Officials said the Louvre Museum in Paris has recovered two pieces of stolen Italian Renaissance armor – a gold and silver helmet and breastplate, about 40 years ago.
According to Aigens France-Presse, a military antiques specialist informed police after being suspicious when he was called to advise a family regarding inheritance in Bordeaux in January.
Investigators later identified the long-lost armor from a database of stolen artifacts that had been swiped from the Louvre on May 31, 1983, under circumstances that remained a mystery.
Bordeaux prosecutors are now investigating how the items in the family’s property were exhausted.
Helmets and breastplates are believed to have been made in Milan between 1560 and 1580.
“I was certain that we would see them again one day because they are such eccentric things. But I could never imagine that it would work so well – that they would be in France and still be together,” Philippe Malguières, the Louvre’s head of heritage artifacts, told AFP.
“They are prestige weapons, built with virtue, are today the equivalent of a luxury car. In the 16th century, weapons became works of very magnificent art. The armor became an ornament that had nothing to do with its use, ”he said.
The museum’s director, Jean-Luc Martinez, said the items were “objects of pomp and circumstance”. According to the bbc.
“These are quite extraordinary pieces that belonged to the collection of the Baroness de Rothschild and were donated to the Louvre Museum in 1922,” he said.
There are 100,000 items on France’s database of global theft artifacts.
Martinez said the last theft from the world’s most visited museum was by 19th-century French artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.
“We’re still looking for it,” he said.
Leave a Reply