Mangled and bent, the Louvre heist’s surviving treasure is undergoing ‘complete restoration’
By Laura Sharman, CNN
(CNN) — When thieves broke into the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery and cut through display cases with an angle grinder, they seized a trove of Napoleonic jewels.
But in their daring escape through the window, the crown of Empress Eugénie slipped from their grasp and was left battered on the pavement below.
This week, over 100 days after the crown’s dramatic tumble, the Louvre museum released images showing its current state, ahead of repair work that it hopes can restore its former glory.
Commissioned by Napoleon III, the royal headdress was created for Empress Eugénie de Montijo and presented at the 1855 Paris Universal Exposition.
The item belongs to a rare collection of French crown jewels still held by the nation, after most were looted during the French Revolution beginning in 1789. The majority of what remained was auctioned off by the French state in a wave of republican sentiment almost a hundred years 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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