Burglary at Empress Eugénie's Chinese Museum in FontainebleauArchived Message
Posted by Arthur on March 1, 2015, 6:20 pm
The following information is not about "jewels" in the strict usual sense of the word, so is possibly on the verge of being off topic, but as it is royal/imperial-related, and as it is about jewels (in the extensive sense of the word), I think this information might be of interest anyway.
Yesterday (Sunday 1st March, 2015), at around 6:00 AM, the Chinese Museum located in the Château de Fontainebleau (about 60 kms South-East from Paris and a long-standing royal/imperial residence from the early Middle-Ages to the end of the 19th century) was the target of a quick, but very "efficient" burglary.
The "Chinese Museum" was created in 1863 by Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III (Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870), and has always been located at its present place, at the groundfloor of the "Big Pavilion" of the Castle. It houses dozens of artefacts of Asian arts (statues, vases, porcelain...) collected by the Imperial couple - mostly with pieces coming from the plundering of Beijing's Summer Palace in 1860 and with gifts presented to the Imperial couple by the ambassadors of the King of Siam (now Thailand) in 1861.
Despite the alarms and the CCTV cameras, the burglars were able to enter the Chinese Museum and to steal about 15 pieces from the collections. Unfortunately, they could leave before the police could intervene. They are of course intensively searched by the police.
Among the pieces which have been stolen are:
- a golden crown from the King of Thailand (a gift from the King to the Emperor in 1861):
- a Tibetan mandala:
- a Chinese enamelled chimera, dating back to the reign of Emperor Qienlong (1736-1795):
Vases and other chimeras are among the other stolen pieces.