Queen Nazli’s Diamond Necklace Stolen from a Vienna Museum

Exceptionally bad royal jewelry news broke on Friday in Austria: the diamond necklace made for Queen Nazli of Egypt, which was on display at a museum in Vienna, was stolen by thieves in a smash-and-grab operation.

The necklace, which was made by Van Cleef & Arpels, was on display as part of an exhibit of the jewelry house’s work at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. One of our kind readers, Toni, visited the exhibition and took these photos of the necklace earlier this summer. On Thursday, shortly after the exhibition opened for the day, two men dressed in black entered the gallery with a hammer, smashed the glass case that housed the necklace, grabbed the jewel, and fled. No one was hurt, but there were numerous people inside the gallery who witnessed the crime.

Austrian police reported that the “perpetrators fled with the jewelry in an unknown direction.” Per the Guardian, they believe that “the men were probably carrying out a ‘contract job’ on behalf of a criminal gang.” So far, as of the time I’m writing this article, no arrests have been made.

The necklace, which dates to 1939, is part of the VC&A patrimonial collection, which consists of historic pieces made by the firm that are often loaned to exhibitions. The collection website describes the necklace as a “collarette,” explaining, “The necklace is mounted on platinum and composed of three rows of brilliant-cut, claw-set diamonds, accentuated by an articulated row of baguette-cut diamonds.

“A semi-circular, draped motif occupies the center of the composition, formed of four rows of round diamonds framing ribbons alternately pave-set with brilliants and set with baguettes. These ribbons billow outwards, passing through a loop adorned with seven radiating baguette-cut diamonds. A closed-set round diamond is suspended majestically in the center of this loop.”

The jewel was commissioned in 1938 by Queen Nazli of Egypt, the widow of King Fuad I and the mother of King Farouk. Nazli, the daughter of the Governor of Cairo, met King Fuad at the opera when she was 24 and he was 51. They were married shortly afterward and had one son and four daughters before his death in 1936. Three years after Fuad’s passing, their eldest daughter, Princess Fawzia, married the Crown Prince of Iran in a glittering ceremony in Cairo in March 1939. The marriage, which was a political arrangement, did not last, but it did produce a daughter, Shahnaz Pahlavi.

Here’s a closer look at Queen Nazli wearing the Van Cleef & Arpels necklace with matching diamond earrings and several diamond bracelets during the wedding celebrations. The complete parure supplied by VC&A included the necklace, two pairs of earrings, and a tiara.

Here, Nazli wears the necklace and the tiara, which could also be worn as a necklace, together for the wedding of her youngest daughter, Princess Faitha, in 1950.

In 1975, Queen Nazli decided to sell the jewels. She enlisted the help of Sotheby’s Parke Bernet in New York, who arranged for the tiara and necklace, as well as other pieces of jewelry, to be sold in an auction that November. The outcome of that sale, which was highly publicized at the time, is unclear. In his book on Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry, Vincent Meylan writes that “it appears the sale was canceled.”

Forty years later, the necklace returned to Sotheby’s. It was offered for sale as part of the firm’s Magnificent Jewels auction in New York on December 9, 2015. The lot notes described the piece as a “Magnificent and Historic Platinum and Diamond Necklace,” adding, “The necklace’s construction is truly masterful. Its remarkable flexibility allows the necklace to conform to the neck and to distribute the weight of the diamonds making it surprisingly comfortable to wear.” The estimate for the jewel was set at $3,600,000-$4,600,000 USD, and when the hammer fell, it fetched $4,282,000 USD.

The buyer in that sale was the Van Cleef & Arpels patrimonial collection. The necklace has been exhibited numerous times in the decade since, and in October 2017, it was memorably worn by one of Queen Nazli’s great-granddaughters, Amina El Demirdash, in a photoshoot for Vogue Arabia. Sadly, I’m not sure when we’ll be able to see it sparkling next. Fingers crossed that investigators solve the crime soon.