A newly discovered hat with DNA traces that prove that it belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte is on display today in Hong Kong by the auction house Bonhams.
As the House describes it, it is the “first hat to carry the emperor’s DNA” and will be exhibited in Hong Kong before being transported to Paris and then to London, where it will be auctioned on October 27.
The hat was bought by its current owner at an auction of a small German house, who at the time did not know it belonged to the great recruiter.
“It was pure luck,” said Simon Kotl, director of the house’s branch in Europe. The buyer suspected that the hat may have belonged to Napoleon when he found that it contained some words indicating its possible owner, Kotl said, adding that an initial investigation showed that the hat matched the dimensions and age of the two of the great general’s hats.
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The hat was then thoroughly examined using a variety of methods, including electron microscopy.
“When the contents of the hat were examined in great detail, five hairs were discovered. And then two of them were further examined and found to have Napoleon DNA”.
The story of this hat is very different from that of the other hats of Napoleon that have been auctioned.
Kotl says most of Napoleon’s hats are second-hand, from aristocratic families associated with the emperor or from soldiers who found them on the battlefield.
The estimated price of the hat ranges from 116,000 euros to 175,000 and this, because as Kotl points out, because only recently it turned out that it belonged to the emperor.
Other of his hats have been sold for more than two million euros.
