A hat belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte is on sale at auction in Paris today.
The bicorne black beaver felt hat is valued between €600,000 and €800,000. The hat is being sold along with other Napoleonic memorabilia assembled by an industrialist who died last year: but the hat is the true holy grail. The emperor wore his hat with the corns parallel to shoulders – known as „en bataille” – whereas most of his officers wore their hats perpendicular to the shoulders.
Auctioneer Jean Pierre Osenat said: „People recognised this hat everywhere. When they saw it on the battlefields, they knew Napoleon was there.
„And when in private, he always had it on his head or he had it in his hand, and sometimes he threw it on the ground. That was the image – the symbol of the emperor.”
The auctioneers said this hat comes with impeccable provenance, remaining throughout the 19th Century in the same family of the quartermaster of Napoleon’s palace.
The hat being auctioned by Osenat auction house in Fontainebleau has a cockade that Napoleon fixed to his hat in 1815, during the crossing of the Mediterranean from his exile in Elba to Antibes, where he lead a brief return to power, informs the BBC.
Other items being sold include a silver plate looted from Napoleon’s carriage after his 1815 defeat at Waterloo and a wooden vanity case he owned, with razors, a silver toothbrush, scissors and other belongings.
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