Lot n° 45
Estimation :
40000 - 50000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 59 248EUR
EMPEROR NAPOLEON'S SHIRT, WORN AT SAINTE HELENE. - Lot 45
EMPEROR NAPOLEON'S SHIRT, WORN AT SAINTE HELENE.
Stunning head-piece shirt in Baptiste, with long sleeves and stand-up collar fastened by a button (missing). The cuff handles are doubled and each has two surfaced buttonholes. On the right side, at the top of the flap opening, it is embroidered in red silk thread with the "N" under an imperial crown.
A.B.E. (repair, stitching on one side, sewn tear at bottom).
Presented in a modern oak display case, decorated with the eagle and 8 bees around the brass rim, with engraved plaque "Provenance. Mr de Saint Denis dit le Mamelouk Ali".
Provenance:
- Monsieur de Saint Denis, known as the Mamelouk Ali
- Sale Versailles (Maître Blache), May 24, 1987.
- 1st sale, L'Empire à Fontainebleau, Fontainebleau (Maître Osenat), March 20, 2002, n°354, "Émouvante relique de l'Empereur Napoléon Ier à Sainte Hélène" expert Jean-Claude Dey.
- Jean Louis Noisiez Collection
Biography :
From a family of servants attached to the Château de Versailles, where he was born on September 22, 1788, he received a good education, was first a notary's clerk in Paris and then, thanks to his father, a riding master who knew the grand écuyer Caulaincourt, entered the House's crews in Spain, Germany and Holland, until the day of December 11, 1811, when he moved into domestic service as second mameluck. It was then that he received the nickname of Ali, which had been borne before him by Roustam's companion, also brought back from Egypt by Bonaparte, who soon parted company with him. It was in this capacity that he took part in the Russian and 1813 campaigns, taking care of the campaign glasses and table service, and, like Roustam, sleeping across the bedroom door. In 1814, at Fontainebleau, he was fortunate that Roustam had escaped. After being held prisoner in Mainz, he made his own way to Elba, where he became the first Mamluk. From the Hundred Days to St. Helena, he never left Napoleon's side for a single day. As a young man, he showed himself to be tireless, dedicated, discreet and intelligent. He and Marchand, who became his friend, were the two servants who softened his captivity by rendering their master every possible service. Above all, his role as copyist (many of Longwood's writings are in his hand, including part of Las Cases' Mémorial) and librarian - and we know that the library was of vital importance to the exiles - gave him an indispensable role with Napoleon in those years when the legend was being created. On his return to France, enjoying a small measure of financial comfort thanks to his past earnings and a bequest from the Emperor, he settled in Sens in 1827 and devoted himself body and soul to the cult of remembrance. He met the elders of the epic, exchanged abundant correspondence with them, refreshed the memories of Las Cases and Montholon and many other St. Helena elders who questioned him. Charged by Napoleon's will with the delivery of 400 books from the library to the Duke of Reichstadt, he could only have them delivered to Madame Mère. After his participation in the Return of the Ashes expedition in 1840, he continued to frequent Bonapartist circles more than ever. On a visit to Sens in 1851, the Prince-President had a private meeting with him, and on February 23, 1854, having become Napoleon III, fulfilled his dearest wish by making him a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. A member of the town council, father of three daughters from his marriage to Mary Hall, Bertrand's children's governess, who had married on St. Helena - where his eldest daughter had been born - he left a considerable body of written work, which had occupied him for many years, at his death in Sens on May 3, 1856. His Souvenirs, published in 1826 (albeit partially and very imperfectly), provide a wealth of information on life at Longwood not found in any other memoirist. But the unpublished works are important, more diverse and highly curious. Among other things, we owe him the complete catalog (in the process of being published) of the Longwood library, the composition of which has already been the subject of scholarly but partial studies. Although he took no notes from 1812 to 1821, his extraordinary visual memory, his neutral position as an intimate servant and a rare scrupulousness (which, for example, led him to return often to the same point to clarify some detail) make his papers an original source on the Emperor's private life during the last years of his reign and those of his exile, as well as on the development of the Napoleonic legend from 1821 to the Second Empire.
Biography by Jacques Jourquin.
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