When thieves broke into Paris’s Musée de Louvre on October 19, 2025, they made off with $102 million in crown jewels—but they dropped Empress Eugénie’s crown, damaging the delicate, diamond-encrusted antique.
Now, the piece will be painstakingly restored to go back on view at the museum’s Galerie d’Apollon.
The judicial police initially secured the work as evidence for the investigation, but turned it over to the museum’s department of decorative arts the next day.
The lightweight, flexible crown had been deformed.
The thieves had used an angle grinder to cut through the glass display case, but the crown barely fit through the narrow opening.
One of the hoops broke off in the gallery, and it appeared that a violent impact had further crushed the crown.
Four of the crown’s eight decorative diamond and emerald palmettes had broken off, and one of the alternating gold eagles had gone missing during the incident.
The Louvre will appoint accredited restorers, overseen by an expert committee, following strict French heritage laws and oversight.
