Ocean's Eight on the Elbe

摘要

IN THE18TH CENTURY Augustus the Strong competed with Louis XIV, France's "Sun King", to assemble Europe's most extravagant jewellery collection. The elector of Saxony, who ruled over Poland and Lithuania, probably triumphed in the end: he gathered multiple sets of exquisite artefacts, made of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, a haul that was supplemented by his successors. The collection represents "a kind of world heritage", reckons Dirk Syndram, director of the Green Vault treasury in Dresden, a baroque city on the Elbe, which houses all the gems.