Nine pieces of art, mainly Western-style gold purses and cosmetic containers covered with jewels and made between 1920 and 1945, were stolen from an exhibition in the Palace Museum at midnight on May 8.

A spokesman with the Palace Museum apologized on Wednesday.

"The Palace Museum bears an unshirkable responsibility for this regretful incident," said Feng Nai'en, assistant curator and spokesman of the museum.

"I apologize to all those who care about the Palace Museum."

"The incident shows that we need to speed up the installation and upgrade of our security systems," Feng said.

Feng said guards saw a suspect trying to flee an area in the museum where the exhibition was held that night but the man eventually escaped despite a thorough search.

A large hole was found in a decorative wall at the palace, said Ma Jige, deputy director of the exhibition department of the museum.

Media reports said alarms in the Palace Museum did not function during the incident.

Feng said the museum is currently undergoing security reinforcement.

Police said Two of the missing items, a Van Cleef and Arples diamond inset gold dinner bag and a Cartier gold cosmetic container, were recovered on Monday at the foot of a wall on the east side of the museum.However, the two items had been damaged and could not be repaired easily, said Tracy Wong, curator of the Hong Kong Liangyi Museum, which is owned by collector Fung Yiu-fai.