Displaying items by tag: emeralds

Legend has it that a Jesuit priest once kept it concealed under his bed. Whether or not that’s true, for a long time nobody knew the whereabouts of the monstrance of the Church of Saint Ignatius of Bogotá, an extraordinary example of 18th-century goldsmithing known popularly as "La Lechuga" (The Lettuce) because of the green hue of its 1,485 emeralds.

Meant to hold the consecrated host as part of the Catholic Church’s rites, this particular monstrance was wrought by the Spaniard José Galaz, who took seven years to create what is one of the most valuable and symbolic religious jewels in all of Latin America.

French traffic police found a stolen Faberge egg worth $1.3 million while conducting a routine car search near the Swiss border. The egg, which is made of more than two pounds of pure gold, is covered in diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds. The work of art has been missing for four years.

The Faberge egg was stolen in 2009 from a Kuwaiti import-export firm based in Geneva but the work’s whereabouts were never determined. The officers, who recovered the egg from a suspicious looking BMW, immediately placed the two Belarusian men in the car under arrest. Another man who was driving behind the suspects was also arrested. When questioned by the police, the suspects claimed conflicting stories; one alleged that they had found the Faberge egg on the ground and another maintained that they had bought it for a low price at a flea market.

Officials believe that the three suspects were given the task of transporting and negotiating the sale of the artwork. They are currently in police custody and have been charged with handling stolen goods and possessing a weapon.