Napoléon’s Black Hat Does Not Come Up Short in Auction
TRÉS CHER
It fetched more than double the presale estimate even though it’s faded and cracked.
Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed/Anadolu via Getty
A battered hat once worn by Napoléon fetched more than double its estimate at auction—$2.1 million. The buyer is anonymous; the seller is the estate of the late French industrialist Jean-Louis Noisiez. The bicorne hat is made of black felt and is hardly in mint condition; the Associated Press described it as faded and cracked. But interest in Napoléon is running high with the impending release of the Ridley Scott biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix.
