Tag: Theft

PARIS — As French police race to track where the Louvre’s stolen crown jewels have gone, a growing chorus wants a brighter light on where they came from.

The artifacts were French, but the gems were not. Their exotic routes to Paris run through the shadows of empire — an uncomfortable history that France, like other Western nations with treasure-filled museums, has only begun to confront.

The attention sparked by the heist is an opportunity, experts say, to pressure the Louvre and Europe’s great museums to explain their collections’ origins more honestly, and it could trigger a broader reckoning over restitutions.

Within hours of the theft, researchers sketched a likely colonial-era map for the materials: sapphires from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), diamonds from India and Brazil, pearls from the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and emeralds from Colombia.

That doesn’t make the Louvre robbery less criminal. It does complicate the public’s understanding of what was lost.

“There is obviously no excuse for theft,” said Emiline C.H. Smith, a criminologist at the University of Glasgow who studies heritage crime. “But many of these objects are entangled with violent, exploitative, colonial histories.”

While there’s no credible evidence these specific gems were stolen — experts say that doesn’t end the argument: What was legal in the imperial age could still mean plunder in today’s lights. In other words, the paperwork of empire doesn’t settle the ethics.

Meanwhile, the heist investigation grinds on. Police have charged suspects, but investigators fear the jewels could be broken up or melted down. They are too symbolic to fence, but easy to monetize for metal and stones.

The Louvre provides scant information about how the gems in the French crown jewels – showcased in the Apollo Gallery until the theft — were originally extracted.

For example, the Louvre’s own catalog describes the stolen diadem of Queen Marie-Amélie as set with “Ceylon sapphires” in their natural, unheated state, bordered with diamonds in gold. It says nothing about who mined them, how they moved, or under what terms they were taken.

Provenance isn’t always a neutral ledger in Western museums. They sometimes “avoid spotlighting uncomfortable acquisition histories,” Smith said, adding that the lack of clarity about the gems’ origins is likely no accident.

The museum did not respond to requests for comment.

The stolen tiaras, necklaces and brooches were crafted in Paris by elite ateliers, and once belonged to 19th-century figures such as Marie-Amélie, Queen Hortense, and the wives of two Napoleons, Empress Marie-Louise of Austria and Empress Eugénie. Their raw materials, however, moved through imperial networks that converted global labor, resources — and even slavery — into European prestige, experts say.

Pascal Blanchard, a historian of France’s colonial past, draws a line between craftsmanship and supply. The jewels “were made in France by French artisans,” he said, but many stones came via colonial circuits and were “products of colonial production.” They were traded “under the legal conditions … of the time,” ones shaped by empires that siphoned wealth from Africa, Asia and South America.

Some French critics press the point further. They argue that national outcry over loss should sit beside the history of how imperial France acquired the stones that court jewelers later set in gold.

India is waging the best-known battle over a single colonial-era treasure — the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

India has repeatedly pressed the U.K. to return the mythologized 106-carat jewel, now set in the Queen Mother’s crown at the Tower of London. It likely originated in India’s Golconda diamond belt — much like the Louvre’s dazzling Regent diamond, one that was also legally acquired in imperial times and spared by the Oct. 19 robbers.

The Koh-i-Noor passed from court to court before landing in British hands, where it is hailed in London as a “lawful” imperial gift and denounced in India as a prize taken under the shadow of conquest. A 2017 petition to India’s Supreme Court seeking its return was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but the political and moral dispute endures.

France is not Britain, and the Koh-i-Noor is not the Louvre’s story. But it frames the questions increasingly applied to 19th-century acquisitions: not only “was it bought?” but “who had the power to sell?” On that measure, experts say, even jewels made in France can be considered products of colonial extraction.

The Louvre case lands in a world already primed by other fights. Greece presses Britain to reunite the Parthenon Marbles. Egypt campaigns for the Rosetta Stone in London and the Nefertiti bust in Berlin.

France has moved — narrowly. President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to return parts of Africa’s heritage produced a law enabling the return of 26 royal treasures to Benin and items to Senegal. Madagascar recovered the crown of Queen Ranavalona III through a specific process.

Critics say restitution is structurally blocked: French law forbids removing state-held objects unless Parliament makes a special exception, and risk-averse museums keep the rest behind glass.

