{"id":333650,"date":"2026-08-31T08:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T08:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/333650\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T08:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T08:50:13","slug":"queen-nazlis-diamond-necklace-stolen-from-a-vienna-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/333650\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Nazli\u2019s Diamond Necklace Stolen from a Vienna Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"QueenQueen Nazli\u2019s diamond necklace, made by Van Cleef & Arpels, 1939 (Photo generously shared by Toni)<\/p>\n

Exceptionally bad royal jewelry news broke on Friday in Austria: the diamond necklace made for Queen Nazli of Egypt, which was on display at a museum in Vienna, was stolen by thieves in a smash-and-grab operation.<\/p>\n

\"QueenQueen Nazli\u2019s diamond necklace, made by Van Cleef & Arpels, 1939 (Photo generously shared by Toni)<\/p>\n

The necklace, which was made by Van Cleef & Arpels, was on display as part of an exhibit of the jewelry house\u2019s work at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. One of our kind readers, Toni, visited the exhibition and took these photos of the necklace<\/a> earlier this summer. On Thursday, shortly after the exhibition opened for the day, two men dressed in black entered the gallery with a hammer, smashed the glass case that housed the necklace, grabbed the jewel, and fled. No one was hurt, but there were numerous people inside the gallery who witnessed the crime.<\/p>\n

Austrian police reported that the \u201cperpetrators fled with the jewelry in an unknown direction.\u201d Per the\u00a0Guardian<\/a>, they believe that \u201cthe men were probably carrying out a \u2018contract job\u2019 on behalf of a criminal gang.\u201d So far, as of the time I\u2019m writing this article, no arrests have been made.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"VanVan Cleef & Arpels<\/p>\n

The necklace, which dates to 1939, is part of the VC&A patrimonial collection, which consists of historic pieces made by the firm that are often loaned to exhibitions. The collection website describes the necklace as a \u201ccollarette,\u201d explaining, \u201cThe necklace is mounted on platinum and composed of three rows of brilliant-cut, claw-set diamonds, accentuated by an articulated row of baguette-cut diamonds.<\/p>\n

\u201cA semi-circular, draped motif occupies the center of the composition, formed of four rows of round diamonds framing ribbons alternately pave-set with brilliants and set with baguettes. These ribbons billow outwards, passing through a loop adorned with seven radiating baguette-cut diamonds. A closed-set round diamond is suspended majestically in the center of this loop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CrownCrown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran marries Princess Fawzia of Egypt in Cairo on March 15, 1939; (L-R) Queen Farida, King Farouk, Princess Fawzia, the Crown Prince, and Queen Nazli (Everett Collection\/Alamy)<\/p>\n

The jewel was commissioned in 1938 by Queen Nazli of Egypt, the widow of King Fuad I and the mother of King Farouk. Nazli, the daughter of the Governor of Cairo, met King Fuad at the opera when she was 24 and he was 51. They were married shortly afterward and had one son and four daughters before his death in 1936. Three years after Fuad\u2019s passing, their eldest daughter, Princess Fawzia, married the Crown Prince of Iran in a glittering ceremony in Cairo in March 1939. The marriage, which was a political arrangement, did not last, but it did produce a daughter, Shahnaz Pahlavi.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CrownCrown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran married Princess Fawzia of Egypt in Cairo on March 15, 1939 (Everett Collection\/Alamy)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a closer look at Queen Nazli wearing the Van Cleef & Arpels necklace with matching diamond earrings and several diamond bracelets during the wedding celebrations. The complete parure supplied by VC&A included the necklace, two pairs of earrings, and a tiara.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PrincessPrincess Faitha of Egypt, with her mother, Queen Nazli, is pictured on the day of her wedding, 1950 (SuperStock\/Alamy)<\/p>\n

Here, Nazli wears the necklace and the tiara, which could also be worn as a necklace, together for the wedding of her youngest daughter, Princess Faitha, in 1950.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sotheby's\"Sotheby\u2019s<\/p>\n

In 1975, Queen Nazli decided to sell the jewels. She enlisted the help of Sotheby\u2019s Parke Bernet in New York, who arranged for the tiara and necklace, as well as other pieces of jewelry, to be sold in an auction that November. The outcome of that sale, which was highly publicized at the time, is unclear. In his book on Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry, Vincent Meylan writes that \u201cit appears the sale was canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forty years later, the necklace returned to Sotheby\u2019s. It was offered for sale as part of the firm\u2019s Magnificent Jewels auction in New York on December 9, 2015. The lot notes described the piece<\/a> as a \u201cMagnificent and Historic Platinum and Diamond Necklace,\u201d adding, \u201cThe necklace\u2019s construction is truly masterful. Its remarkable flexibility allows the necklace to conform to the neck and to distribute the weight of the diamonds making it surprisingly comfortable to wear.\u201d The estimate for the jewel was set at $3,600,000-$4,600,000 USD, and when the hammer fell, it fetched $4,282,000 USD.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"QueenQueen Nazli\u2019s diamond necklace, made by Van Cleef & Arpels, 1939 (Photo generously shared by Toni)<\/p>\n

The buyer in that sale was the Van Cleef & Arpels patrimonial collection. The necklace has been exhibited numerous times in the decade since, and in October 2017, it was memorably worn by one of Queen Nazli\u2019s great-granddaughters, Amina El Demirdash, in a photoshoot for\u00a0Vogue Arabia<\/a>. Sadly, I\u2019m not sure when we\u2019ll be able to see it sparkling next. Fingers crossed that investigators solve the crime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen Nazli\u2019s diamond necklace, made by Van Cleef & Arpels, 1939 (Photo generously shared by Toni) Exceptionally bad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-333650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}