Marie-Louise’s jewellery, part of the Crown Jewels of France, are stolen from the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon
- Deborah Jay
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
Jewels Stolen in Louvre Heist
On Sunday morning, 19 October 2025, four thieves disguised as construction workers made off with eight pieces of Crown jewellery valued at approximately €88 million, from the Galerie d'Apollon (the Gallery of Apollo) of the Louvre in Paris, France.
The jewels stolen were:
A diamond and emerald set of earrings and necklaces belonging to Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s second wife and Empress;
A sapphire and diamond diadem, necklace and earring which was part of the set bought in 1821 from Queen Hortense, wife of Napoleon’s brother Louis, by the Duc d’Orléans, later King Louis-Philippe, for his wife Marie-Amélie. This set, comprising Ceylonese sapphires as well as diamonds was the only complete set preserved in the Louvre. The designer of the set is unknown.
A pearl and diamond diadem, a bodice bow, and a diamond reliquary of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III (paternal nephew of Napoleon I).
A diamond and emerald diadem with gilten eagles belonging to Queen Eugénie, created by Gabriel Lemonnier for the Universal Exhibition of 1855, with 1354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, was dropped by the thieves as they left the Louvre and has been found damaged.
All these masterpieces of French crown jewellery, made by such distinguished 19th century jewellers as Maison Nitot et fils, Gabriel Lemonnier and Paul Andrè Bapst, are irreplaceable.
The jewels of Austrian Archduchess, Empress of France, Marie-Louise
The emerald and diamond necklace and earrings taken were commissioned by Napoleon for Marie-Louise for her wedding day. The set comprised a total of 143 emeralds from the famous Muzo mines in Colombia, 2,265 diamonds and 630 rose-cut diamonds, all of outstanding quality. The design followed the neo-classical style adopted by Percier and Fontaine, architects of the period, with the linear and symmetrical motifs found in ancient Greek and Roman ornamentation, such as radiating petals resembling palm leaves. These extraordinary pieces were just a few of the many breathtaking gifts Napoleon showered upon his new wife.
Marie-Louise’s jewellery before her betrothal
Until her wedding, Marie-Louise had had very little jewellery, and nothing of any great value. She had bracelets of human hair and semi-precious gemstones to which she remained attached throughout her life, a few necklaces of false pearls, of green paste and another of coral. At her betrothal, the archduchess found herself deluged by beautiful presents.
The marriage contract’s stipulations as to the amount Napoleon and Emperor Francis were to spend on Marie-Louise for her wedding
Of previously unsurpassed quality and quantity of precious gems, Napoleon’s gifts to Marie-Louise were supplemented by many more from heads of state, ambassadors, eminent guests and family members. There were so many that it is practically impossible to compile a definitive list of all the jewellery she received. By far the most precious of Marie-Louise’s valuable collection were those gifts which her husband bestowed on her. These jewels were bestowed not only to cover her in exquisite luxury commensurate with her imperial rank, but also to comply with the demands of political protocol. Even before Napoleon met Marie-Louise, he had undertaken to spend a stipulated amount on her jewellery. The marriage contract between the French emperor and Austrian archduchess which was signed on 9th March 1810, practically identical to that signed by the Dauphin who would become Louis XVI and the Archduchess Marie-Antoinette in 1770, obliged her father to bestow on his daughter 200,000 Rhine florins or 500,000 francs on rings and other jewellery. The same contract obliged Napoleon to confer upon Marie-Louise on her arrival in France gifts and jewellery worth 200,000 scudi. Both these heads of entitlement were to be her absolute property, not that of the French Crown.
Maison Nitot and Napoleon’s price controls
Napoleon’s gifts of jewellery to Marie-Louise were designed by him to be a showcase of the very best which the goldsmiths and jewellers of France could produce, emphasising the dazzling glory of his empire. He spent lavishly at the finest jewellers in Paris to further French industry and encouraged his courtiers and those whose careers he advanced to do similarly. He established a commission of experts to ensure that the prices he paid were not excessive. Napoleon reposed absolute trust in the Maison Nitot et fils, but still ensured that his estimates and invoices were passed before the experts. Jewellers to the imperial family, diplomats, aristocrats and the wealthy across Europe, Nitot’s prices were always moderate and rarely required any downward adjustment. They had never been busier than in 1810.
The first item produced for Marie-Louise was the famous oval diamond encrusted medallion which Napoleon’s Marshall Berthier handed to her at the ceremony of her betrothal to his emperor, three days before the proxy wedding in Vienna. This, the first portrait she had ever seen of her future husband, she immediately placed around her neck and wore subsequently on many occasions, as evidenced by many of her portraits.
