The unmasked men bought tickets to the exhibition before shattering a glass display case with a hammer during opening hours on Thursday afternoon and making off with the diamond necklace.<\/p>\n
A visitor takes a picture of the platinum and diamond necklace, which dates from 1939 and belonged to Queen Nazli of Egypt, at the Pierres Pr\u00e9cieuses exhibition in Paris. Photograph: St\u00e9phane de Sakutin\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n
In an appeal for information from the public, police said: \u201cThe perpetrators fled with the jewellery in an unknown direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officers fanned out through the city centre and deployed a police tracking dog to search for the suspects. The Kronen newspaper said investigators believed the men were probably carrying out a \u201ccontract job\u201d on behalf of a criminal gang.<\/p>\n
MAK said the piece had been snatched from a jewellery exhibition that had been on display since June, featuring more than 300 works by the French designers Van Cleef & Arpels. No one was hurt, although there were several witnesses in the room at the time.<\/p>\n
Documentation for the show said the necklace once belonged to Queen Consort Nazli of Egypt, who wore it at the 1939 wedding of her daughter Fawzia to Iran\u2019s then crown prince, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi<\/a>, who later became shah. The necklace was sold by Sotheby\u2019s in New York<\/a> in 2015 for $4.3m.<\/p>\n Queen Nazli of Egypt, right, wearing the necklace at Princess Fawzia\u2019s wedding in Cairo, 1939. Also pictured, from left, are: Queen Farida, King Farouk, Fawzia and Crown Prince Mohammad. Photograph: Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n The MAK said the exhibition brought together about 200 \u201cunique and rarely seen objects\u201d from its own collection and pieces spanning the 120-year history of the Parisian jewellery house, from the Van Cleef & Arpels patrimonial collection.<\/p>\n A guided tour planned for Friday afternoon was listed as \u201ccancelled\u201d on the museum website and the exhibition, which was due to end on 27 September, was temporarily closed.<\/p>\n European museums have been hit by a string of high-profile heists since thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris<\/a> during the day last October and escaped within minutes with crown jewels worth \u20ac88m.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In Spain on Thursday, thieves raided the Treasure of Villena<\/a>, a collection of bronze age gold artefacts described as one of Europe\u2019s most important prehistoric hoards.<\/p>\n This month, four of the most important works by the 15th-century Renaissance master Antonello da Messina<\/a> were stolen during a national holiday from a museum in the Sicilian port city of Messina.<\/p>\n Two days earlier, Italian police said they had recovered three paintings<\/a> by the French masters Paul C\u00e9zanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were taken this year from a private museum near the northern city of Parma.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787967776_253_500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/221.jpg\")
The 200-carat platinum necklace.<\/p>\n