Description
IMPORTANT and RARE RED QUARTZITE MORTAR from the TOMB OF EMPEROR Napoleon I. Two labels inscribed: "Piece of porphyry from the tomb of Napoleon I" and "Polished by Mr. JC Auduc de la Flèche". Dimensions : 10,5 x 6,5 x 4 cm. Expert : Maxime Charron. Red quartzite for Roman porphyry: In the heart of the Invalides, the tomb of Napoleon I, signed Visconti, was completed in 1861. The architect wanted red porphyry as for the Roman emperors. But no one knew where to find it in such quantity at that time. France then remembered that Russia had vast mines of red quartzite. Louis Léouzon Le Duc, a journalist and diplomat, was asked to go there in 1846 and found the ideal quarry on a beach of the lake Onéga, at a place called Chokchka. This territory, today Finnish, depended at the time on Tsar Nicolas I who, flattered, granted them the right to exploit the stones but without helping them... The extraction was colossal; 15 blocks were extracted, representing "126 cubic feet"; the largest weighed 200,000 kilos... and it took more than 3 months to get them to France via the Neva, the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, Le Havre and the Seine to Paris...
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IMPORTANT and RARE RED QUARTZITE MORTAR from the TOMB OF EMPEROR Napoleon I. Two labels inscribed: "Piece of porphyry from the tomb of Napoleon I" and "Polished by Mr. JC Auduc de la Flèche". Dimensions : 10,5 x 6,5 x 4 cm. Expert : Maxime Charron. Red quartzite for Roman porphyry: In the heart of the Invalides, the tomb of Napoleon I, signed Visconti, was completed in 1861. The architect wanted red porphyry as for the Roman emperors. But no one knew where to find it in such quantity at that time. France then remembered that Russia had vast mines of red quartzite. Louis Léouzon Le Duc, a journalist and diplomat, was asked to go there in 1846 and found the ideal quarry on a beach of the lake Onéga, at a place called Chokchka. This territory, today Finnish, depended at the time on Tsar Nicolas I who, flattered, granted them the right to exploit the stones but without helping them... The extraction was colossal; 15 blocks were extracted, representing "126 cubic feet"; the largest weighed 200,000 kilos... and it took more than 3 months to get them to France via the Neva, the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, Le Havre and the Seine to Paris...
