During opening hours at the Vienna Museum of Applied Arts, two men who purchased tickets smashed a display case and stole a Van Cleef & Arpels platinum diamond necklace before fleeing on foot. Police have launched a domestic and international manhunt for the two, and the museum's exhibition has been closed indefinitely.

The necklace is set with 673 diamonds, with a total weight of over 200 carats, made for the Egyptian royal family in 1939. Queen Nazli wore it at the wedding of her daughter, Fawzia, to Iranian Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 2015, it sold for approximately $4.3 million at Sotheby’s in New York, with an auction estimate range of $3.6 million to $4.6 million.

The incident occurred around 2 PM local time. The two men were not masked, wearing dark coats and dark sneakers with white soles, with lean builds and heights between 175 to 179 cm, dark hair, and beards. One was armed with a hammer to smash the case, while the other reportedly displayed what appeared to be a real gun; there were visitors and security in the exhibition hall, but no one was injured. The two fled towards the city park on the south side of the museum, and police dogs and forensic investigations were subsequently initiated.

The stolen item was part of the "Brilliant Works" exhibition, which displayed over 300 pieces from Van Cleef & Arpels alongside more than 200 pieces from the museum's collection, originally scheduled to run until September 27. Other items in the same case included earrings and a double clip brooch, but reports confirm the necklace as the only main item taken. The museum director stated that the theft was a heavy blow, and the museum declined to comment further on the investigation details.

The last theft of a similar magnitude in Vienna dates back to 2003, involving the Cellini gold salt cellar from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which was valued even higher and recovered three years later. In the past year, there have been multiple daytime jewelry thefts in European museums, and EU police have warned that gold and gemstone artifacts are easily disassembled for resale.

In market mechanisms, the seller is the museum and brand exhibition temporarily displaying royal jewelry, while the buyer is an underground buyer needing items that can be disassembled, melted, or privately collected. The driving factor for this incident was the low-resistance window of open visits combined with glass display cases. Reselling the entire piece in its original form is difficult; disassembling the stones for resale would destroy the royal provenance premium, leaving only the $4.3 million auction anchor and exhibition insurance compensation. The beneficiaries are the resale chain that can disassemble the 673 stones into the anonymous market; the pressures are on the touring exhibition insurance rates, the museum's security budget, and the institutions displaying top-tier jewelry as ordinary ticketed exhibits.

Source: Public Information