Baccarat, Return Of The Ashes - Crystal-ceramic With Profiles Of Napoleon And Ml - Brouwet Collection

Visible in Paris. Free local pickup in the capital and its suburbs. Shipping within France: €20. Contact me for shipping within Europe and internationally. Crystal-ceramic with the profile of the imperial couple. Crystal and cameo. Dimensions: Diameter 8.5 cm. Baccarat, circa 1830. Crystal-ceramic by the Baccarat Manufactory, from the period of the Return of the Ashes. It depicts Napoleon as Caesar and Marie Louise, based on the wedding medal by Andrieu. The molded crystal is decorated with fans, rosettes, and pearls. The background features a diamond guilloché pattern. We are offering for sale several of these pieces, which bear witness to the expertise of French crystal manufacturers at the beginning of the 19th century and come from the former collection of Emile Brouwet. Emile Brouwet, a collector of Napoleonic memorabilia, was Belgian by birth and one of the administrators of Malmaison. Thanks to his personal fortune, he assembled the largest collection of autographs ever gathered from the Napoleonic era, which he supplemented with historical objects and souvenirs of the Empire. The majority of his collection was dispersed during three sales in 1934 and 1935 at the Hôtel Drouot, and after some difficulties with the National Archives of France, a fourth auction was organized in 1937 in London. A significant portion of his collection was exhibited at the Musée Napoléon in Digne; it was in this town, a symbol of the "Flight of the Eagle" during the Hundred Days, that the collector created a museum where objects evoking memories of Napoleon and the imperial family were displayed to the public. Inaugurated in July 1932, the Digne Museum closed its doors in 1939. While the majority of the collection remained in the Brouwet family, some objects were deposited around the same time at the Army Museum in Brussels, where they appear to still be kept today. Condition report: minor chips on the back.