Questions remain about jewel-encrusted tiaras stolen from Missouri History Museum
April 18, 2018 | In the PressFrom The Saint-Louis Dispatch (http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/questions-remain-about-jewel-encrusted-tiaras-stolen-from-missouri-history/article_e519f7cf-f6a4-5a22-807a-f7a03150f0f1.html)
Like any good museum caper involving stolen jewels, there are many unknowns about the two gem-encrusted tiaras that turned up missing this week at the Missouri History Museum.
The gold and silver crowns dating to the 1890s were stolensometime between the morning of April 9 and Monday, according to St. Louis police. But the case remains wide open, with no suspects yet publicly identified in the theft.
The crowns were part of the museum’s collection since the 1960s. Museum security discovered they had disappeared this week from the second-floor “Seeking St. Louis” exhibit.
The museum has hired an outside appraiser to determine their estimated value, museum spokeswoman Leigh Walters said.
But whatever they might be worth, they have ties to a significant — and sometimes controversial — St. Louis tradition, the annual Veiled Prophet Ball, an event which dates to 1878 and continues as a gathering of the city’s elite to this day.
The Veiled Prophet was founded by a group of businessmen to promote agriculture and commerce. They centered the events on a mystic hooded figure known as the Veiled Prophet.
For years it was one of the most elaborate events in the city with a parade of more than 20 over-the-top floats and dozens of debutantes presented at the annual ball.
The stolen crowns were given to a debutante maid in 1894 and to the ball’s annual “Queen of Love and Beauty” in 1896.
The Veiled Prophet Organization now runs Fair St. Louis in the city each July and organized the ball each year in December.
But over the years, the Veiled Prophet traditions have come under fire. Civil rights activists protested the event in the 1960s and 1970s for its history of exclusion and the prophet’s costume, which resembles the attire of a Ku Klux Klan member.
Undoubtedly the most memorable of these protests took place in 1972, when Gena Scott, a member of the ACTION civil rights group, slid down a cable into the ballroom in full debutante attire and unveiled the mysterious prophet.
It turned out to be an executive from Monsanto.
The Missouri History Museum has an extensive collection of Veiled Prophet gowns, tiaras and other keepsakes from the queens and maids over the years, including the missing tiaras.
Walters, the museum spokeswoman, said tiaras were the only things stolen from the museum within the last 17 years.
“This is not typical,” she said.
The institution released a statement about the theft, claiming its security team met the standards for the American Alliance of Museums accreditation. Museum officials would not specify what measures were in place to guard the tiaras but said they are doing internal evaluations of security protocols.
