Silver & Jewellery - 20 Apr 2005
721
"Hair from the main of Buonaparte's favourite White Charger", a fold of paper
containing some white horse-hair tied in a loose circle, the inscription continuing, "in the King's [Stable (deleted)] Stud at Versailles, June 1831"; together with a Napoleonic gilt metal button. Sold as seen.
*Napoleon had many "white chargers" none, contrary to legend, named Marengo.
The likeliest candidate for this hair is a horse named Vizir or Vizier, which died in 1829.
Vizir had a posthumous career of public exhibition before being presented to Napoleon III on the 13th March, 1868 by the Natural History Society of Manchester.