Paintings, drawings, furniture and historical memorabilia from the French royal family will come up at Sotheby’s in Paris on September 29. The sale from the collections of the late Comte de Paris (1909-1999) and Comtesse de Paris (1911-2003) is from the dynasty that reigned over France for nearly a thousand years. There are 200 lots from various residences of the Orléans family, the cadet branch, which later became the eldest branch of the Royal House of France. In 1848, during the July Revolution which ended the reign of Louis-Philippe, they went with the royal family into exile, firstly to Claremont House in England, then to the Manoir d’Anjou in Belgium, and then to Portugal. They returned to France in the 1950s when the exile act barring pretenders to the French throne from French territory was repealed. They have always remained the private property of the descendants of King Louis-Philippe. The works have been housed since 1974 by the Fondation Saint-Louis and were restored to the heirs of the Comte and Comtesse de Paris by a district court ruling in 2013.
Louis-Phillippe, duc de Valois au Berceau by Nicolas Bernard Lepicie (150,000-200,000).
an 1821 portrait by Horace Vernet of the Duc de Chartres (50,000-70,000).