Two pieces of ornate 16th-century armor have returned to the Louvre after a nearly four-decade absence. The elaborate breastplate and helmet were stolen from the renowned Paris museum on May 31, 1983, and then vanished for the next 38 years.
Forged in Milan during the Italian Renaissance between 1560 and 1580, the metal armor was inlaid with gold and silver and is estimated to be worth about $603,000 (500,000 euros), the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on March 3.
In January, a military antiquities expert spotted the armor after he was hired by an auctioneer for an estate auction appraisal in Bordeaux, France. He was suspicious about the armor’s origins, so he notified officials with the French Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Goods (OCBC), a special police unit for tracking stolen property of historical and cultural importance. Authorities then identified the missing armor from a list maintained by Treima — an electronic database of stolen objects, Today24 News reported. Read more.
