The Louvre reopened its Apollo Gallery to the general public on Wednesday — with none jewelry on display — for the primary time since greater than $100 million in artifacts were stolen in a brazen daytime heist last 12 months.
Visitors are once more welcome to look at the Apollo Gallery, considered one of the Louvre’s most celebrated historic spaces. Its richly decorated Seventeenth-century interior was created under a young King Louis XIV and decorated by painter Charles Le Brun, who was inspired by the theme of the sun.
Jewels will probably be on display elsewhere within the Paris museum in a safer location, its director, Christophe Leribault, who was appointed in February during a staffing overhaul following the robbery, explained in the course of the reopening Wednesday.
He said that it was “also a chance to rediscover the luxurious architecture and decor of this gallery,” The Associated Press reported.
Get every day National news
Get every day Canada news delivered to your inbox so you may never miss the day’s top stories.
France’s Culture Minister Catherine Pégard hailed the gallery’s reopening, marking a brand new starting for the enduring museum after what she said was a “trauma for the entire world,” and pledged to extend security at museums across the country, the U.S. outlet added.
“That sinister day, when iconic pieces were taken, can’t be forgotten, and indeed, I imagine, mustn’t be.”
“It was a trauma for us, discovering the fragility of a spot we thought unshakeable, and which, like so many others, proved vulnerable,” she continued.
Necklace and earrings from the emerald set of Napoleon 1’s second wife, Empress Marie Louise, on display within the Apollo Gallery within the Louvre on May 20, 2021.
MAEVA DESTOMBES/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
On Oct. 19, 2025, at around 9:30 a.m., masked thieves used a basket lift and grinders to interrupt into the second-floor gallery, smash two display cases and steal crown jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million). They then fled on the backs of scooters being driven by two accomplices in a heist lasting lower than seven minutes. By the point alarm systems alerted nearby staff, the intruders had vanished.
The robbery took place about half-hour after the museum opened, with visitors already inside, and unfolded just 250 metres from the Mona Lisa.
4 people suspected of direct involvement within the heist have been charged and are in custody but nine months on, the stolen jewels haven’t been recovered, except Empress Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown containing greater than 1,300 diamonds, which was found broken outside the museum shortly after the robbery.
Security on the Paris museum has since been beefed up with the addition of latest surveillance cameras and anti-intrusion systems, a part of a decade-long, 800 million euro ($933 million) plan to modernize its security infrastructure, reduce crowding and provides the Mona Lisa its own gallery.
The project follows criticism from the French state auditors’ office, which has questioned the museum’s low spending on security and infrastructure maintenance while it made lavish purchases of latest artwork, only 1 / 4 of which is open to the general public, and spent heavily on post-pandemic relaunch projects, Reuters reported.
The Louvre stays the world’s most visited museum, welcoming greater than nine million visitors annually.
— with files from Reuters and The Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.