Napoleon Bonaparte’s hat sells for €1.9m at Paris auction He ruled France in the 19th Century has been sold for €1.9m ($2.1m; £1.7m).

Approximately €600,000 to €800,000 (£525,850 to £701,131) was estimated to be the value of the bicorne black beaver felt hat.

The person who purchased the hat has not been identified.

His hat was considered part of his brand, according to historians. The fact that he wore it sideways made him more recognisable in battle. Over the course of my life, I have owned about 120 bicorne hats.

Only 20 are believed to remain, most of which are in private collections.

An industrialist who died last year assembled other Napoleonic memorabilia, including the hat.

According to the auctioneers, the hat is the true holy grail for specialists.

In battle, the emperor wore his hat parallel to his shoulders, whereas most of his officers wore theirs perpendicular.

The auctioneer Jean Pierre Osenat said that people recognized the hat everywhere. When they saw it on the battlefields, they knew Napoleon was there.

When in private, he always held it in his hand or wore it on his head, and sometimes he threw it on the ground. That was the emperor’s symbol.”

According to the auctioneers, this hat has impeccable provenance, having belonged to Napoleon’s palace quartermaster’s family throughout the 19th Century.

Osenat auction house in Fontainebleau is selling a hat with a cockade that Napoleon fixed to his hat in 1815, when he crossed the Mediterranean from Elba to Antibes, where he briefly returned to power.

In addition to the silver plate looted from Napoleon’s carriage after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, a wooden vanity case containing razors, silver toothbrushes, scissors, and other items is being sold.