GENEVA (AP) — A diamond brooch that French emperor Napoleon lost while fleeing from the Battle of Waterloo in the early 19th century sold for more than 3.5 million Swiss francs (about $4.4 million) at a Geneva auction on Wednesday, Sotheby’s said.
The brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, features an oval diamond weighing over 13 carats surrounded by smaller cut diamonds. The sale price vastly outstripped the high end of the pre-sale estimate of 200,000 francs.
A Sotheby’s employee displays a green beryl, over 132 carats, which Napoleon was said to have worn at his 1804 coronation, during a preview at Sotheby’s in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday Nov. 6, 2025. The jewel sold for a hammer price of 838,000 francs. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP) A Sotheby’s employee displays a green beryl, over 132 carats, which Napoleon was said to have worn at his 1804 coronation, and a diamond brooch once owned by emperor Napoleon, during a preview at Sotheby’s in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday Nov. 6, 2025. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP) A Sotheby’s employee displays an old mine-cut diamond brooch or pendant owned by Emperor Napoleon I, circa 1810, during a preview at Sotheby’s in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP) Show Caption1 of 3A Sotheby’s employee displays a green beryl, over 132 carats, which Napoleon was said to have worn at his 1804 coronation, during a preview at Sotheby’s in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday Nov. 6, 2025. The jewel sold for a hammer price of 838,000 francs. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP) ExpandThe hammer price was 2.85 million francs, excluding fees and other charges that were included in the final aggregate price.
The circular jewel was found in a stash of Napoleon’s personal belongings in carriages that got held up on muddy roads as he and his troops fled the Duke of Wellington’s British forces and the Prussian army under Field Marshal von Blücher, Sotheby’s said.
For more than two centuries, the jewels featured as part of heirlooms of the Prussian Royal House of Hohenzollern. Sotheby’s did not disclose the identity of the seller, and said that the buyer was a “private collector.”
Among dozens of lots on the block was a green beryl weighing over 132 carats, which Napoleon was said to have worn at his 1804 coronation. The jewel sold for a hammer price of 838,000 francs, or more than 17 times the high-end pre-sale estimate.
One diamond expert said the sale took on added allure in the wake of the much-ballyhooed robbery of Napoleonic jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris last month.
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Later Wednesday, Sotheby’s was holding a “high jewelry” auction featuring a 10-carat pink diamond tentatively known as the “Glowing Rose,” which is expected to fetch about $20 million. The stone was unearthed in Angola’s Lulo mine.
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