Hôtel Drouot

We can also, in the museum sector, we can also see more ambitious commercial partnerships.

In twenty twenty, the Louvre Museum in Paris worked with auction houses Christie's and Drouot to organize an auction of donated artworks and exceptional museum experiences that included the opportunity to attend an annual inspection of the Mona Lisa, for example.

And the auction generated more than two point three million euro.

Uh, operationally, however, these strategies are not easy.

They pictured yawning cavities, tunnels communicating with the sewers, with the catacombs.

The blue diamond was sold at the Hôtel Drouot on the 30th of January.

The auction-room was crammed and the bidding proceeded madly.

All Paris, the Paris of the first night and great public functions, was there; all those who buy and all those who like others to think that they are in a position to buy: stockbrokers, artists, ladies in every class of society, two members of the Government, an Italian tenor, a king in exile, who, in order to re-establish his credit, with great self-possession and in a resounding voice, permitted himself the luxury of running up the price to a hundred thousand francs.

Remember Baron d'Hautrec.

The tribulations of the blue diamond were not over.

Already famous through the murder of Baron d'Hautrec and the incidents at the Hôtel Drouot, it attained the height of its celebrity six months later.

In the summer, the precious jewel, which the Countess de Crozon had been at such pains to acquire, was stolen.