2023-11-18 15:34:00
In October, a historic document was put up for auction. It was indeed Arenberg Auctions, a Brussels auction house, which proposed the deed of sale preventing the cutting of the land of the Laeken estate. The estate had to be divided into lots, before a certain Napoleon fell in love with the place… And saved it. This deed of sale dates from August 3, 1804 and is signed by Napoleon himself. It was sold on October 14 for the modest sum of €6,250, instead of the estimated €3,000.
But who could possibly have wanted to buy this document? This is “Sony Pictures Belgium”, which is none other than the Belgian distributor of the film “Napoleon”, the new blockbuster by Ridley Scott, with Joaquin Phoenix, which hits our screens next Wednesday. After purchasing the document, the distributor announced that he would send it to King Philip himself. Enough to pay for a great communication operation… but the story doesn’t end there.
According to certain sources close to the palace, the document was certainly proposed to the Royal Palace, but the latter did not accept it. He suggested proposing it to the national archives of the Kingdom, which is the classic procedure. If they accept it, it will then become the property of the Belgian state. The document sold at auction is in fact not an original, but a copy, a “shipping” of the original deed, which is kept in the national archives of Paris. The historical value of the document sold at auction would therefore be more relative, especially since the deed does not relate to the land where the castle is located of the royal family.
King Philippe Domaine de Laeken Napoleon
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