The cultural institutions of France have held sales of valuables before: recall the sale of the crown jewels in 1887

The cultural institutions of France have held sales of valuables before: recall the sale of the crown jewels in 1887. At the same time the state disposed of a great deal of truly valuable palace furniture on the pretext that it held no historical interest. Historians look with horror on those transactions, ill-advised and absurd: the damage they did to the collections is out of all proportion to the sums raised for the treasury. For example, the suites from the Grand Trianon that went under the hammer in the 1880s had to be replaced with furniture brought from the old châteaux of Meudon and Saint-Cloud, so as to furnish the emptied rooms of the palace. In 1881 the suite of Napoleon's mother was sold, along with the furniture from the salon of his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria, and then the personal furniture of Louis Philippe was dispersed. The value of these lots is undoubtedly far higher than that of those prepared by the Mobilier national for the September auction. In particular, this stool from the study of Maria Letizia Bonaparte, Madame Mère of the Emperor, was sold in 1881 and bought back, at a considerably higher price, in 2006 for Versailles