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France will not receive any payout for the crown jewels stolen from the Louvre because they were not covered by private insurance. Eight items described as “priceless” by the French culture ministry were stolen from cabinets in the Paris museum on Sunday. Police are still tracking down the burglars, who dropped and broke a ninth item – the crown of Empress Eugénie – during their escape, which has been retrieved. The Louvre, similar to many public museums and galleries, is self-insured and absorbs any costs related to loss, theft or damage. Many of its treasures – such as the Mona Lisa and the Napoleonic Crown jewels – are “priceless goods”, making it nearly impossible for insurers to appraise the works. France’s cultural ministry confirmed it would not be reimbursed for the jewels, which have an “inestimable heritage and historical value”. A spokesman added: “The state acts as its own insurer when national museums’ works are in their typical place of conservation.” In France, assets at 61 national museums are not insured, Irène Barnouin, an art sales director at Willis Towers Watson insurance company, said. She told Les Echos: “The state is its own insurer.” Moreover, the insurance premiums would be astronomical, especially for a museum like the Louvre which houses tens of thousands of works and is unlikely to sell its masterpieces, the ministry of culture said. Cultural institutions often buy insurance when transporting objects between other museums but works in the national collection are typically liable to the state. Similarly, the Crown Jewels of the UK – which include “priceless” artefacts like the Coronation Regalia, sceptres, swords and rings – are not insured. At 9.30am on Sunday, shortly after the Louvre opened its doors to the public, a team of four thieves used a truck-mounted lift and angle grinders to break into the museum’s Apollo Gallery. Among the stolen objects were a sapphire necklace, earrings and a tiara belonging to Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense, and an emerald necklace and earrings that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to his second wife, Marie Louise, as a wedding present. A diadem laden with 2,000 diamonds that belonged to Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, a corsage bow bought in 2008 for £5.8 million and a reliquary brooch were also removed from their cabinets. It emerged on Tuesday that the thieves stole the truck-mounted lift from a seller who listed it online. The owner said he was assaulted and the buyers drove off without paying, and he recognised it when watching footage of the heist, he told Le Parisien. The man was reportedly based in the town of Louvres, near the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Second theft in Paris Just hours after the Paris heist on Sunday, another theft was carried out at the Denis Diderot Museum of Enlightenment in Langres, Haute-Marne, where a sliding door had been forced open and gold and silver coins stolen. Last month, €600,000 (£521,000) worth of gold was stolen from the National History Museum in Paris. On Tuesday, Spanish police said a Chinese national, 24, was arrested in Barcelona and handed over to French authorities. At the time of her arrest, she was reportedly melting pieces of gold that weighed nearly 2.2 lbs. and was preparing to return to China. Meanwhile, a preliminary report from the Court of Auditors leaked to the French press reveals serious security flaws at the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum. Authors report that 60 per cent of the rooms in the Sully wing and 75 per cent of the Richelieu wing are not protected by video surveillance. The full report is due to be released in November. Chris Marinello, the chief executive of Art Recovery International, said he feared it was already too late to save the jewels. “I hate to say it, but I believe it’s already too late, they should have issued a reward at the outset. The prosecutor should have gone on record and said we are going to catch you,” Mr Marinello told The Telegraph. “Eventually, they will arrest somebody but we are getting to the point where those jewels are long gone. They will likely be broken up and dispersed without a trace.” He said the idea of an inside job would be one of the obvious enquiries for police but the theft seemed too brazen in this case. He added: “That’s always something that law enforcement will look into, how do you get into a locked room, how to evade the system, how to avoid cameras, but they didn’t care about any of that. They did it in broad daylight. It was basically a glorified, well-planned smash and grab.”
