The 18th-century royal jewellery is back on public view for the first time since being stolen by a criminal gang in 2019.
ADVERTISEMENTNearly five years after being stolen in a heist, the historical Green Vault jewels are back on display in the eastern German city of Dresden, Saxony – or nearly all of them, at least.
Back in November 2019, five members of a criminal gang broke into the Green Vault (Grünes Gewölbe) in Dresden’s Royal Palace, stealing 4,300 diamonds with an estimated value of over €113 million.
Not bad for a night’s work, but the culprits were eventually sentenced last year to six years behind bars on charges of armed robbery, aggravated arson, and grievous bodily harm.
Not all of the stolen 18th-century jewellery has been recovered, however. Police say that missing pieces – nowhere to be seen when the majority was found in December 2022 – include an epaulette on which a precious stone nicknamed the Dresden White Diamond was mounted. Some of the recovered jewels sustained damage, but this shouldn’t impact too much on visitors’ enjoyment of their splendour.
“The jewels are presented exactly as they were returned … with damage that is barely visible, although in need of restoration,” Marion Ackermann, director general of the Dresden State Art Collections, said in a statement.
"There are certain things that perhaps absolute experts can see; we with the naked eye can actually barely see the damage.”
An international expert commission is expected to decide how best to restore the recovered jewels, but for now – as they are part of ongoing legal proceedings and still considered court property – they must remain as they are.
Their restoration will be just another chapter in an already storied history: prior to the dramatic heist, the treasures survived Second World War bombing raids, but were taken to the Soviet Union as spoils of war and only returned to Dresden in 1958.
