The Louvre Museum in Paris has announced the recovery of a set of armor from the Renaissance of gold and silver – almost 40 years after it was stolen.
An expert on military antiques warned police after being called in to give advice on a legacy in Bordeaux in January and became suspicious of the luxury helmet and body armor in the family’s collection.
Police later took the items from a database of stolen artwork from the Louvre on May 31, 1983, under circumstances that are a mystery.
Bordeaux prosecutors are now investigating how they ended up in the family’s estate.
The armor and helmet are thought to have been made in Milan between 1560 and 1580. They were donated to the Louvre in 1922 by the Rothschild family.
‘I was sure we would see them appear again one day, because they are such simple objects. But I could never have imagined that it would work out so well – that they would be in France and still be together, “Philippe Malgouyres, the Louvre’s head of heritage art, said on Wednesday.
‘These are prestige weapons, manufactured with virtuosity, similar to a luxury car of today. In the 16th century, weapons became very luxurious works of art. “Armor has become an ornament that has nothing to do with its use,” he said.
There are 100,000 objects on the French database of worldwide stolen works of art, and 900 were added last year alone.
According to Jean-Luc Martinez, the president-director of the Louvre, the last theft from the world’s most visited museum in 1998 was a portrait of 19th-century French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
“We’re still looking for it,” Martinez said.