<p>Police later identified the items from a database of stolen artworks as having been taken from the Louvre on May 31, 1983, in circumstances that remain a mystery.</p><p>Bordeaux prosecutors are now investigating how they ended up in the family's estate.</p><p>The armour and helmet are thought to have been made in Milan between 1560 and 1580. They were donated to the Louvre in 1922 by the Rothschild family.</p><p>"I was certain we would see them reappear one day because they are such singular objects. But I could never have imagined that it would work out so well -- that they would be in France and still together," said Philippe Malgouyres, the Louvre's head of heritage artworks.</p><p>"They are prestige weapons, made with virtuosity, sort of the equivalent of a luxury car today. In the 16th century, weapons became works of very luxurious art. Armour became an ornament that had nothing to do with its use," he said.</p><p>There are 100,000 objects on France's database of global stolen artworks, with 900 added last year alone.</p><p>According to Jean-Luc Martinez, president-director of the Louvre, the last theft from the world's most-visited museum was in 1998, a portrait by 19th-century French artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.</p><p>"We're still looking for it," Martinez said.</p><p>© 2021 AFP</p>
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