{"id":558044,"date":"2026-07-24T21:49:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/558044\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T21:49:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:49:24","slug":"louvre-gallery-reopens-with-no-jewellery-after-heist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/558044\/","title":{"rendered":"Louvre gallery reopens with no jewellery after heist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Louvre Museum’s Apollo Gallery has\u00a0reopened to visitors\u00a0\u00a0without any jewels on display, nine months after a daring robbery.<\/p>\n

Crown jewels worth $US102 million\u00a0($NZ175 million)\u00a0were taken,\u00a0exposing\u00a0major security failings at the world’s most-visited museum.<\/p>\n

Visitors can once again examine the Apollo Gallery’s richly decorated 17th-century interior, one of the Louvre’s most celebrated historic spaces.<\/p>\n

But jewels will instead be exhibited elsewhere in the Paris museum in a more secure location, Louvre director Christophe Leribault said.<\/p>\n

The gallery, created under a young King Louis XIV, served as inspiration for the glittering Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.<\/p>\n

It was designed by architect Louis Le Vau and decorated by painter Charles Le Brun according to the theme of the sun, in honour of Louis XIV.<\/p>\n

Culture Minister Catherine Pegard hailed the gallery’s re-opening on Wednesday\u00a0as the symbol of a new beginning for the museum after what she said had been a “trauma for the whole world”, and she pledged to beef up security at museums nationwide.<\/p>\n

In October last year, two men parked a movers’ lift outside the Louvre in broad daylight, rode up to the second storey, smashed a window, cracked open display cases with angle grinders, and then fled on the back of scooters driven by two accomplices in a heist lasting less than seven minutes.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"This crown belonging to Empress Eugenie was found damaged near the museum and is being restored. Photo: Louvre Museum via Reuters <\/p>\n

Four people suspected of direct involvement in the heist have been charged and are\u00a0in custody.<\/p>\n

However, the stolen items remain missing, except for a crown belonging to Empress Eugenie, Napoleon III’s wife, which was found damaged near the museum and is undergoing restoration.<\/p>\n

In February, Laurence des Cars, who headed the museum at the time of the heist, resigned after facing intense criticism over the robbery and rolling strikes over pay and conditions.<\/p>\n

Critics including the state auditors’ office have questioned the museum’s low spending on security and infrastructure maintenance while it made lavish purchases of new artwork, only a quarter of which is open to the public, and spent heavily on post-pandemic relaunch projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Louvre Museum’s Apollo Gallery has\u00a0reopened to visitors\u00a0\u00a0without any jewels on display, nine months after a daring robbery.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-558044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}