Colonial-era jewels ‘made in France’
The Louvre provides scant information about how the gems in the French crown jewels – showcased in the Apollo Gallery until the theft – were originally extracted.
For example, the Louvre’s own catalogue describes the stolen diadem of Queen Marie-Amélie as set with “Ceylon sapphires” in their natural, unheated state, bordered with diamonds in gold. It says nothing about who mined them, how they moved, or under what terms they were taken.
Provenance isn’t always a neutral ledger in Western museums. They sometimes “avoid spotlighting uncomfortable acquisition histories”, Smith said, adding that the lack of clarity about the gems’ origins is probably no accident.
An Interpol photo of the jewels stolen from the Louvre in the October 19 heist.Credit: AP
The museum did not respond to requests for comment.
The stolen tiaras, necklaces and brooches were crafted in Paris by elite ateliers and once belonged to 19th-century figures such as Marie-Amélie, Queen Hortense, and the wives of two Napoleons, Empress Marie-Louise of Austria and Empress Eugénie. Their raw materials, however, moved through imperial networks that converted global labour, resources and even slavery into European prestige, experts say.
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Pascal Blanchard, a historian of France’s colonial past, draws a line between craftsmanship and supply. The jewels “were made in France by French artisans”, he said, but many stones came via colonial circuits and were “products of colonial production”. They were traded “under the legal conditions … of the time”, ones shaped by empires that siphoned wealth from Africa, Asia and South America.
Some French critics press the point further. They argue that national outcry over loss should sit beside the history of how imperial France acquired the stones that court jewellers later set in gold.
India and the British Crown’s Koh-i-Noor
India is waging the best-known battle over a single colonial-era treasure – the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
India has repeatedly pressed the UK to return the mythologised 106-carat jewel, now set in the Queen Mother’s crown at the Tower of London. It likely originated in India’s Golconda diamond belt – much like the Louvre’s dazzling Regent diamond, one that was also legally acquired in imperial times and spared by the October 19 robbers.
The Koh-i-Noor diamond is the centrepiece of the British Crown.Credit: AP
The Koh-i-Noor passed from court to court before landing in British hands, where it is hailed in London as a “lawful” imperial gift and denounced in India as a prize taken under the shadow of conquest. A 2017 petition to India’s Supreme Court seeking its return was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but the political and moral dispute endures.
France is not Britain, and the Koh-i-Noor is not the Louvre’s story. But it frames the questions increasingly applied to 19th-century acquisitions: not only “was it bought?” but “who had the power to sell?” On that measure, experts say, even jewels made in France can be considered products of colonial extraction.
The Louvre case lands in a world already primed by other fights. Greece presses Britain to reunite the Parthenon Marbles. Egypt campaigns for the Rosetta Stone in London and the Nefertiti bust in Berlin.
France has acted haltingly on restitutions
France has moved – narrowly. President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to return parts of Africa’s heritage produced a law enabling the return of 26 royal treasures to Benin and items to Senegal. Madagascar recovered the crown of Queen Ranavalona III through a specific process.
Critics argue that restitution is structurally blocked: French law prohibits the removal of state-held objects unless parliament makes a special exception, and risk-averse museums keep the rest behind glass.
‘Tell the honest and complete story. Open the windows, not for thieves, but for fresh air.’
Jos van Beurden, Dutch restitution specialist
They also say that under former Louvre chief Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum’s narrow definition of what counts as “looted” – and its demand for near-legal levels of proof – created a chilling effect on restitution claims, even as the museum publicly praised transparency. (The Louvre says it follows the law and academic standards.)
Asking museum visitors to marvel at artefacts like the French crown jewels without understanding their social history is dishonest, says Erin Thompson, an art-crime scholar in New York. A decolonised approach, they argue, would name the origin of such stones, describe how the trade worked, identify who profited and who paid, and share authorship with the origin communities.
Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna calls the contradiction glaring.
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“Yes, the irony is profound,” she said of the outcry over last month’s Louvre theft, “and it’s central to the conversation about restitution.” She expects the heist will trigger action on restitutions across Western museums and fuel debate about transparency.
At a minimum, Hanna and other experts say, what’s needed from museums are stronger words: plain-spoken labels and wall texts that acknowledge where objects came from, how they moved, and at whose expense. It would mean publishing what is known, admitting what isn’t, and inviting contested histories into the gallery – even when they cloud the shine.
Some offer a practical path.
“Tell the honest and complete story,” said Dutch restitution specialist Jos van Beurden. “Open the windows, not for thieves, but for fresh air.”
AP
