No Chardins? No Leonardos? We’re lucky the Louvre raiders had dreadful taste in art

The philistine thieves skipped the museum’s real treasures in favour of dull royal knick-knacks. Was the French cultural minister serious when he talked about their ‘immeasurable cultural value’?I am furious. My instructions had been perfectly clear: break into the Louvre, head for the Denon wing and deliver me the Leonardo da Vincis. Instead, what did they do? Brought me trinkets! Stand there, over the trap door. A bit more to the right.It would be nice to think an art collector supervillain somewhere was punishing the Louvre raiders for their moronic bad taste. Admittedly, security around the Mona Lisa has improved since it was last stolen in 1911, but the museum’s other Leonardos just hang on the wall like other paintings. And there is so much beauty, so many quiet galleries, scattered through this vast former palace: the thieves could have got out with a Chardin still life, a Rogier van der Weyden, an ancient Mesopotamian statuette. Continue reading...

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