are growing as flights from the U.S. to Europe are up 2% from 2019 levels, according to ForwardKeys.
“The rising appetite for long-haul travel from America is the continued result of the ‘revenge travel’ boom caused by the pandemic lockdowns,” said Tim Hentschel, CEO of HotelPlanner, a booking site. “Big cities within these popular European countries are certainly going to be busy during the summer.”
Americans have pushed arrivals in Italian bucket-list destinations like Rome, Florence, Venice and Capri above pre-pandemic levels, according to Italy’s hotel association, Federalberghi.
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They bring a lot of pent-up buying power: U.S. tourists in Italy spent 74% more in tax-free indulgences in the first three months of the year, compared with same period of 2019.
“Then there is the rest of Italy that lives from Italian and European tourism, and at the moment, it is still under 2019 levels,” Federalberghi president Bernabo Bocca said.
He expects it will take another year for an across-the-board recovery. An economic slowdown discouraged German arrivals, while Italians “are less prone to spending this year,” he said.
And wallets will be stretched. Lodging costs in Florence rose 53% over last year, while Venice saw a 25% increase and Rome a 21% hike, according to the Italian consumer group Codacons.
Perhaps nothing has encouraged the rise in tourism in key spots more than a surge in short-term apartment rentals. With hotel room numbers constant, Bocca of Federalberghi blames the surge for the huge crowds in Rome, inflating taxi lines and crowding crosswalks so that city buses cannot continue their routes.
Tourists on a boat sail the Seine River in Paris, France, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Crowds are packing the Colosseum, the Louvre, the Acropolis and other major attractions as tourism exceeds 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. While European tourists helped the industry on the road to recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, who are lifted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
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In Rome and Florence, “walking down the street, out of every building door, emerges a tourist with a suitcase,” he said.
While Florence’s mayor is limiting the number of short-term rentals in the historic center to 8,000, no action has been taken in Venice. The canal-lined city counts 49,432 residents in its historic center and 49,272 tourist beds, nearly half of those being apartments available for short-term rental.
Inconveniences are “daily,” said Giacomo Salerno, a researcher at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University focusing on tourism.
It difficult to walk down streets clogged with visitors or take public water buses “saturated with tourists with their suitcases,” he said.
Students cannot find affordable housing because owners prefer to cash in with vacation rentals. The dwindling number of residents means a dearth of services, including a lack of family doctors largely due to the high cost of living, driven up by tourist demand.
Venice has delayed plans to charge day-trippers a tax to enter the city, meant to curb arrivals. But activists like Salerno say that will do little to resolve the issue of a declining population and encroaching tourists, instead cementing Venice’s fate as “an amusement park.”
“It would be like saying the only use for the city is touristic,’’ Salerno said.
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AP reporters Aritz Parra in Rome, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Ciaran Gilles in Madrid, Angela Charlton in Paris and Kelvin Chan in London contributed.
