Overview

• Sotheby’s Paris will offer more than 100 items on June 25, including Napoleon’s bicorne hat, his handwritten final will and correspondence with Joséphine.
• The Chalençon Collection was amassed over four decades by antiques dealer Pierre-Jean Chalençon and is being sold to help settle his reported €9.4 million debt.
• Celebrity designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac staged the exhibit with fog effects, hypnotic music and themed rooms to evoke the drama of Napoleon’s campaigns.
• Auctioneers expect the sale to exceed €7 million, with Napoleon’s iconic bicorne hat alone estimated at over €500,000.
• The event follows a resurgence of interest in Napoleon sparked by the 2023 biopic, which grossed more than $220 million worldwide.