Le corbeille de marriage - the bridal casket
A bridal casket, crafted in wood, gilded bronze, velvet and silk satin, carried a dozen necklaces, some of which would belong to Marie-Louise personally and others of which would belong to the French state, for which Napoleon had bought pearls and diamonds. The most valuable item, part of France’s Crown Jewels, was the grande parure de diamants, a set of large diamonds jewels including a necklace which appears in Robert Lefèvre’s portrait of Marie-Louise painted in 1812, and diadem, combs, earrings, two bracelets, a belt with diamond clasp, and some ten diamond flowers to be sewn onto dresses and eight strings of diamonds. For all these, Nitot used 52 of the 76 diamonds Napoleon had supplied. The diamond set of jewellery, excluding workmanship, cost the staggering sum of 3,779,613.92 francs. Napoleon also gave his betrothed a set in pearls, comprising a necklace of three strings and a separate string, a comb, earrings, a pair of bracelets and five strings of pearls for her hair, and a crown of pearls which Josephine and Napoleon wore at their coronation at a cost of 570,107 francs. Marie-Louise was never to wear this crown. This would later be assigned to form part of the Crown Jewels of France.
Some of the creations which Marie-Louise wore incorporated gems from jewellery Napoleon’s ex-wife, Joséphine, had worn before the divorce.
Napoleon gave Marie-Louise, for her personal collection, another set of jewellery in opals and diamonds, this also comprising a diadem, necklace, earrings, combs, at a cost of 275,953.99 francs and the set of emeralds and diamonds with diadem, necklace, earrings, combs and belt clasp for which Nitot invoiced 292,381 but which the experts reduced to 289,865.51 francs.
Austrian Emperor Francis’s gifts to his daughter
Pursuant to the marriage contract, her father gave her a diadem with 248 diamonds worth 72,633 francs, a necklace with three strings of diamonds worth 67,865 francs and three necklaces of one string each worth 100,000 francs, together with two combs encrusted with diamonds each worth 10,000 francs, two flower garlands worth 50,000 francs, two pairs of drop earrings, the most expensive of which was worth 60,853 together incorporating 793 diamonds. Most of the Viennese settings of the diamonds were considered in France to be old-fashioned and were dismantled and the diamonds subsequently reset by Nitot into fewer but much more prestigious mounts which were delivered to her in December 1810, nine months after her wedding. A sapphire and diamond necklace given to Marie-Louise on her marriage has been lost, having been buried during World War II and sold in 1964.
Napoleon’s creation of an inventory of Crown Jewels
In 1811, Napoleon created an inventory of the Crown Jewels which were to be kept in a special room in the Treasury. This inventory included those items of Marie-Louise’s jewellery which were to be regarded as belonging to the French state. He created two registers, one listing each item and any alteration or repair which it had undergone, the other in which was logged the date each item was taken out and its date of return.
When Marie-Louise was forced, against her better judgment, to abandon Paris as the allies ranged against her husband’s forces approached the city’s gates, she took her jewels with her, later returning those that belonged to the French Crown. The emerald and diamond set remained hers.
The fate of the emerald and diamond set
At her death in Parma on 17 December 1847, she left the emerald and diamond set to her aunt Elisa married to Archduke Rainieri, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto, creation of the Vienna Congress in 1815. Little more than eleven years after Marie-Louise’s death, Lombardy was ceded to France, but in 1866 it was incorporated with the Veneto into the new Kingdom of Italy. At Elisa’s death, the set was passed down through the Habsburg family.
In 1949, the diadem was converted into a more wearable tiara and this along with the belt clasp was sold to the well-known jewellers, Van Cleef & Arpels. They created a more modern setting, reusing some of the original diamonds, and selling the remaining emeralds and diamonds at Christie’s auction house. The emeralds were replaced in the tiara by turquoise. A rich American, Mrs Marjorie Merriweather Post, bought the redesigned tiara and left it, on her death, to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington where it can be seen today.
The emerald and diamond necklace and earrings thankfully remained intact. The private individual who acquired it lent it to the Musée du Louvre in 1962 for an exhibition. Only in 2004, was the museum able to purchase them with the aid of French Heritage Funds and those raised by the Société des Amis du Louvre. The Louvre paid 3,700,000.00 Euros for them, the highest sum ever paid for pieces of jewellery by a national institution. The expenditure was justified by the intrinsic value of the gems, the quality of the settings and the fact that they originated from important historical figures.
It is a tragedy that these unique pieces, evidencing France’s past triumphs and defeats, have disappeared and may by now have been dismembered. The Louvre’s projected security upgrade won’t happen for another seven years. The plans include installing streetside anti-ramming and anti-intrusion devices will come too late for Marie-Louise’s stunning emeralds and diamonds.
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