What we now know about the theft from the Musée Cognacq-Jay

21/11/24 - Robbery - Paris, Musée Cognacq-Jay - Many people, particularly on social networks, are questioning the security at the Musée Cognacq-Jay, which may have enabled yesterday’s robbery to take place. We don’t know how solid the broken display case really was (was it armoured, for example?), but to claim that it would be possible to prevent four determined men armed with axes and bats from entering and leaving a small museum seems rather presumptuous. Unless armed and trained guards are employed in these establishments (which is fortunately not the case) and protective measures worthy of Fort Knox are put in place, such an attack will remain possible. It proves a contrario the absurdity of the current "Vigipirate" measures, which only inconvenience ordinary visitors and can in no way prevent this type of incident, let alone an attack.

While the City of Paris cannot be held responsible on this issue (unless real failings are observed), its failure to communicate is perfectly absurd and scandalous. As the Louvre stated in a press release sent to AFP last night: "Considering the historical value and the precious nature of these pieces, the Louvre wishes to facilitate the rapid identification of these two works of art as part of the ongoing investigations, in order, in particular, to make it difficult for them to be fenced".
Clearly, it is necessary to communicate rapidly about the stolen objects. Even if the chances of finding them are slim, they will be even slimmer if we don’t know what we’re looking for.

Here we can say more about the scale of the theft. On the one hand, as the Louvre has said, two of its most valuable snuffboxes have been stolen. They are :

1. Johann Christian Neuber (1736-1808)
Snuffbox, 1763-1770
Agate, gold - 3.9 x 8 x 5.8 cm
Stolen from the Musée Cognacq-Jay
Paris, Musée du Louvre

See the image in its page

– a snuffbox by Johann Christian Neuber (ill. 1)

2. Daniel Baudesson (1716-1785)
Snuffbox,…