PARIS — As French police rush to track down where The stolen crown jewels of the Louvre gone, a growing chorus wants to shed light on where they came from.
artifacts were French, but the precious stones were not. Their exotic routes to Paris take them through the shadows of empire, a troubled history that France, like other Western countries with rich museums, has only just begun to confront.
Experts say the attention generated by the robbery provides an opportunity to pressure the Louvre and Europe's major museums to be more honest in explaining the provenance of their collections, and that could prompt broader restitution penalties.
Within hours of the theft, researchers sketched a likely colonial-era map for the materials: sapphires from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), diamonds from India and Brazil, pearls from the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, and emeralds from Colombia.
This doesn't make the Louvre robbery any less criminal. This does make it difficult for the public to understand what has been lost.
“Clearly there is no excuse for theft,” said Emilyn C. Smith, a criminologist at the University of Glasgow who studies heritage crime. “But many of these sites are linked to violent, exploitative and colonial histories.”
While there is no credible evidence that these particular gems were stolen, experts say the debate does not end there: what was legal in the imperial era may still constitute robbery in today's light. In other words, the documents of empire do not define ethics.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the robbery continues. Police have charged the suspects, but investigators fear the jewelry may have been broken or melted down. They are too symbolic to be fenced off, but they can be easily monetized for metal and stones.
The Louvre provides scant information about how the gems were originally recovered from the French crown jewels on display in the Apollo Gallery before the theft.
For example, the Louvre's own catalog describes Queen Marie-Amélie's stolen tiara as being encrusted with “Ceylon sapphires” in their natural, unheated state, edged with diamonds set in gold. It says nothing about who mined them, how they were moved, or under what conditions they were taken.
Provenance is not always a neutral book in Western museums. They sometimes “avoid drawing attention to troubling acquisition stories,” Smith said, adding that the lack of clarity about the gems' origins is likely no coincidence.
The museum did not respond to requests for comment.
The stolen tiaras, necklaces and brooches were made in Paris by elite ateliers and once belonged to such 19th-century figures as Marie-Amélie, Queen Hortense and the wives of two Napoleons, Empress Marie-Louise of Austria and Empress Eugenie. But their raw materials moved through imperial networks that turned global labor, resources – and even slavery – into European prestige, experts say.
Pascal Blanchard, a historian of France's colonial past, draws a line between craftsmanship and delivery. The jewelry “was made in France by French craftsmen,” he said, but many of the stones came through colonial routes and were “products of colonial production.” They were traded “according to the legal conditions…of the time” formed by empires siphoning wealth from Africa, Asia and South America.
Some French critics continue to insist on this. They argue that a national outcry over the loss should sit alongside the story of how imperial France acquired the stones, which court jewelers later set in gold.
India is fighting its most famous battle for its only colonial-era treasure, the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
India has repeatedly demanded that Britain return the mythologized 106-carat gem, which now sits in the Queen Mother's crown at the Tower of London. It probably originated in India's Golconda diamond belt – very similar to the dazzling Regent diamond from the Louvre, which was also legally acquired during imperial times and saved by the 19 October robbers.
The Koh-i-Noor passed from court to court before ending up in British hands, where it was hailed in London as a “legitimate” imperial gift and condemned in India as a trophy taken under the shadow of conquest. A 2017 petition to India's Supreme Court seeking its return was rejected on jurisdictional grounds, but the political and moral dispute continues.
France is not Britain, and Koh-i-Noor is not the history of the Louvre. But this raises questions that are increasingly being asked about 19th-century acquisitions: not just “was it bought?” but “who had the right to sell?” According to this indicator, experts say, even jewelry made in France can be considered products of colonial origin.
The Louvre case concerns a world already filled with other battles. Greece demands Britain to reunite the Parthenon Marbles. Egypt is campaigning for the Rosetta Stone in London and a bust of Nefertiti in Berlin.
France has advanced, but only slightly. President Emmanuel Macron's commitment to returning some of Africa's heritage has led to legislation allowing the return of 26 royal treasures to Benin and other items to Senegal. Madagascar regained the crown of Queen Ranavalona III through a special process.
Critics say restitution is structurally blocked: French law prohibits the removal of state-owned objects unless parliament makes a special exception, and risk-averse museums keep everything else behind glass.
They also say that under former Louvre chief Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum's narrow definition of what is considered “looted” – and its requirement for a near-legal level of evidence – had a chilling effect on restitution claims, even as the museum publicly praised transparency. (The Louvre claims to follow the law and academic standards.)
Asking museum visitors to admire artifacts such as the French crown jewels without understanding their social history is dishonest, says Erin L. Thompson, an art crime specialist in New York. A decolonized approach, she and others argue, would identify where such stones come from, how trade works, who profits and who pays, and shares attribution with communities of origin.
Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna calls this contradiction glaring.
“Yes, the irony is profound,” she said of protests over last month’s theft at the Louvre, “and it’s central to the conversation about restitution.” She expects the heist to spark restitution efforts in Western museums and intensify debate about transparency.
Hanna and other experts say that at a minimum, museums need stronger words: clear labels and writing on the walls that acknowledge where objects came from, how they were moved and at whose expense. This would mean publishing what is known, acknowledging what is not, and inviting controversial stories into the gallery—even if they steal the show.
Some offer a practical route.
“Tell a fair and complete story,” said Dutch restitution specialist Joos van Beurden. “Open your windows not for thieves, but for fresh air.”
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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.
