The first weekend of March proved to be a tempestuous weekend for the French art world, attracting to the Fontainebleau Auction Hall not only local professionals but also enthusiasts from the world over. However, in order to really grasp this unusual event, we have to begin from the beginning.

Though he was not present, the spirit behind the event was actually the American billionaire Malcolm Forbes, the publisher of the Forbes magazine who had a passion for France and French art. He owned a chateau in France and his collection of paintings and sculptures often included copies when he was unable to acquire the originals.

Shortly before his death in 1990, Malcolm Forbes transferred not only his opulent treasure of creative works but his fervour for art as well to his son, Christopher, who has chosen to devote his life to his aesthetic passion rather than taking care of the family business which is today fairly successfully managed by his brother Steve.

Christopher Forbes sells his vast collection of the French Second Empire art and memorabilia at an auction in Fontainebleau

A considerable portion of the Forbes collection basically contains paintings of the Napoleon III reign (1852-1870) including many portraits of the emperor, especially one copy of a work done by the royal painter Hippolyte Flandrin, the original still hanging in the Versailles Palace.

However, the masterpiece that has caused a lot of ink to flow in the French media is the huge (3.61x4.71 metres) work called ‘Empress Eugenie surrounded by Dames of Honour’ by Franz-Xavier Winterhalter that was first shown in the 1855 Universal Paintings Exposition in Paris before being added to the Versailles Palace collection.

The tableau crossed the British Channel when the royal couple was exiled to the United Kingdom in 1870 following a coup d’état and the end of the Second Empire. Later after her husband’s death in 1873, Eugenie kept it in her residence at Farnborough Hill until her own death in 1920. The British government returned the Winterhalter chef d’oeuvre to France in 1926 and it can today be seen in the Chateau de Compiegne, the former royal hunting palace and now a national historical monument.

A copy of ‘Empress Eugenie surrounded by Dames of Honour’ was part of the Forbes collection since 1985. It is a fairly recent imitation done as late as 1968 by an Algerian painter named Emile Miloud Boukerche. It has the same dimensions as the original work, with a few changes in the green trees and the blue sky of the background as well as in the jewelleries of the dames around the main figure.

Boukerche had the sense of humour to put his signature at the bottom of the painting with the note ‘Improved version of Winterhalter’s work’.

The acquisitions of the Forbes family auctioned in Fontainebleau on the above-mentioned weekend also included some 2,000 other objets d’art, hand-written letters and manuscripts, sculptures and pieces of furniture belonging either to the royal family itself or simply to the Napoleon III era.

A huge majority of the perspective buyers in the Fontainebleau auction hall comprised rich Americans followed by British, French, Russian, Chinese and Arab hopefuls.

The auction itself was a stormy affair and the articles on sale went out like hot cakes, though the copies did not bring in the millions that many had expected. Another imitation of a portrait of Empress Eugenie by Winterhalter was bought for 45,000€ and the much talked about but fake ‘Empress Eugenie surrounded by Dames of Honour’ went out at 160,000€, the highest bid of the auction. These were followed by another copy of a Winterhalter painting of ‘Napoleon III with the Empress’ at 96,000€ and a religious document certifying the marriage between Napoleon I and Josephine at 32,000€.

And yes, two pairs of royal woollen socks brought in 2,000€ each!

The writer is a journalist based in Paris: ZafMasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, March 27th, 2016