Displaying items by tag: memorabilia

In the spring of 1925, the famed painter John Singer Sargent was preparing to travel from London to Boston. His plan? To oversee the final installation of murals he’d created for the Museum of Fine Arts — mythic works that would join similar paintings at the Boston Public Library and Harvard’s Widener Library, cementing the artist’s relationship with the city he loved.

But Sargent never made the trip: He died in his sleep before embarking on the voyage.

The online retail giant eBay today launched a new section of its website dedicated to live auctions at Sotheby’s. Modern and contemporary photographs by Man Ray, Paul Strand and László Moholy-Nagy are among the works for sale in the first auction, which will be streamed live on April 1. The second sale of New York memorabilia, which includes a ten-foot-tall sign from Yankee Stadium from the collection of the basketball player Reggie Jackson (est $300,000-$600,000), takes place on April 2.

A bicorne that belonged to Napoléon I will be the star lot at a two-day auction of Napoleon memorabilia from the collection of the Prince’s Palace of Monaco.

The black felt hat with two horizontal points has become emblematic of the French emperor and is “believed to have been worn during his stay on the Island of Elba,” according to the auction house Osenat. The hat first came from Joseph Giraud, vet to the Imperial Household, and it carries an estimate of €300,000‑400,000. Napoleon is known to have owned numerous hats, some of which can now be found in museums around the world, and he wore them with the brim aligned to his shoulders to differentiate himself from his officers.

A piece of French history was acquired by Paris’s Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits this weekend. On Sunday, 21 September, the museum bought Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine Beauharnais’s marriage contract for €437,500 at auction, including buyer’s premium. The sale was held by Osenat, the Fontainebleau-based specialist in Napoleonic memorabilia, in the grounds of the Chateau de Malmaison, Josephine’s favourite retreat a few miles west of Paris.

Dated 9 March 1796, the four-page document was signed by the couple the day before their nuptials.