The dawn of Thursday, September 4, several people entered the museum, in the city of Limoges, in the center of France, and stole three pieces of Chinese porcelain valued at 9.5 million euros, according to the first indications of the investigation, the alleged thieves entered through one of the museum’s windows and although the alarm was activated, they managed to subtract two dishes and a vessel. Emile Roger Lombertie, director of the center, confirmed to the press that the security system worked although, he apostilled, “it must be reviewed.”
The stolen pieces are qualified, according to the Adrien Dubouché Museum, as “national treasures.” This institution houses a collection of about 18,000 works, including the largest set of porcelain pieces in this region, according to data from the museum itself.
In the case of the dishes, these are “especially important objects, made in porcelain and from the Chinese manufacture of Jingdezhen, decorated in white and blue and dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries”, explained from the museum after the robbery. Only the Chinese vessel, from the seventeenth century, is appraised at about 6.5 million euros.
The Museum had to close its doors on Thursday morning and the Prosecutor’s Office of Limoges has announced the opening of an investigation for “aggravated robbery of cultural goods exposed in a museum committed in a group and with degradations.”
