The Finest Empire Silverware in One Collection

This sale echoes France’s commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of Napoleon’s death. Three exhibitions are underway at the same time: silverware and furniture by Martin Guillaume Biennais at the Caillebotte Foundation in Yerres , near Paris; furniture from the Emperor’s lost palaces, in Paris; and "A Palace for the Emperor Napoléon I" at the Château of Fontainebleau. Another, "Napoleon, Legends" ran throughout the summer at the fine arts museum in Ajaccio, Corsica. All of them featured silverware as an important marker of the regime’s splendor. There is no such thing as luck. Dr. Vincent, who collected most of the pieces presented, belongs to a leading Corsican family (one of its members was Resistance fighter Jean Nicoli), which means that they are unusually homogeneous. "It’s been a long time since such an interesting group has come up for auction in France," says Ms. de Noblet, the sale’s expert. The collection originated with pieces that had been passed down from generation…