By
Bloomberg
Published
October 24, 2025
A unique diamond brooch once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte- and said to have been retrieved from the chaos of the Battle of Waterloo- will go under the hammer for the first time this November.
No, it’s not those French crown jewels, the ones stolen from the Louvre museum this week in a brazen heist. The brooch, reportedly abandoned by Napoleon himself as he fled the battlefield after his crushing defeat in 1815 and owned for centuries by descendants of the victorious King of Prussia, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s Royal & Noble Jewels sale in Geneva on November 12.
The circular brooch has an oval diamond of over thirteen carats in weight at its centre and is surrounded by nearly one hundred old mine cut diamonds of varying shapes and sizes. Created in a Parisian atelier around 1810, the brooch, which most likely adorned Napoleon’s bicorne on special occasions, is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $250,000, Sotheby’s told Bloomberg.
Offered as a spoil of war only three days after Napoleon’s defeat, the brooch remained in the House of Hohenzollern- the former German imperial dynasty- for centuries. It was passed down from King Friedrich Wilhelm III to the last German emperor, Queen Victoria’s grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II, and eventually to his grandson Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia. It has been part of a different private collection for the last few years.
In an uncertain global market, collectors are increasingly turning to rare, storied pieces as tangible stores of value. Sotheby’s Royal & Noble auction is an annual sale dedicated to showcasing illustrious jewels with provenance. In previous auctions, Sotheby’s sold a diamond necklace with possible links to a scandal that led to the downfall of Marie Antoinette for $4.8 million. One of the most famous sales was in 1987 when a collection of jewels owned by the late Duchess of Windsor was sold for $50 million, more than six times the expected figure.
Napoleon’s brooch is the showpiece of the upcoming auction, which will also feature a diamond ring that once belonged to one of the last Ottoman princesses, Neslishah Sultan.
