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PARIS — A daring heist at the Louvre saw thieves break into the Apollo Gallery, using an angle grinder to cut through display cases and making off with a cache of Napoleonic jewels.
During their audacious escape through a window, however, the crown of Empress Eugénie slipped from their grasp, falling to the ground and suffering damage.
This week, more than 100 days following the incident, the Louvre museum has released images of the crown’s current condition. The images come as the museum prepares for restoration work aimed at returning the crown to its original splendor.
The crown, commissioned by Napoleon III, was crafted for Empress Eugénie de Montijo and made its debut at the 1855 Paris Universal Exposition.
This piece is part of a rare collection of French crown jewels still owned by the nation. Most of these jewels were plundered during the French Revolution, beginning in 1789, and the remainder was largely auctioned off by the French state in a wave of republican fervor almost a century later.
Though never used for a coronation, it became a symbol of imperial power before entering the Louvre’s collection in 1988.
For decades, the crown dazzled millions of visitors with its 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, accenting eight palmettes alternating with stately gold eagles.
Today, one eagle is missing, and half of the palmettes have detached – with some misshapen.
The once-proud diamond-and-emerald orb, a symbol of imperial might, now sinks into the crown’s crumpled frame, though it remains intact.
Experts believe the crown’s flexible mount was strained when thieves wrenched it from its display through a narrow slot cut by the angle grinder, according to a report by the Louvre.
“This stress caused the crown’s hoops to detach, one of which has already been lost in the gallery,” the museum said in the report.
The subsequent impact as it hit the ground likely crushed the delicate antique, it added.
While its shape has changed, nearly every component of the crown survives, allowing for a “complete restoration” without reconstruction or recreation, the museum added. “It will simply involve reshaping its framework.”
It has retained all 56 of its emeralds and, of the 1,354 diamonds, only around ten small ones, from the perimeter of the base, are missing. Nine others were detached but preserved.
The Louvre announced it will soon invite restorers to submit proposals for the crown’s repair, in a competitive bidding process overseen by a newly formed committee of experts.
Since the October heist, the museum said it has received offers to help restore the crown from the prestigious jewelry houses of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mellerio, Chaumet, and Boucheron.
The thieves snatched an overall eight pieces of jewelry – not including the crown – from the Louvre in the seven-minute raid back in October.
Among them was a tiara, necklace and single sapphire earring worn by Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, an emerald necklace and emerald earrings belonging to Empress Marie-Louise, and the “reliquary brooch of Empress Eugénie.”
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