Jug and basin Marie Antoinette gave to governess recovered 37 years after theft

A rare jug and basin given by Marie Antoinette to one of her closest friends are being returned to a French chateau 37 years after their theft.

The Sèvres porcelain was taken by armed robbers from the Château de Thoiry, 30 miles west of Paris, in 1987. Detectives identified the ewer and bowl stolen after an antiques expert contacted them to check whether the ceramic ware was on a list of missing cultural objects.

Paul de La Panouse, 80, the owner of the 16th-century chateau, said the loss had caused many sleepless nights and he had all but given up seeing the items again when police called to say they had the porcelain, hand-painted in an unusually vivid sky-blue colour.

“They said they’d found them. It was so, so emotional,” he told Le Parisien newspaper. “Only 20 or so porcelain pieces were ever painted with this blue.”

In November 1987, three armed robbers suspected of a series of more than 20 break-ins at chateaux in the Yvelines department over a period of six months enteredThoiry, now famous for its zoo. They stole several valuable objects including six rifles offered by George III to Louis XVI.

La Panouse, who was at home, offered a reward of 100,000 francs (worth about £10,000 at the time) for information leading to the recovery of the objects.

Marie Antoinette had given the jug and basin to La Panouse’s distant relative, Louise-Élisabeth de Croÿ de Tourzel, a governess to the ill-fated royal children. When Louis XVI and the royal family attempted to flee Paris in 1791 on what became known as the Flight to Varennes, De Tourzel joined them as a decoy before all were caught and returned to the city. She later published her memoirs, which remain an invaluable account of the last days of the royal household.

Col Hubert Percie du Sert, the head of the OCBC, a specialist police department that investigates the trafficking of cultural objects, said officers had been able to match the stolen jug and bowl thanks to photographs in their records.

“An expert contacted us expressing his doubts about the pieces that he’d been offered. We immediately looked in our database, and they came up as stolen in 1987,” Du Sert said. “The owner had bought them in good faith and was unaware of their provenance. When he learned they’d been stolen he immediately gave them back.”