The art theft from the Louvre in Paris on October 19, 2025 shocked the press, the international museum world and the entertainment media. The perpetrators stole French crown jewels, including 8,708 diamonds, 34 sapphires, 38 emeralds and 212 pearls, from the museum’s Galerie d’Apollon.
The way they maneuvered themselves with a mobile furniture elevator through a window into the interior of the former royal palace and, in front of the astonished security staff, cut the glass display cases with a cut-off machine in order to steal the royal jewelry was quick, brazen and film-worthy. But it wasn’t perfect: the suspected perpetrators were caught. The eight stolen pieces of jewelry with an estimated value of 88 million euros, however, remain missing.
The Louvre robbery now has its own afterlife in the media. The Böcker company, manufacturer of the furniture elevator in question, used it for its own advertising: The elevator transports “treasures weighing up to 400 kilos at 42 meters per minute – whisper-quiet,” it recently said in its advertisement. Or the Frankfurt display case company Hahn stated in the “Hessenschau” that their glass display cases had withstood the attack of cut-off machines; Hahn also supplied the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
Stolen tiara from haute couture show
The fashion house’s chief designer spoke up in a captivatingly beautiful way, as is his job Maison SchiaparelliDaniel Roseberry. He likes to transform headline-making news or mass culture phenomena into luxurious designs. For its haute couture show in Paris at the end of January, Roseberry had US actress and musician Teyana Taylor appear with a dazzling necklace and tiara that resembled Empress Eugénie’s stolen piece.
The latest information about the Louvre robbery is also about a stolen crown from that of Empress Eugénies, which was found again. Eugénie de Montijo, actually María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick, wife of Napoleon III. and Empress of the French from 1853 to 1870, was the last monarch of France.
Her rather pompous crown in the Second Empire style was commissioned from the jeweler Alxeandre-Gabriel Lemonnier around 1855. The thieves dropped them near the Louvre on October 19th. It was badly deformed due to the severe violence. Nevertheless, any damage caused should now be able to be completely restored.
All 56 emeralds are preserved, and only a few of the more than 1,300 diamonds are missing. Only one of eight golden eagles was lost. The most important jewelers in France are now to be involved in restoring the damaged crown. A good twist, pour l’instant.