Penis for Sale at Christie’s
July 23, 2010 –
When Napoleon Bonaparte died in May 1821, there were fears that rumours would spread about the manner of his death (recent claims included the suggestion that he was poisoned), which may explain why no fewer than seventeen witnesses were invited to observe the autopsy which was carried out the day after he died by the Emperor’s own doctor, Francesco Antommarchi.
On the Emperor’s own instructions, his heart was removed first. Napoleon had asked that it be sent to his wife Marie-Louise, though the heart apparently vanished before it could be delivered. Curiouser and curiouser.
The stomach was carefully examined and at the time it was agreed that cancer was the cause of death. Nothing else is recorded as having been removed. However, within a few decades it was commonly supposed that Napoleon’s penis had been cut off and stored away carefully during the autopsy. Oddly this was not mentioned in any of the seventeen witnesses present at the time of the autopsy. But several commentator (let me tell you the commentators joke, go on!) have suggested that the body was not guarded at all times during the procedure and while everyone’s backs were turned Napoleon’s organ could have been quickly snipped off (Ouch).
Napoleon’s friemd Vignali, who adminstered the last rites, was left a large sum of money in Napoleon’s will as well as numerous ‘personal affects’ – these were not specified however. Thirty years later Napoleon’s manservant claimed that Vignali had indeed removed various parts of Napoleon’s body, but this was not corroborated.
By 1916, the material bequeathed to Vignali had been sold en masse to a London collector, who some years later sold the collection to an American. it was at this point that the peni sstory became more substantial. The description of the collection included the curious phrase mentioning ‘the mummified tendon taken from Napoleon’s body during the post-mortem’.
By the 1930′s A.S Rosenbach, an American collector, was displaying the ‘tendon’ in a blue velvet case and describing it as Napoleon’s penis. It trravelled to France and was later the centrepiece of a grand display at the Museum of French Art in New York.
A newspaper report described the organ as looking something like a maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace or shriveled eel’. Reports – largely stemming from Napoleon himself – that he was particularly well-endowed seem to be contradicted by the fact that the organ was also described as an inch long and resembling a grape. (Id like to see their’s almost 100 years after their death)
The most extraordinary part of this story occurred in London in 1972 when the putative penis was put up for sale – complete with magnificent velvet-lined case – at the London auction house Christie’s along with the rest of the Vignali collection. The collection failed to reach its reserve and was withdrawn. A few years later the penis popped up (pardon?!) again, this time in Paris and unemcumbered by all the other paraphernalia of the collection. The penis was bought by John Lattimer, a retired professor od Urology (apropriately enough) at the University of Columbia for $3,000. The penis is still, as it were, in Professor Latimer’s hands.
