Personal items and clothing belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte are going on the block at Sotheby’s in Paris later this month—and their owner hopes the controversial billionaire Elon Musk will buy the lot.
Pierre-Jean Chalençon has amassed one of the world’s largest private Napoleonic collections at his Parisian Palais Vivienne residence—at least 2,000 objects at the last count. Now he is bringing to auction furniture, silver, porcelain, sculpture, Old Master paintings, books, and drawings linked to the legendary 18th-century French military leader and emperor.
Star artefacts include Bonaparte’s famous emblematic bicorne hat (est €500,000-800,000) and the Herald Sword and Stick—adorned with imperial bees, and thunderbolt engravings—used during the coronation ceremony at Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804. An eye-popping portrait showing Emperor Napoleon I in the robes he wore for the coronation, from the studio of François-Pascal-Simon Baron Gérard, should also excite Bonapartists (est in the region of €300,000).
Discussing his collection, Chalençon told The New York Post: “They are like my children. And I wish Elon Musk, the new Napoleon, [will] buy everything, to keep my children all together.” An interesting idea—but will the chance to adopt this Napoleonic trove be enough to distract Musk from his current spat with the President of the United States? We doubt it.
