From the disappearance of the Mona Lisa to the heist of the imperial jewels: the most famous museum in the world continues to be the favorite target of thieves
The search continues to identify the culprits of the theft from the Louvre in the hope of finding the jewels from Napoleon’s collection. And while the Paris prosecutor’s office says it is optimistic, some precious objects from the museum have been transferred to the Bank of France given the flaws in the security system. Surveillance measures, on the other hand, have often been under the eye of the storm over the years, unable to avoid several thefts in the history of the Louvre.
Withdrawals
The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, announced that more than “150 samples of DNA traces and similar” were conducted at the crime scene. And although “the analyzes take time”, the first results could arrive already “in the next few days” given the priority of the case. Saying he is optimistic about the outcome of the investigations, Beccuau specified that the results could “open leads, especially if the perpetrators are registered”. Furthermore, “the media coverage of the theft” leads one to think that the thieves “won’t move too much with the jewels.”
Preventive measures
Meanwhile, on Friday morning some of the museum’s most precious jewels were transferred to the vaults of the Bank of France which is less than 600 meters from the Louvre. The operation took place discreetly: the objective is to guarantee maximum security while the gaps in the surveillance systems are being assessed.
The precedents
If the director of the museum admitted on Wednesday the shortcomings in the security system, it is also true that it is not the first time that the Louvre has been targeted by thieves. The most famous case concerns the theft of the Mona Lisa on 22 August 1911: there were no alarms yet and the Italian Vincenzo Peruggia had simply hidden it under his coat. Leonardo da Vinci’s work had remained under the floor of the man’s bedroom for months. Peruggia was then discovered two years later, when he attempted to sell the Mona Lisa to a Florentine antique dealer. In 1913 he was sentenced to a short period of prison, both for his recognized mental infirmity and because in Italian public opinion the gesture had been interpreted under the lens of patriotism.
However, it is surprising that in Paris, at the beginning, the idea that the theft had occurred at the hands of a journalist took hold. In an article from Guardian of 1911 we read: «In Paris the belief is gradually gaining ground that the disappearance of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre was due to a journalist who wanted to demonstrate the inadequacy of the protection granted to national art treasures». Both the Morning that theExcelsior they had defined the theory as a hoax, as did the prefect of police. At the time, always on the Guardianit was written: «What arouses universal amazement is the ease with which it was unhooked from its place and taken away without any impediment». In 1946, however, the jewels of the Second Empire had disappeared: the collection consisted of tiaras, necklaces, rings and pendants. In this case the thieves would have hidden in the museum after closing time and would have escaped through a window using a rope. The theft of some pieces of Renaissance armor dates back to 1983 and were only found in Bordeaux in 2021.
Thirty-five years ago, two paintings disappeared, including one by Renoir. They had been detached from the frame, but the alarm system had not worked. Eight years later, in 1998, the same fate befell a painting by Camille Corot: in this case too the painting had simply been removed from the frame.
