A pair of child sized pistols – believed to be parting gifts from Napoleon I to his three year old son titled King of Rome at birth – is one of the more unusual lots at Sotheby’s Treasures sale in London on July 8.
Created by celebrated gunsmith Jean Lepage the pistols are encrusted and inlaid with gold and emblazoned with Napoleonic symbolism, such as the capitalised N and the Imperial eagle, marking them as an important Imperial gift. Dated 1814 they are estimated at £800,000-1.2 million.
Napoleon abdicated in April 1814, was forced into exile on the island of Elba, but returned triumphantly only to be decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington on June 18, 1815. He was exiled to the Atlantic island of St Helena, where he died in 1821.