The Louvre Museum’s Apollo Gallery is crammed with so many paintings, sculptures and tapestries that it is hard to think of another thing being squeezed inside it.

But on Wednesday, as the gallery reopened for the first time in more than nine months, it felt strangely empty. The crown jewels that were once the centerpiece of the room were not there.

The room, its walls gilded in gold, had been closed to visitors since burglars burst into it in October, cracking into two display cases with angle grinders and making off with eight precious crown jewels worth more than $100 million.

“It’s the most beautiful room in the Louvre, and we’ve been deprived of it since Oct. 19,” said Benjamin Randow, 64, a recently retired civil servant walking down the 201-foot hall soon after the museum opened. Yet, as happy as he was to be back, he said, he found the place disconcertingly barren.

“I am still eagerly looking forward to these display cases being filled with objects again,” said Mr. Randow. “It must not just be a hallway that people walk through.”