Mirror reportedly owned by Marie Antoinette comes to auction
09 November 2020 A mirror that hung in a family’s bathroom in Bristol for more than 40 years is believed to have once been owned by Marie Antoinette.
This looking glass, in a mid-19th century frame, is thought to have once been owned by Marie Antoinette. It will be offered at East Bristol Auctions on November 13 with an estimate of £5000-8000.
In a mid-19th century frame, the looking glass is thought to have been owned by Antoinette and then Emperor Napoleon III’s wife Eugenie, who collected items that belonged to the famous French queen.
The 20 x 16in (50 x 40 cm) mirror is thought to have once formed part of a larger, more ornate display, very likely from one of Antoinette’s French palaces. In the mid-19th century it was mounted in a carved walnut frame with leaves and vines.
It will now be offered at East Bristol Auctions on November 13 with an estimate of £5000-8000.
East Bristol state that the looking glass was purchased from the personal estate of Antoinette and that Eugenie held an exhibition in her honour in the 19th century.
Aiden Khan, sale manager at East Bristol Auctions, said: “It’s remarkable to think this mirror, with its incredible history, has been sat on a wall of a downstairs loo for so long.”
Auctioneer Andrew Stowe at East Bristol Auctions added: “With something like this, provenance is everything and this has a wonderful paper trail – it actually appears in a catalogue from an auction held in 1880 at Camden House in Kent, for the estate of the late Napoleon III, in which it is noted as a ‘toilet-glass in an Indian Wood frame.’ When we saw that, it pretty much sealed it as the real-deal.”
The mirror was purchased in the 1950s by a friend of the current owner’s family, and when that original purchaser passed away in the eighties, it was inherited by the grandmother of the now-owner.
View this Marie Antoinette mirror via thesaleroom.com.
