Theft of two royal items in Paris results in £3m insurance payout

It has been revealed that an insurance payment of over £3m to the Royal Collection Trust resulted from a robbery at a museum in Paris last November. The incident occurred at an exhibition at the Cognacq-Jay Museum.

Robbers are known to have smashed display cases and took items from an exhibition of 18th Century luxury miniature items. The haul included two historic items on loan from the UK's Royal Collection. Media reports of the robbery last year claimed, at the time, that there had been losses of around a million euros. However, a figure of £3,020,000 is shown in the annual report of the Royal Collection Trust as an insurance receipt.

In the report, it outlined the robbery as being "in respect of snuff boxes stolen whilst on loan to the Musée Cognacq-Jay".

The two items stolen are believed to be a snuff box with a cameo of the Birth of Venus, which are thought to have been made in Germany in the 18th Century.

The second item is a Fabrique Royale snuff box, which was made in Germany in the 18th Century. This is known to have been encrusted with nearly 3,000 diamonds.

Having belonged to the Russian Royal Family, The Fabrique Royale box was seized by the Soviet authorities in 1917.

The item was later bought by Queen Mary, wife of George V, in 1932.

The trust's annual report also showed record numbers of visitors to two of the most popular royal residences, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, last year.

Buckingham Palace, located in London, had 683,000 visitors last year.

Windsor Castle remains the most visited royal residence, having had almost 1.4 million visitors during 2024-25.