In the basement of Dresden’s Royal Palace, visitors stand in a line, two by two. Each pair is ushered into a spaceship-like air lock, where the doors shush closed behind them before another set glides open, depositing them in the Green Vault, a chamber of treasures amassed by the Baroque-period rulers of Saxony, the easternmost state in Germany.
If the security seems like something out of a Mission: Impossible movie, there’s a reason: the Green Vault’s 4,000-piece art collection, including jewelry dripping with priceless stones, was the victim of a high-profile, $119 million heist in 2019. (The 21 stolen objects were later found and returned.) With its renovations newly completed, the Royal Palace has taken center stage in the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, or S.K.D.).
