Louvre heist leaves a cultural wound — and may turn French crown jewels into legend
Published: 27 Oct. 2025, 09:07
![Tourists take photo withn their mobile phone to the Louvre pyramid courtyard after the announcement that the museum will remain closed for a second day following thieves stole priceless jewels from the museum in Paris a day earlier, in Paris on Oct. 20. [AFP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/10/27/98829c50-95f3-4f6f-b4ab-0f374cf7c90d.jpg)
Tourists take photo withn their mobile phone to the Louvre pyramid courtyard after the announcement that the museum will remain closed for a second day following thieves stole priceless jewels from the museum in Paris a day earlier, in Paris on Oct. 20. [AFP/YONHAP]
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.
![People gather outisde the closed Louvre Museum after a robbery and evacuation of the Museum, in Paris on Oct. 19. Robbers broke in to the Louvre and fled with jewellery that morning. [AFP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/10/27/aff0add6-b1df-4b4e-935d-79a896edf4cd.jpg)
People gather outisde the closed Louvre Museum after a robbery and evacuation of the Museum, in Paris on Oct. 19. Robbers broke in to the Louvre and fled with jewellery that morning. [AFP/YONHAP]
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.
![French police officers stand in front of the Louvre Museum after a robbery, in Paris on Oct. 19. Robbers broke in to the Louvre and fled with jewellery on the same morning. [AFP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/10/27/d4c61e72-2178-4d20-932c-0edaf6c1a6eb.jpg)
French police officers stand in front of the Louvre Museum after a robbery, in Paris on Oct. 19. Robbers broke in to the Louvre and fled with jewellery on the same morning. [AFP/YONHAP]
“I’d never even heard of Eugenie’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 Eugenie’s damaged crown, has since been quietly recovered, though they have declined to identify it.
![French police officers patrol in front of the Louvre Museum after it was robbed, with the Louvre Pyramid designed by Ieoh Ming Pei in the background, in Paris on Oct. 19. [AFP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/10/27/7d13d311-fc70-4180-920a-fb87fcb22fde.jpg)
French police officers patrol in front of the Louvre Museum after it was robbed, with the Louvre Pyramid designed by Ieoh Ming Pei in the background, in Paris on Oct. 19. [AFP/YONHAP]
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.
![Visitors queue outside the Louvre Museum reopened after the October 19 jewelry theft, its Apollo Gallery remaining closed. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/10/27/06ab5de0-2bc8-43e5-b74e-cc346bffb9ba.jpg)
Visitors queue outside the Louvre Museum reopened after the October 19 jewelry theft, its Apollo Gallery remaining closed. [YONHAP]
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 facade, 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-Amelie, Hortense, Marie-Louise and Empress Eugenie.
![A wedding couple hugs as visitors queue to enter the Louvre museum three days after historic jewels were stolen in a daring daylight heist, on Oct. 22 in Paris. [AP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/10/27/4d32e352-012c-4d9b-b8ce-190122903db4.jpg)
A wedding couple hugs as visitors queue to enter the Louvre museum three days after historic jewels were stolen in a daring daylight heist, on Oct. 22 in Paris. [AP/YONHAP]
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.
AP
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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