A CONSULATE OR EARLY IST EMPIRE BICORN HAT ATTRIBUTED TO POUPART, SAID TO HAVE BEEN WORN BY NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
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A CONSULATE OR EARLY IST EMPIRE BICORN HAT ATTRIBUTED TO POUPART, SAID TO HAVE BEEN WORN BY NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Details
A CONSULATE OR EARLY IST EMPIRE BICORN HAT ATTRIBUTED TO POUPART, SAID TO HAVE BEEN WORN BY NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Beaver with tricolor cockade, cloth covered button with two silk ribands, stitched repairs to the right side of front brim, silk patch on reverse of hte front brim repairing damage to front of the brim beside cockade
tag of the Smithsonian Institution stamped 'THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY/SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION', inscribed 'UH-1/Napoleon' and with sticker 'LEM49/A.504/UH1', and stamped '81834 CBH JACKSON A-1980-0399' on the reverse
Provenance
Charles Bremner Hogg Jackson Collection and bequeathed by Jackson to the Smithsonian Institution, 1980 (Smithsonian inventory of the Jackson bequest under 'HELMETS no. UH1 French, First Empire Chapeau Worn by Emperor Napoleon I. Beaver with Tricolor Cockade, Black Cloth Covered button, Two Silk Ribands'. De-accessioned by the Smithsonian Institution, c.1995.
Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.
Sale room notice
Addendum
PROVENANCE:
J. Ambers Collection, Brussels; his sale [of Napoleonica] Drouot, Paris, c. 1923-24.
Attorney Jeanne Georges de Froidcourt, Liege, by 1939.
Gaston Motte, liege, by 1946.

EXHIBITED:
Liege, Exposition Internationale de l'Eau, 1939 (lent by J. G. de Froidcourt).

Papers of Charles Bremner Hogg Jackson in a file (Napoleon Chapeau) still held in the Smithsonian Institute, relating to the present hat, include a certificate in French by Gaston Motte (the owner of the hat in the 1940s) dated Liege 19 April 1946: 'I undersigned certify that the hat of Napoleon was on display at the International Exhibition of Liege in 1939 and was accepted and acknowledged by the exhibition museum...'

PLEASE NOTE THE THE ESTIMATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO £20,000-30,000

Lot Essay

The hat was originally accompanied by a receipt for its purchase by Jackson and a slip from the milliner confirming it was one supplied by him to to Napoleon and itemising repairs carried out (these papers no longer accompany the hat).

The hat, reputedly Napoleon's, is of a style (laid down by in the designs for the official costumes of government by the painter David) consistent with those worn by French officers during the Consulate and beginning of the 1st Empire, apart from the cockade (a patriotic symbol which emerged when worn by the Paris Militia, first combining the red and blue of the House of Orléans and the City of Paris, to which the Marquis de La Fayette added the white of the Bourbons, to make the tricolour), riband and button.

Napoleon's simple hats, chosen to be worn with any style of costume, were bought from the Paris chapelier Poupart (et Cie) and cost 60 francs apiece. He is thought to have got through at least one a month between 1802 and 1815. Once out of shape, Napoleon's director of the Imperial Wardrobe, M. Gervais, passed them to his launderer who used them as grips for working with hot irons. One of Napoleon's favourite hats was buried with him and a handful survive in museums and in private collections.
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