Two men entered the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) as visitors on Thursday, Aug. 27, before smashing a glass display case with a hammer and fleeing with the platinum necklace.
The piece, which weighs more than 200 carats, was part of an exhibition dedicated to French jewelry house Van Cleef & Arpels. No one was injured during the theft, although visitors and security staff were in the room at the time.
Police said the suspects were not wearing masks and were clearly captured by surveillance cameras. A police spokeswoman also told the DPA news agency that one of the men was believed to have been carrying a real firearm.
Authorities launched a manhunt and released CCTV images of the two suspects, who were described as slim men about 175 centimeters tall, with dark hair and beards. Both were wearing black clothing and dark-colored trainers.
The necklace was designed for Queen Nazli in 1939 and was worn by the Egyptian queen at the wedding of her daughter, Princess Fawzia, to Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, who later became shah.
The necklace was sold by Sotheby’s in New York in 2015 for $4.3 million. The auction house had estimated its value at between $3.6 million and $4.6 million.
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The stolen piece was displayed as part of the MAK exhibition “Prime Pieces: Van Cleef & Arpels High Jewellery x Masterpieces from the MAK Collection,” which brought together around 200 rare objects. The exhibition had been scheduled to run until Sept. 27, but the affected exhibition was temporarily closed following the theft.
The Vienna heist is the latest in a series of high-profile museum thefts across Europe.
In October 2025, thieves stole jewelry worth about €88 million from Paris’ Louvre museum in a daytime raid. This week, thieves also stole ancient gold artifacts from a museum in the Spanish town of Villena.
Europol warned this week that organized criminals are increasingly targeting gold and precious-stone artifacts, with thieves turning to more forceful tactics rather than the discreet methods traditionally associated with museum thefts.
Austrian police continue to search for the suspects and the stolen necklace.
