The brazen robbery on Sunday has put a spotlight on security protocols in the sprawling museum, which have been tested over the years by break-ins and thefts.

Laurence des Cars is speaking for the first time since a gang of masked thieves - who remain at large - carried out Sunday's robbery.

The Louvre remained closed Monday, a day after historic jewels were stolen from the world’s most-visited museum in a daring daylight heist that prompted authorities to reassess security measures at cultural sites across France.

The robbery at the Louvre may go down as one of the most audacious thefts in modern history, both due to the thieves' apparent planning and security failures at the museum

In that sense, the Louvre heist wasn’t really art crime, Vernon Rapley, a former leader of the London police force’s art squad, told my colleague Alex Marshall. It was “commodity theft.”

Museums are notoriously hard to protect. The Paris heist may have more in common with a "smash and grab" than a glamorous movie plot.

The world was shocked to learn of the brazen daytime burglary at the venerated Paris institution, but art experts told the Daily Beast why they could have predicted it.

A manhunt is under way after thieves broke into the Louvre and stole “priceless” jewellery that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte’s family.