France’s Louvre museum has released pictures of a crown that was left squashed and deformed after being abandoned by thieves who staged a brazen robbery at the Paris landmark last year.
The crown of French Empress Eugénie is nearly intact and will be fully restored, the museum said.
The thieves who robbed the famed Paris museum last October made off with an estimated 88 million euros ($149 million) in jewels, but dropped the diamond and emerald-studded crown as they escaped, leaving it crushed and broken.
Investigators have yet to locate the other jewels.
The crown prior to it being damaged, versus after the heist. (AFP: Louvre Museum/Thomas Clot)
The Louvre said the piece had been “badly deformed”, but remained “nearly intact” and would be restored “without the need for reconstruction”.
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The crown was damaged when the thieves tried to remove it through a narrow hole they had sawed in the glass case where it was displayed.
The Louvre said the crown retained all 56 of its emeralds and all but 10 of its 1,354 diamonds, but is missing one of the eight golden eagles that adorned it.
An expert committee led by the museum’s president, Laurence des Cars, has been selected to supervise the restoration.
The thieves climbed through this window into the Apollo Gallery. (Reuters: Gonzalo Fuentes)
Police have arrested all four alleged members of the heist crew, but have not found the mastermind or the remaining jewels.
The thieves made off with eight other items of jewellery, including a diamond-studded tiara that also belonged to Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, who reigned as emperor from 1852 to 1870.
AFP/ABC