SHAKO D'OFFICIER DE L'ÉTAT-MAJOR DU 31ème BATAILLON DE LA GARDE NATIONALE, modèle 1852, Second Empire. 5700proantic

OFFICER'S SHAKO OF THE STAFF OF THE 31st BATTALION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD, model 1852, Second Empire. $5700

Stamped brass plate with mercury gilding, model 1852, featuring an uncrowned eagle facing to the right, holding the sparkling thunderbolt of Jupiter in its talons, with a cutout bomb bearing the number "31" at the center and in the background an oak and laurel branch. Height of the plate 13.1 cm, width 14 cm.

Body covered with a fine dark blue cloth sleeve, edged at the top with a 2.8 cm wide silver braid, and with a silver cord on each side. Black polished leather visor cover. Black waxed crown (diameter 12.5 cm), black waxed top and green interior visor (4 cm wide at the center). Metallic cockade stamped with a tricolor painted radiant sun (diameter 5.6 cm). Double tricolor woolen pompom (height 8.5 cm).

Interior of the carcass lined with red wallpaper. Black waxed calf leather interior lining cut into wolf's teeth design. Shako complete with its black polished leather chinstrap.

Very good condition, some moth holes at the rear part, including two larger ones (3x1.2 cm - 7 mm x 1.2 cm), oxidized silver braid.

France.

Second Empire.

PROVENANCE:
Former collection of Hippolyte Marie-Joseph Boivin (Guermantes, September 8, 1857, Bouvresse June 19, 1912).
This 19th-century scholar assembled a collection of highly important patriotic faience pieces, which were exhibited multiple times in French museums.
With a keen collector's temperament, Hippolyte Boivin gathered faience pieces from Rouen, Marseille, Strasbourg, Delft, Nevers, enamel-dial watches from the First Empire, ancient limbs, Norman and Picard wardrobes and clocks, chests and clocks from various eras, tapestries, wooden rattles from all over France and even overseas.
His grandson recounts that H. Boivin and his wife traveled from village to village, purchasing items that seemed of interest to them. These acquisitions enriched his own collections and those of the Beauvais museum where he served as a curator from 1889 to 1912. In his collecting endeavors, he also developed a passion for military memorabilia, particularly headwear, copperware, bridle bits, and various historical mementos.
He had a gallery built in his garden to house his military collections, which were later displayed in the "Boivin room" at the Dejean barracks in Amiens, destroyed during the Second World War. Hippolyte Boivin showed a preference for patriotic faience by reproducing through drawing and watercolor the pieces he had collected. Two reasons could explain this attraction: first, his family's exile from Champagne during the 1870 German invasion may have instilled in him a taste for patriotic and military objects; second, his maternal grandfather's profession as an operator of a stoneware pottery factory in La Chapelle-aux-Pots could have fostered his attraction to ceramics.
Given the period of collection, from the fall of Napoleon III until the eve of the Great War, all the items in this enlightened enthusiast's collection were acquired opportunistically, and their homogeneity has been particularly well preserved.