Two unmasked males stole a diamond-encrusted necklace price greater than $4 million from Vienna’s Museum of Utilized Arts (MAK) in a brazen daylight heist on Thursday, triggering a manhunt by Austrian police.The suspects posed as guests at a jewelry exhibition earlier than smashing open a glass show case with a hammer and fleeing on foot in the direction of a close-by park. Police launched CCTV pictures of the 2 males and stated one of many suspects was believed to have been carrying a firearm. Nobody was injured within the incident, CNN reported.
Necklace linked to Egyptian royalty
The stolen platinum necklace, designed by French luxurious jewelry home Van Cleef & Arpels for Egypt’s Queen Nazli within the Nineteen Thirties, options 673 diamonds weighing greater than 200 carats. It has a six-carat central diamond surrounded by baguette-cut stones and a whole lot of smaller diamonds organized in a sunburst sample.Queen Nazli, the spouse of Egypt’s King Fuad I, commissioned the necklace together with an identical tiara for the 1939 wedding ceremony of their daughter, Fawzia. Nazli later bought the jewelry within the Nineteen Seventies amid mounting money owed after spending her ultimate years in america.
Necklace fetched $4.3 million at public sale
The necklace resurfaced at a Sotheby’s public sale in 2015, the place it bought for almost $4.3 million. It was later loaned by Van Cleef & Arpels to MAK for an exhibition that includes greater than 300 designs by the jewelry home alongside items from the museum’s personal assortment.Following the theft, the exhibition was briefly closed earlier than reopening in a while Thursday. By Friday, a blue panel had been put in over the broken show case. Native media additionally reported that metallic detectors had been put in on the exhibition as safety was tightened.Austrian police stated “in depth search operations” had been underway, together with the deployment of canine items, as authorities looked for the 2 suspects. Interpol has additionally added the stolen necklace to its database of stolen artworks.
