Jeweled Snuffboxes Stolen in Brazen Paris Heist Go on Display

• Two 18th-century snuffboxes stolen in a Paris museum heist have been restored for a V&A display.
• Axe-wielding thieves damaged the treasures during a 2024 robbery targeting a luxury objects exhibition.
• Conservators carefully repaired the boxes, though a third stolen snuffbox remains missing.

Two precious 18th-century snuffboxes that were stolen in a brazen daylight heist in Paris have been sensitively restored ahead of their redisplay this weekend at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). A third stolen box is still missing.

The exquisite, jewel-encrusted boxes were badly damaged in 2024, after they were among seven treasures stolen from Paris’s Musée Cognacq-Jay by a gang of axe-wielding thieves. The perpetrators broke into the temporary exhibition, titled “Luxe de Poche,” or “Pocket Luxury,” on November 20, making off with goods that were, at the time, reported to be worth more than €1 million ($1 million).

All seven objects had been on loan from world-class collections, including two from the nearby Louvre, another two from the U.K.’s Royal Collection, and three more from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, on loan to the V&A. Five of these pieces were recovered last fall, having been exchanged for an undisclosed payment from the insurers.

Returned in a badly damaged state, the recovered snuffboxes from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection have been repaired ahead of their redisplay at the V&A. They will be unveiled this weekend during the opening of the museum’s newly revamped Gilbert Galleries.

One object now safe and restored is known as the chrysoprase box, owing to the rare quartz that gives it its apple green color. It was made in around 1760 and was one of some 300 beloved boxes commissioned and cared for by Frederick II of Prussia. Some of its diamonds had been removed, damaging their gold and silver settings in the process. These fragments had been retained and were returned to their rightful place.

The other recovered box is known as the “Dimsdale” snuffbox because it was gifted to the physician Thomas Dimsdale by Catherine II of Russia after he successfully inoculated her and her son against smallpox. It is again from around 1760. Though some of its settings had again been torn, all broken pieces were able to be returned to their original state.

In a blog post about the restoration process, Alice Minter, senior curator of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, said that her team had considered leaving the snuffboxes in their damaged state.

“In some respects, the damage presented a wonderful opportunity to see elements of the box’s construction that cannot be seen in its intact state,” she explained. “With the diamonds dismantled, the artistry and illusion of 18th-century gem setting is revealed, especially the technique of coloring gems with tinted foils, which is designed to be hidden.”

In the end, however, the fragility of the boxes required their custodians to restore the treasures ahead of public display. This was achieved with the support of a goldsmith’s studio in Paris.

The third, missing box was made by a Dresden goldsmith in around 1780 but its centerpiece is a delicate micromosaic of two doves by the Italian mosaicist Giacomo Raffaelli. Police are still investigating its whereabouts.