French silver-gilt table knife and fork from a service made for Napoleon – £9000 at Woolley & Wallis.
The neoclassical design features the profile of Minerva, the imperial arms of Napoleon, and the initial N in a laurel wreath.
It has Paris marks for Martin Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843), the main supplier of silver and silver-gilt to Napoleon and his family and the firm that made the emperor’s crown and sceptre for the 1804 coronation.
The knife and fork came for sale at the Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) Silver & Vertu sale in Salisbury on July 12 with a guide of £3000-5000 and took £9000.
They were sold by descent from Alfred William Weston (1892-1950), a businessman, entrepreneur and illustrator who was employed by John Logie Baird to edit Television, the world’s first television journal. He is thought to have acquired them in the 1920s.
