PARIS (AP) — The glittering sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds that when adorned France’s royals might nicely be gone perpetually, consultants stated Tuesday after a brazen, four-minute heist in broad daylight left the nation shocked and the federal government struggling to elucidate a brand new debacle on the Louvre.
Every stolen piece — an emerald necklace and earrings, two crowns, two brooches, a sapphire necklace and a single earring — represents the head of nineteenth century “haute joaillerie,” or superb jewellery. However for the royals, they have been greater than ornament. The items have been political statements of France’s wealth, energy and cultural import. And they’re so vital that they have been among the many treasures saved from the federal government’s 1887 public sale of most royal jewels.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor whose workplace is main the investigation, stated Tuesday that in financial phrases, the stolen jewellery is price an estimated $102 million (88 million euros) but additionally famous that the estimate doesn’t embody historic worth. About 100 investigators are actually concerned within the police hunt for the suspects and the gems, she stated.
The theft of the crown jewels left the French authorities scrambling — once more — to elucidate the newest embarrassment on the Louvre, which is affected by overcrowding and outdated amenities. Activists in 2024 threw a can of soup on the Mona Lisa. And in June, the museum was dropped at a halt by its personal hanging workers, who complained about mass tourism. President Emmanuel Macron has introduced that the Mona Lisa, stolen by a former museum employee in 1911 and recovered two years later, will get its personal room below a significant renovation.
Now the glowing jewels, artifacts of a French tradition of way back, are probably being secretly dismantled and bought off in a rush as particular person items that will or might not be identifiable as a part of the French crown jewels, consultants stated.
“It’s extremely unlikely these jewels will ever be retrieved and seen again,” stated Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds, a significant European diamond jeweler, stated in a press release. “If these gems are broken up and sold off, they will, in effect, vanish from history and be lost to the world forever.”
Crown jewels are symbols of heritage and nationwide pleasure
Directly intimate and public, crown jewels are stored secured from the Tower of London to Tokyo’s Imperial Palace as visible symbols of nationwide identities.
Within the Louvre’s case, the gems have been stolen from the previous palace’s gilded Apollo Gallery, itself a murals rendered in “sun, gold and diamonds,” per the museum’s web site. Inside Minister Laurent Nunez stated greater than 60 police investigators are concerned within the manhunt for the 4 theft suspects. The thieves have been divided into two pairs, with two individuals aboard a truck with a cherry picker they used to climb as much as the gallery, Nunez stated. Pictures confirmed the tools’s ladder reaching to the ground above avenue stage.
Taken, officers stated, have been eight items, a part of a group whose origin as crown jewels date again to the sixteenth century when King Francis I decreed that they belonged to the state. The Paris prosecutor’s workplace, main the investigation, stated that two males with vivid yellow jackets broke into the gallery at 9:34 a.m. — half an hour previous opening time — and left the room at 9:38 a.m. earlier than fleeing on two motorbikes.
The lacking items embody two crowns, or diadems. One, given by Emperor Napoleon III to the Empress Eugenie in 1853 to rejoice their marriage ceremony, holds greater than 200 pearls and almost 2,000 diamonds. The second is a starry sapphire-and-diamond headpiece — and likewise a necklace and single earring— worn by, amongst others, Queen Marie-Amelie, French authorities stated.
Pierre Suu by way of Getty Photos
Additionally stolen: a necklace of dozens of emeralds and greater than 1,000 diamonds that was a marriage present from Napoleon Bonaparte to his second spouse, Marie-Louise of Austria, in 1810. The matching earrings additionally have been stolen. The thieves additionally made off with a reliquary brooch and a big bodice bow worn by Empress Eugenie — each items diamond-encrusted, French officers stated.
The robbers dropped or deserted a hefty ninth piece, which was broken: a crown adorned with gold eagles, 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, worn by Empress Eugenie.
Left untouched have been different objects within the crown jewel assortment, which earlier than the heist included 23 jewels, in line with the Louvre. Remaining, for instance, is the plum-sized Regent, a white diamond stated to be the most important of its sort in Europe.
Now it’s a race towards time
Past the financial worth of the stolen jewels, the emotional loss is keenly felt and simpler to measure. Many have described France’s failure to safe its most valuable objects as a wounding blow to nationwide pleasure.
“These are family souvenirs that have been taken from the French,” conservative lawmaker Maxime Michelet stated in Parliament on Tuesday, quizzing the federal government about safety on the Louvre and different cultural websites.
“Empress Eugenie’s crown — stolen, then dropped and found broken in the gutter, has become the symbol of the decline of a nation that used to be so admired,” Michelet stated. “It is shameful for our country, incapable of guaranteeing the security of the world’s largest museum.”
The theft Sunday was not the primary Louvre heist lately. But it surely stood out for its forethought, pace and nearly cinematic high quality as one of many highest-profile museum thefts in dwelling reminiscence. The truth is, it echoed the fictional theft from the Louvre of a royal crown by a “gentleman thief” within the French tv present “Lupin” — which in flip relies on a 1905 collection of tales.
The romance of such a theft is generally a creation of showbiz, in line with one theft investigator. Christopher A. Marinello, a lawyer with Artwork Restoration Worldwide, stated he’s by no means seen a “theft-to-order” by some shadowy secret collector.
“These criminals are just looking to steal whatever they can,” Marinello stated. “They chose this room because it was close to a window. They chose these jewels because they figured that they could break them apart, take out the settings, take out the diamonds and the sapphires and the emeralds” abroad to “a dodgy dealer that’s willing to recut them and no one would ever know what they did.”
What occurs now could be a race towards time each for the French authorities looking the thieves and for the perpetrators themselves, who may have a tough time discovering consumers for the items in all their royal glory.
“Nobody will touch these objects. They are too famous. It’s too hot. If you get caught you will end up in prison,” stated Dutch artwork sleuth Arthur Model. “You cannot sell them, you cannot leave them to your children.”
Kellman reported from London. Related Press author Mike Corder contributed from The Hague, Netherlands.
