The address of Louvre Museum defended the quality of display cases where the jewels stolen on Sunday were found, in response to an article published by a French satirical newspaper that claimed they were “apparently more fragile than the old ones.”
“The Louvre museum claims that the display cases installed in December 2019 represented a considerable progress in terms of securitysince the degree of obsolescence of the old equipment was evident and, if it had not been replaced, it would have forced the works to be removed from exhibition to the public,” the management of the Parisian art gallery told AFP.
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The satirical publication The Chained Duck states that the robo of the historic pieces on Sunday morning “was made possible by the ultra-modern display cases of the crown jewels, apparently more fragile than the ancient ones“.
The group of thieves only needed a few minutes to enter the Apollo gallerywhich they accessed with an outside forklift, breaking several display cases installed in 2019 with a disc saw, and taking nine pieces of jewelry. Then, in their escape, they abandoned one of the pieces.
Le Canard Enchaîné compares to the Louvre
Le Canard Enchaîné claims that an old armored display case installed in the gallery in the 1950s and equipped with a system that allowed it to disappear “at the first alert” in a safe hidden at its base would have prevented the robbery if it had stayed in place.
The Louvre management insists that this system, equipped with a new mechanism in the 1980s, was “obsoletewith incidents of blocking in the descent of the sides”.
“Several accidents occurred“, which put “the works in danger,” the museum added.
After several studies started in 2014, they were commissioned three new display cases“which complied with all the necessary guarantees”, including the two broken on Sunday, the same source specified.