Guests queue close to the glass Pyramid to enter contained in the Louvre Museum on a sunny spring day in Paris, France, April 18, 2025.
Abdul Saboor | Reuters
A theft occurred on the Louvre on Sunday, France’s tradition minister stated, because the museum closed for the day whereas authorities examine.
“A theft passed off this morning on the opening of the Louvre Museum,” Rachida Dati wrote on X.
The Louvre stated it could shut “for distinctive causes,” providing no additional particulars on the heist. No accidents had been reported.
Dati stated she was on website and that an investigation was underway.
French day by day Le Parisien reported that the criminals entered the world’s most visited museum and former palace by way of the Seine-facing facade, the place building is underway. The report stated they used a freight elevator to achieve direct entry to the focused room within the Apollo Gallery.
After breaking home windows, they reportedly stole “9 items from the jewellery assortment of Napoleon and the Empress,” Le Parisien stated.
The Louvre has a protracted historical past of thefts and tried robberies. Essentially the most well-known was in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its body, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee who hid contained in the museum and walked out with the portray underneath 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 art work.
In 1983, two Renaissance-era items of armor had been stolen from the Louvre and solely recovered almost 4 a long time later. The museum’s assortment additionally bears the legacy of Napoleonic-era looting that continues to spark restitution debates at present.
The Louvre is dwelling to greater than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and portray — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters. Its star points of interest embody the Mona Lisa, in addition to the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
The Galerie d’Apollon, the place Sunday’s theft reportedly passed off, shows a number of the French Crown Jewels.
The museum can draw as much as 30,000 guests a day.
