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THE HEADLINES
LOUVRE UNCOVERED. The smash-and-grab at the Louvre onSunday, when masked thieves stole jewels once belonging to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in broad daylight, is becoming an exponential embarrassment for the museum. With French officials already blushing at the apparent ease of the robbery and a leaked audit suggesting the Louvre’s security systems were “outdated and inadequate,” Emmanuel Macron’s government has now revealed that the loot is not privately insured. This revelation is particularly painful for the museum because the jewels were valued at $102 million, a Paris prosecutor said on Tuesday. This comes after French authorities claimed they were of “incalculable” value. According to the French culture ministry, the country would not be reimbursed for any losses linked to the stolen items if they are not recovered by the police. Officers are continuing to investigate but leads have been thin on the ground. A culture ministry spokesperson said in a statement first reported by French newspaper Le Parisien: “The state acts as its own insurer when national museums’ works are in their typical place of conservation.” The French state is usually liable for artworks and objects in its national collection, but museums almost always buy insurance cover when transporting works or lending to another institution. The culture ministry said that the insurance value is “very often higher than the value of acquiring the work.”
Related Articles
WOMEN & GEN Z TOPPLE BOOMERS. The Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025 reads like a snapshot of an art world at a hinge moment—between generations, values, and the physical and digital spheres that define culture today, ARTnews’ Daniel Cassady writes. Conducted across ten markets with 3,100 high-net-worth collectors, the report offers quantitative proof of something the art world has sensed for years: the future of collecting no longer belongs to a small fraternity of boomer patrons. Instead, as this year’s report indicates, it’s increasingly shaped by women and by the first generation to grow up online. Nearly three-quarters of the survey’s respondents are Gen Z or Millennials, a demographic shift that’s redefining how taste, access, and value are negotiated in real time. These younger collectors are more global, more digital, and more comfortable collapsing the boundaries between art, design, fashion, and technology. For them, collecting isn’t merely ownership—it’s participation. And the numbers prove it. Gen Z collectors now allocate an average 26 percent of their wealth to art, the highest share of any age group. Their portfolios stretch beyond paintings to include digital works, limited-edition design, even sneakers and sports assets. The report’s foreword notes that art “increasingly sits alongside design, luxury goods, and lifestyle collectibles,” blurring the old hierarchies between aesthetic judgment and personal branding.
The Digest
Archaeologists in Croatia have discovered a rare mass grave inside ancient water wells at Mursa (modern-day Osijek), revealing the bodies to be soldiers of diverse backgrounds who may have fought in the Battle of Mursa around 260 CE. The multidisciplinary investigation, published in PLOS ONE, provides new insight into how the Roman Empire recruited armies from ethnically diverse backgrounds. [Phys Org]
James Turrell is bringing his “most ambitious” installation to Denmark next June, when his Skyspace work will be shown at the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum. [The Art Newspaper]
The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has announced Anthony Kiendl as its next director, effective December 1. Kiendl, who holds dual US and Canadian citizenship, was most recently chief executive and executive director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, which he departed this past March. He will step into the role vacated by Nora Burnett Abrams. [Artforum]
British conceptual artist Anish Kapoor’s striking pigment sculptures and “depth-defying small forms” will be on view in the exhibition “Anish Kapoor: Early Works” at the newly refurbished Jewish Museum in New York, which reopens to the public on October 24. [Hyperallergic]
The Kicker
Art heists are all the rage at the moment, after two museums in Paris, including the Louvre, were looted over the last few days. But if Laurence des Cars, the Louvre’s director, is embarrassed about the way the guards were hoodwinked in broad daylight, it’s nothing compared to the shame felt by the fictional museum director in new movie The Mastermind. Written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, it follows “a bumbling art thief [who] steals four paintings from a museum where the guards are literally asleep on the job—and [he] still doesn’t get away with it,” Brian Boucher writes for Artnet News. “It’s less The Thomas Crown Affair and more Burn After Reading, but the laughs are subtler, everything moves much slower, and the characters are more finely shaded, in classic Reichardt style.” Out now in movie theaters.
