Louvre's Apollo Gallery reopens empty nine months after $102 million jewel heist

Reopening after nine months

The Apollo Gallery at the Louvre welcomed visitors again on July 22, nine months after a daylight heist emptied it of its crown jewels. The gilded hall, stretching 61 metres, was stripped of display cases and precious objects, leaving only its ornate ceilings and tapestries. Benjamin Randow, a retired civil servant, walked the length of the gallery soon after it opened.

I am still eagerly looking forward to these display cases being filled with objects again. It must not just be a hallway that people walk through.

Other tourists aimed their cameras at the window the thieves used, drawn by the notoriety of the crime.

The October heist

On the morning of October 19, 2025, four men used a truck-mounted crane to reach a balcony window of the Apollo Gallery. Armed with angle grinders, they forced open two display cases and stole eight crown jewels in under eight minutes. The haul, valued at €88 million ($102 million), included a pearl-and-diamond tiara, an emerald necklace, earrings and a brooch. The thieves fled on scooters, dropping Empress Eugénie's diamond-and-emerald crown, which was later recovered badly deformed but nearly intact. Four suspects have been arrested, but the remaining stolen items have not been found.

A gallery without jewels

Louvre director Christophe Leribault has decided to leave the Apollo Gallery empty, restoring it to its original 17th-century role as a ceremonial promenade.

It's a bit strange to see it empty in this way, but that was actually its function. It was a grand state reception gallery.

The remaining crown jewels, including the damaged crown, will be displayed in a windowless, secure room elsewhere in the museum. The crown's restoration is underway; the Louvre reported in February that only one eagle ornament is missing and the piece can be repaired without full reconstruction.

Security overhaul and fallout

The heist exposed serious security gaps, from outdated video surveillance to structural vulnerabilities flagged in a 2019 audit. Leribault, who took over after former director Laurence des Cars resigned, has hired a police commissioner as security coordinator and added cameras around the building. Union representative Élise Muller, a Louvre security agent, said the measures are insufficient.

You can't make up for four years of delay in six months.

Staff had staged strikes over working conditions even before the theft, and the heist deepened internal tensions.

A new pilgrimage site

Culture Minister Catherine Pégard called the theft "a trauma for the entire world" and said the reopening allows visitors to rediscover the gallery's architecture. The vaulted ceiling features Charles Le Brun's 17th-century paintings of Apollo and Eugène Delacroix's 40-foot-wide "Apollo Slaying the Serpent Python." Tourists now flock to the Seine-side window for selfies, turning the crime scene into a 21st-century attraction.

It was a trauma for the entire world, which, for several days, expressed its shock and sadness in every language.

One visitor summed up the draw: "Of course we wanted to see and take a photo in front of the famous window." The gallery, once an outdoor terrace, has become a myth in the age of viral videos.