Thieves have made off with several items of Indian maharajahs’ treasures owned by a member of the Qatari royal family after an audacious heist at the Doge’s Palace in Venice, police have said.

Two thieves got away with earrings and a brooch on the final day of a four-month exhibition of 270 items showcasing five centuries of Indian craftsmanship.

The stolen items, part of the Treasures of the Mughals and the Maharajahs exhibition, were not among the highlights of the items on display but police said they were made of gold, platinum and diamonds, and news reports estimated their value in the millions of euros.

Investigators said the thieves had managed to take the items from a reinforced display case early on Wednesday morning after deactivating the alarm system, then melted into the crowd and escaped.

The alarm was raised only several hours later at the palace, known as the Palazzo Ducale in Italy, in central Venice at one end of Saint Mark’s Square.

“We are clearly dealing here with two skilled professionals who managed to pull off their feat despite all the display rooms being fitted with technologically highly sophisticated [alarm] systems,” said the chief police commissioner, Vito Gagliardi.

The Al Thani Collection comprises 270 pieces of Indian and Indian-inspired jewellery and precious stones, spanning 400 years from the Mughal period to the present. It was assembled by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani and now belongs to Qatar’s ruling family.

Forbes magazine has said: “There is no comparable collection on the planet.”



The Venice exhibition was due to close on Wednesday, the latest stop in a tour that has brought the collection to the Grand Palais in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan in New York and the Miho Museum near Kyoto, Japan.

A spokesman for the collection, John Maxse, said it was in contact with Italian authorities and Venice’s Foundation of Civic Museums, which runs the Doge’s Palace.

In a statement, the foundation said the stolen brooch and earrings were “contemporary pieces and consequently are of less historical value than other items in the collection”.

Venice police said that since the items were unique they would be nearly impossible to sell on the market.