Napoleon’s Bicorne Hat Could Fetch $1 Million
- Editor OGN Daily
- 12 hours ago
- 2 min read
Sotheby’s is selling what it’s calling “one of the most significant offerings of Napoleonic material ever to come to market” on 25 June in Paris.
“Echoing Napoleon’s words - ‘What a novel my life!’ - this collection reads like a vivid historical epic, unfolding across battlefields and boudoirs, ceremonial halls, and intimate chambers, alternating a chronicle of power, politics, and pageantry, to the vulnerabilities, ambitions and contradictions of the man behind the myth,” says the auction house.
Leading the lots is, naturally, one of Napoleon’s famous bicorne hats, which has become entwined with the emperor’s visual identity. Where officers donned the chapeau front to back, Napoleon regularly wore his sideways, or 'en bataille', such that its wings flared outwards - a silhouette that was hard to miss in battle. The model coming to auction was created by Poupard, Napoleon’s official hatmaker. Napoleon owned about 120 bicorne hats over the years but only 20 are thought to remain - many in private collections - and is considered to be the 'holy grail' for specialist collectors.
Several objects point to his extravagant coronation at Paris’s Notre-Dame in December 1804. The ornate herald sword and stick, crafted by arms-maker Boutet of Versailles with ornate detailing of bees and thunderbolts, was wielded by the Chief Herald of the Empire at the event and is now being offered with an estimate of up to $455,000.
Several objects in the sale also offer windows into the emperor’s personal life. Up for grabs are his clothes, including stockings embroidered with his initials (up to $90,000); a portable folding bed that followed him on military campaigns and was invented specifically for him (up to $70,000); and even the marriage certificate that formalized his 1804 union with Joséphine (up to $57,000).
All the items are coming from the collection of Pierre-Jean Chalençon, Napoleon expert (and apparent fan), who has snapped up hundreds of relics related to the French emperor over many years.