Twenty-two pieces from the 256-piece ‘Marly Rouge’ table service that Napoleon ordered from the Sèvres porcelain manufactory for the Palace of Compiègne was sold at auction last week for $ 1,812,500, 6 times the estimated price. The red and gold service, exquisitely decorated with butterflies and flowers, was finally delivered in October 1809 to the Palace of Fontainebleau, where the Emperor would spend a month after the gruelling negotiations of the Treaty of Vienna, and where he would break the news to Josephine concerning their impending divorce. In 1814, the set was among the items he took with him to Elba. This ensemble of 22 pieces has been owned by two generations of the Rockefeller family and was symbolic of the family’s deep and longstanding ties to France.
Napoleon/Rockefeller’s “Marly Rouge” Sevres porcelain sells for nearly 2 million dollars
