This is one of the most exciting emails I have ever received. I skimmed so fast to find out what happened that I had to start from the beginning twice to actually absorb the story. Here is the story from Ken in which he explains how he has come to own a piece of Napoleon's Italian throne chair! Thank you so much for sharing Ken!
I just thought I’d write and let you know about one of my recent discoveries, and it is a real discovery at that!!
I was ‘trawling’ though one of the many websites I search through for any mention of anything ‘Napoleonic’, (The web site has listing for auctions from all around the world); when I came a across a listing from a small auction house in New York that only said… ‘Napoleonic Embroidery’… but it had no picture showing what it was that they were selling or any other details, other than the starting price of $100.00 USD. As I was short of time I just noted the link and thought I’d try and look sometime later to see if I could find the actually company’s web site….
Well I forgot about it for a few days…. but then I came across my note, so I made a search to find the actually auction house web site….
I found their site and then did a search on ‘Napoleon’ and up popped a picture and information on the ‘Napoleonic Embroidery’ they were auctioning.
Well that’s when I just about had a heart attack!!....
The picture I was looking at on my laptop was of a large, round circle of crimson velvet, heavily embroidered with an Imperial Eagle and Crown, circled by a wreath of olive leaves, all inside a another circle of stylized acanthus leaves…
My eyes just about popped out of my head!! It just screamed at me…..
“Napoleon’s throne!!!” I have seen all of his thrones in France and this embroidery had the same look a feel to me….
Then a sudden bout of reality set in… “No way, it can’t be???… Surely not???”
But still, every time I looked at the images on my laptop I heard this voice saying… “Napoleon’s throne, Napoleon’s throne….”
The auction was in three days time!
My next thought was of my friend Bernard Chevallier, (ex director of Malmaison) I need to get in contact with him!!
So I sent off all the images from the auction web site to him by email, luckily there were pretty good quality, hoping he would get back to me quickly… But as he travels a lot I was a little worried that I may not hear from him before the auction in 3 days time!
1 day goes by… No reply…
2 days go by… No reply…
The day of the auction arrives and 12 hours before the absentee bidding is to close… Still no reply from Bernard…
The 12 hours are up, still no message from Bernard and I need to make a decision… do I bid? What amount do I bid?
I’m feeling confident on the one hand but worried on the other, as there were one or two things about the embroidery that niggled in the back of my mind… The eagle is a little naïve, and the crown is not quite the design of the Imperial crown. But I had to go with my gut feeling. So I placed a bid….
With the absentee bidding closed and 10 hours before the auction was to take place in New York, Bernard comes online via Skype; Up pops his video chat window…. And the first thing he said to me was…
“Ken…. your embroidery, it is fantastic, but it is not French!”
My heart sank…. I’d just wasted my money, I was wrong about the embroidery…it’s not Napoleonic!! ..… How could I be so wrong???!!
Bernard must have seen the look on my face….
“Ken… Ken…. The embroidery it is Italian!!” and he continued in his thick Parisian accent…. “I believe it has come from Napoleon’s throne in the Palazzo Reale in Milan!! The style is very early Empire, so it was probably on the throne when Napoleon was crowned Roi d’Italie!!” “WHERE IS THIS ITEM??!!”
My doubts all fly away at a million miles an hour!!
I then explain to Bernard about how I found the auction online and that there are no other bids recorded yet, so it is at $100.00 USD, and that the auction is due to take place in about 10 hours in New York.
Now it was his turn to have a heart attack! He is amazed that an item like this could appear at a small auction house in New York!!…
He then explains that the four thrones of Napoleon in France are all well documented but that the one in Milan was lost and not much is known about it after the fall of the Empire. I asked him why he believes it is from the Italian throne, and he says that just by sheer chance he has a friend staying with him who is an embroidery expert working at the Museum of Nimes and he took one look at the pictures I’d sent and said it was definitely done in the ‘Italian Style’ of high quality and early empire period. Hence Bernard’s belief that it could only have come from the Palazzo Reale throne!!
Well now all I had to do was sit back for 10 hours and wait for the auction to take place!.
It was the most nervous ten hours I think I have ever had!
The auction time arrived and I logged into the web site to see that they had registered some in-house absentee bids which had sent the price of the embroidery up from$100 to $1200 USD! But I was still the top bidder….but, does this mean someone else has a clue as to what it is??!!
All I could do now was to wait for the live bidding to start and see what happened… I still have a couple of hundred dollars leeway till it reached my maximum bid… but I was really worried that someone at who was at the actual live auction would have an idea about the embroidery and push it way past my top bid….
The auction time arrives, at 3.30am Sydney time, and I log on to the web site to watch it…
I am extremely nervous, but to my joy and surprise there were NO live floor bids so I won the embroidery!!!
8 days later it arrived at my office in Sydney… a friend had to help me take it home in a maxi cab as it was so heavy (it’s in a big gilt frame, glass etc).
I spent about an hour unwrapping it all as the auction house had done such a brilliant job in making sure it arrived safely.
And then there it was…..
STUPENDOUS was all I could say when it was finally revealed!!!
The detailing is just beautiful and is not captured at all in the pictures…
So now it hangs on my wall in pride of place!!
So how’s that for a find on the century!!... Sometimes I think I must have the luck of the Irish!!.... Which sounds a bit odd coming from a Kiwi, living in Australia!!
Anyways… I’m sure you’d like to actually see what it is that first made my eyes pop out of my head!!!...
Here’s the link to my web site with the pictures etc. The pictures really don’t do it justice!!
I think my biggest thrill out of all of this is the knowledge that this piece of history has now come back into the light again!
My best ‘Napoleonic’ wishes to you…
Cheers
Ken
Ken, with that much history in your very own house I imagine you will have amazing dreams! Congratulations!
I am dying with jealousy!
Every now and then I get the most interesting pictures sent to me of a Napoleon themed item.
This one is a mystery to me and I wonder if anyone out there knows what it is?
