Last Sunday’s robbery at the Louvre Museum has shaken the art world — and the emerald world in Colombia. Among the eight pieces stolen from the Apollo Gallery, two imperial jewels contain precious gems extracted from the Muzo mines in the Colombian department of Boyacá: a necklace and earrings that belonged to Marie Louise of Austria, the second wife of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte after his separation from Joséphine de Beauharnais, whom he divorced in January 1810 due to her inability to produce an heir. The gems are a clean, intense green known as “Muzo green,” a hue that has captivated European fine jewelry. The Colombian Emerald Federation (Fedesmeraldas) has confirmed that the stolen stones are Colombian and describes the incident as “an attack on art and the history of humanity.”
Ana Trigo, a Madrid-based art and antiques historian and appraiser, is familiar with the room where the theft occurred. Last year, she published the book Cursed Jewels, in which she investigated two of the most emblematic pieces in the Apollo Gallery: the Regent Diamond and the Sancy Diamond. To research the pieces, she spent long hours in that room, observing the display cases, reviewing archives, and talking with curators. “I’ve seen them [the jewels with the Boyacá gems] and I know them,” she says. In conversation with EL PAÍS, Trigo confirms that the emeralds in Marie Louise’s necklace and earrings are Colombian, from Muzo, and that their value is incalculable. “They have very few inclusions, are clean, brilliant, with a dramatic color. They are highly prized in Europe,” she explains.
Although she insists that the true value of the pieces is immeasurable — because they are relics of extremely high value, both gemologically and historically — she offers a personal estimate: “The necklace alone could be worth around €12 million ($13.9 million), and the complete set, up to €15 million ($17.4 million).” Then she pauses, reflects, and concludes that she may be “underestimating considerably.” They are extremely fine pieces. “The stolen necklace is made up of 32 emeralds, 10 of them teardrop-shaped, and more than 1,100 diamonds of different sizes distributed throughout the piece,” Trigo explains.
The earrings that completed the set follow the same logic: each contains a 45-carat pear-shaped emerald, accompanied by four other green gems that reinforce the imperial design. French authorities initially valued the eight stolen jewels at €96.4 million ($111.7 million), according to Paris Attorney General Laure Beccuau. The Paris Prosecutor’s Office later adjusted the figure to €88 million ($102 million).
Javier Tolosa, director of the Colombian Emerald Technological Development Center Corporation, tells EL PAÍS that gemological studies are underway to determine all the details of these precious stones, “from their true value to the circumstances of how they ended up” on the neck of the French emperor’s second wife. The results will be announced throughout the week.
Fedesmeraldas mourns the loss. “The pieces are not just jewels, they are tangible documents that trace the history of the global emerald trade,” commented the president of the emerald guild, Óscar Baquero, in statements reported by various local media. “The theft of Marie Louise’s necklace constitutes an outrage against a symbol of Colombia’s emerald heritage,” he added. The municipality of Muzo is 60 miles northwest of Bogotá and is considered the world capital of these precious stones. Its mines have been exploited since the 16th century and in 2024 Colombia exported emeralds worth $127.5 million, according to the National Mining Agency and Fedesmeraldas.
More than 60% of the raw emeralds leave the mining area in the department of Boyacá for the Bogotá Free Trade Zone, while the cut gems are shipped to international markets such as the United States, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Japan. The Andean country is the world’s largest exporter of cut emeralds, and its stones, with their characteristic color, are considered the highest quality on the global market. The industry generates 2,000 direct jobs and 6,000 indirect jobs between Boyacá and Cundinamarca, according to the same sources.
The story of the stolen set dates back to 1810, when Napoleon commissioned the court jeweler, François-Régnault Nitot, as a wedding gift for his second wife, Empress Marie Louise of Austria, following the French emperor’s divorce from Jósephine, his first wife. Originally, the complete set included the necklace, earrings, a tiara, and two brooches, but those last two pieces were dispersed during the 20th century.
After the fall of the First Empire in 1814, Marie Louise returned to Austria with her personal jewels. She returned the diamonds to the French treasury but kept the emeralds, which ended up in the hands of Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany. In 1953, Van Cleef & Arpels acquired the set and sold the emeralds in the tiara individually, fragmenting the collection. Decades later, the necklace and earrings passed through private hands until the Louvre Museum reacquired them in 2004, where they remained in the Apollo Gallery until their theft on October 19.
Trigo — who coincidentally will publish a new book, Art Thieves, in November — warns that there is a “race against time” to prevent the pieces from being dismantled. “If the emeralds are separated, all their historical value is lost,” she says. Among the theories being considered for the theft are the dismantling of the pieces for the separate sale of the diamonds and emeralds; the seizure of the art for ransom; or a robbery commissioned by a private collector.
In all scenarios, the risk of the jewels disappearing forever is high. “Every day that passes without them being found, there is less chance of recovering them,” she insists. Trigo points out that the modus operandi of the theft — swift, audacious, with extremely high-profile targets and the absence of physical violence — matches the style of the criminal group known as the Pink Panthers, whose members are mostly Serbian, and which specializes in dismantling pieces to sell their gems separately. The name was coined by Interpol after the theft of a diamond ring in London in May 2003 because the thieves hid it in a can of shaving foam, as happened in the Pink Panther movie.
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