These Historic Snuffboxes Associated With 18th-Century Monarchs Were Stolen in a Shocking Heist. Now, They’re Back on Public Display

In 2024, thieves made away with the intricately decorated boxes, which had been on display in Paris. Two of the boxes, which were later recovered, are now on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

March 23, 2026

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

In November 2024, thieves carrying axes and baseball bats stole seven historic snuffboxes from the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris. Three of the intricately decorated artifacts had been on loan from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, which is housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Police later recovered two of the Gilbert Collection boxes. Now, following careful restorations, both artifacts have returned to public display at the V&A, where visitors can see them in the newly reopened Gilbert Galleries.

“Robberies in museums are any museum curator’s nightmare,” writes Alice Minter, senior curator of the Gilbert Collection, in a blog post. Following that nightmare, the pair of snuffboxes, both made in the 1760s, embarked on an “incredible journey” before arriving in their current display cases.

One of the snuffboxes is associated with Catherine II. The empress of Russia gave the gold and diamond box to Thomas Dimsdale, the physician who successfully inoculated her and her son against smallpox. Catherine was so impressed with Dimsdale that she made him a Russian baron, a councilor of state and her personal doctor.

“This provenance makes the box absolutely unique in the world,” Minter writes. “I was personally the most upset about this box after the news of the robbery.”

The second snuffbox, which belonged to Frederick II of Prussia, is carved from chrysoprase and decorated with hardstones and diamonds. Records show the king had around 300 boxes in his collection, and he was particularly fond of chrysoprase; six of his surviving boxes are made of the gemstone.

Unfortunately, the third stolen snuffbox, which is decorated with a mosaic of two doves, is still unaccounted for. Made in Dresden around 1780, the box was a collaboration between goldsmith Johann Christian Neuber and mosaicist Giacomo Raffaelli. According to the blog post, Neuber was known for “[setting] wafer-thin stone panels, exclusively sourced from Saxony, into gold-mounted objects to create unique patterns.” Raffaelli made a name for himself by creating micromosaics, intricately detailed images made from tiny pieces of glass and stone.

In the 18th century, snuffboxes were used primarily to store tobacco, but they were also “the modern equivalent of a top-notch Rolex or a Lamborghini,” writes the London Times’ Rachel Church. For wealthy elites, the lavish, ornate boxes served as powerful status symbols.

“There are those who carry this refinement to the extent of changing boxes every day. It is by this distinctive touch that one may recognize the man of taste,” wrote the French author Louis Sebastien Le Mercier in 1782. “He who has 300 boxes and as many rings may properly dispense with a library, a natural history collection and paintings.”

Frederick and Dimsdale’s snuffboxes both suffered minor damage during the robbery. A few diamonds had been detached from Frederick’s chrysoprase box, but experts have successfully reattached them. The Dimsdale box’s bejeweled thumbpiece had been warped, and some of its settings were torn.

Though the circumstances weren’t ideal, restorers appreciated the opportunity to get a closer look at the boxes’ construction. For instance, the detached diamonds revealed the “artistry and illusion of 18th-century gem setting,” Minter writes.

The V&A enlisted a Parisian goldsmith studio with experience in historic jewelry and gem settings. Restorers cleaned Frederick’s box, reshaped its metal and reset its diamonds. The Dimsdale box, however, was more difficult to restore. Its thumbpiece couldn’t be fully repaired without using contemporary materials. Officials decided on a more conservative approach, opting instead to straighten and refit the diamonds only where possible.

“The decision was taken not to remove the signs of the tools the robbers used to force open the box,” Minter writes. “It was decided that this was part of the box’s history, as an object that is already unique in the world for its fascinating provenance, and that it wouldn’t be appropriate to erase all traces of this shocking chapter.”

The newly restored artifacts are only two of many snuffboxes held in the Gilbert Collection. Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert began collecting in the 1960s, and they amassed a collection of more than 200 snuffboxes in the decades that followed. They began staging exhibitions of their collection in partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1975, per the V&A.

The collection has been at the V&A since 2008, and the museum recently added three new rooms dedicated to it. The Gilbert Galleries, which reopened on March 14, house about half the collection, according to the Guardian’s Olivia McEwan.

Frederick’s chrysoprase box is displayed alongside a “fabulous array of gold boxes, focusing on their incredible materials and craftsmanship,” writes Minter. Dimsdale’s box resides in a different room, where visitors can see it beside “a portrait of Thomas Dimsdale himself, as Arthur Gilbert intended to reunite both objects with such a unique story.”

Sonja Anderson | Read More

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.