They also say that under former Louvre chief Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum’s narrow definition of what counts as “looted” — and its demand for near-legal levels of proof — created a chilling effect on restitution claims, even as the museum publicly praised transparency. (The Louvre says it follows the law and academic standards.)

Asking museum visitors to marvel at artifacts like the French crown jewels without understanding their social history is dishonest, says Erin L. Thompson, an art-crime scholar in New York. A decolonized approach, she and others argue, would name where such stones came from, how the trade worked, who profited and who paid — and share authorship with origin communities.

Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna calls the contradiction glaring.

“Yes, the irony is profound,” she said of the outcry over last month’s Louvre theft, “and it’s central to the conversation about restitution.” She expects the heist will trigger action on restitutions across Western museums and fuel debate about transparency.

At a minimum, Hanna and other experts say, what’s needed from museums are stronger words: plain-spoken labels and wall texts that acknowledge where objects came from, how they moved, and at whose expense. It would mean publishing what is known, admitting what isn’t, and inviting contested histories into the gallery — even when they cloud the shine.

Some offer a practical path.

“Tell the honest and complete story,” said Dutch restitution specialist Jos van Beurden. “Open the windows, not for thieves, but for fresh air.”

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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report

PARIS — France’s court of auditors urged the Louvre museum to speed up its security modernization plans as a priority, in a report conducted before the Oct. 19 jewels heist that noted major delays in the renovation of the world’s most-visited museum.

Thursday’s report by the Cour des Comptes comes after a series of failings and security issues came to light following the robbery of the $102-million worth Crown Jewels that shocked the world. The thieves used a truck-mounted basket lift to reach a window of the Apollo Gallery and fled with the trove within minutes.

“The theft of the crown jewels is undoubtedly a deafening alarm bell,” Pierre Moscovici, head of the court of auditors, said at a news conference.

The report, focusing on the 2018-2024 period, said the museum’s investments prioritized “visible and attractive operations” like buying new pieces of art and improving visitor experience. That was “at the expense of the maintenance and renovation of buildings and technical installations, particularly safety and security systems,” it said.

A plan to modernize security equipment was being studied since 2018 but its implementation kept being delayed, the report said. Actual technical work was only to start next year and was planned to be fully implemented by 2032.

“The pace is far too slow,” Moscovici said.

The court of auditors believes security can be improved without hiring more staff at the museum, Moscovici added. A previous assessment shows that the Oct. 19 heist was made possible by outdated security systems, not because of lack of staff, he said.

The cost for security modernization is estimated to 83 million euros ($95 million), out of which only 3 million euros ($3.5 million) have been invested between 2018 and 2024, according to the report.

The museum said that over the past three years, 134 digital cameras have been installed to supplement or replace outdated cameras throughout the museum, the report noted.

The court of auditors, which is an independent body, recommended that the Louvre focuses on priorities including bringing the museum’s technical facilities, particularly safety and security, up to standards, and cut its expenses in other areas. That means reducing art acquisition and saving on museum rooms’ renovation projects, the report said.

In response to the audit, the Louvre on Thursday said it “regretted” that the report did not take into account the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and the 2024 Paris Olympics, which the museum said impacted certain decisions.

The Louvre said it agrees with most of the court of auditors’ recommendations and already made similar proposals. It noted that the Oct. 19 theft occurred weeks before planned security improvements were to start being implemented.

The decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan, which includes security improvements, was launched earlier this year. It is estimated it would cost up to 800 million euros ($933 million) to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the famed Mona Lisa a dedicated gallery by 2031.

Last week, Culture Minister Rachida Dati said the Louvre will install streetside anti-ramming and anti-intrusion devices in the next two months, following a provisional investigation that found a “chronic, structural underestimation” of the risk of theft at the Paris landmark.

Dati acknowledged “security gaps,” refused the resignation of the museum director and cited four failings: underestimated risk, underequipped security, ill-suited governance and “obsolete” protocols.

Four suspects in the Louvre heist were arrested last week, including three believed to be members of the team of four that was filmed using a basket lift to reach the museum’s window. They face preliminary charges of theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy. The jewels have not been recovered, authorities said.