a month agoThe guillotine collector. French buys 8,000 euros in execution mechanism
Periskopi(8 years ago)
(8 years ago)It was an unusual auction, surrounded by controversy, but the acquisition was eventually carried out. A French millionaire, passionate about strange objects, has added his collection with a guillotine. The mechanism, he secured for 8.008 euros. The 150-year-old copy sparked serious debates, especially on the part of the higher auction bodies, [...]
It was an unusual auction, surrounded by controversy, but the acquisition was eventually carried out. A French millionaire, passionate about strange objects, has added his collection with a guillotine.
The mechanism, he secured for 8.008 euros. The 150-year-old copy sparked major debates, especially on the part of the overarching body of auctions, although the house that put it on sale insists that the 3m-high instrument has never been used.
Giyotine has been a way of execution in France until 1977. The country would lift its death sentence in 1981. The sold copy was once exposed to a torture museum in Paris.
There was much opposition to its sale, with the argument that objects like torture instruments or clothing held by Jews deported by the Nazis should not go to auctions, because people are very sensitive to them.
The sale, however, could not be blocked. The whole process lasted only two minutes. Industrialist Christopher Février doubled the original price of his 4,000 euros, and that was all.
True Giyotines have been put out in auctions in the past. One of them was sold in Paris seven years ago for 220 thousand euros. Gyotine was first used during the French Revolution. 16,000 were beheaded from its beginnings to its final removal in France, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.
