This is the only existing color photograph of the Amber Room, a $500 million work of art that's been missing since the Nazis looted it from Russia during World War II.
This is the only existing color photograph of the Amber Room, a $500 million work of art that's been missing since the Nazis looted it from Russia during World War II. The room covered 180 square feet and was adorned from floor to ceiling in literal tons of amber, gold leaf, and precious gemstones. It featured gilded statues of cherubs and saints, carved reliefs of the Romanov coat of arms, and dozens of mirrored panels to reflect the candlelight with which it was lit. But after the Germans made off with it, no one had any idea where it went except for a lone Nazi soldier who tried to auction off a mosaic he stole from it in the 1990s. To this day, that single square of the wall is all that has been recovered from the Amber Room.