A historic diamond necklace, originally designed for the Egyptian royal family and valued at around $4 million, was stolen from a major museum in Vienna, and the police are actively pursuing two suspects involved in the theft.
According to a report from Bloomberg on August 28th, the police statement indicates that two men smashed a display case at the Applied Arts Museum in Vienna last Thursday (August 27) during opening hours and then fled on foot. Their target was a necklace designed by Van Cleef & Arpels specifically for the 1939 Egyptian royal wedding.
The necklace was created for the wedding of Princess Fawzia of Egypt and Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. Sotheby’s auction house valued it between $3.6 million to $4.6 million in 2015. The necklace is made of platinum and adorned with 673 diamonds, totaling 200 carats.
This is the most valuable art theft to occur in Vienna since the theft of Benvenuto Cellini’s gold and enamel salt cellar from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 2003. The stolen artwork, worth €50 million, was recovered three years later.
This theft is expected to once again raise concerns about museum security measures. Previously, the Louvre Museum experienced a daylight jewelry theft worth approximately $100 million, leading to the resignation of the museum director despite several arrests being made.
This week, a museum in Villena, Spain, was also targeted by thieves, resulting in the theft of a collection of 3000-year-old golden artifacts.
According to the police, the thieves who committed the theft in Vienna on Thursday escaped in an unknown direction. Descriptions provided indicate that both suspects are slim males around 175 centimeters (5 feet 9 inches) tall with dark hair and beards. Surveillance footage shows them wearing black clothing and dark-colored sneakers. The exhibition named “Masterpieces of Beauty: Van Cleef & Arpels High Jewelry and Masterpieces from MAK Collection,” a collaboration with the luxury brand from Paris, was scheduled to end on September 27. The exhibition was located on the famous Ringstrasse in Vienna.
The museum released a statement on Friday, announcing that following discussions with investigators, the jewelry exhibition has reopened to the public after a brief closure.