The Crown of the Empress Eugenie was found beneath the Louvre after it was briefly stolen from the Paris museum in a heist that saw priceless gems taken.
The crown, which is covered in emeralds and diamonds, was one of nine pieces snatched from the Apollo gallery at the Louvre by thieves who broke in just as the museum was opening on October 20 2025. In a smash and grab raid that lasted only minutes, they took gems belonging to queens and empresses. However, Eugenie's crown eluded them.
The gem was found soon after they escaped. The Louvre says it is damaged and is currently undergoing assessment. The Empress Eugenie was never crowned with the gem. It was made instead in 1855, two years after her husband became Emperor of France, for the Paris Exhibition of that year. Eugenie was painted with it several times and when she ended up in exile, after the fall of her monarchy, it was returned to her as she tried to set up home in England.
The crown has over 1,350 diamonds on it, many of them arranged in a palmette design to form arches leading to the top of the piece which features a diamond and emerald monde with a diamond cross on top. The other arches are golden eagles and they all cover a crimson cloth.
The crown was snatched along with other jewels, including a pearl and diamond tiara belonging to Eugenie and a diamond corsage brooch shaped as a bow which was also in the collection of the Empress, in the raid which started with the thieves accessing the upper floor Apollo gallery with a cherry picker. They used an angle grinder to break into the glass display cases in the gallery which holds jewellery belonging to French royalty across the centuries. After the alarm sounded, they escaped. No one was hurt in the robbery but the thieves are still at large and eight pieces of priceless jewellery remain missing.
Among them is a diamond and emerald necklace belonging to the Empress Marie Louise and a diamond and sapphire tiara linked to Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense.
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