Lafayette's descendant to auction his famous medal from George Washington
He is a French aristocrat who created a stir in America as a precocious teenager, and then returned decades later to the United States to be celebrated in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.
The Marquis de Lafayette? Yes, of course. But that was then. This time, it is his great-great-great grandson.
Arnaud Meunier du Houssoy arrived in New York from Paris on Saturday to be celebrated at events in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and the nation's capital to mark a season of Lafayette commemorations.
It is the 250th anniversary year of the birth of the Revolutionary War general, and a major new exhibition — "French Founding Father: Lafayette's Return to Washington's America" — recently opened at the New-York Historical Society. Next month there will be a multimillion-dollar auction of a historic gold medal of the Society of the Cincinnati: an enameled patriotic badge created for George Washington that was presented to Lafayette in 1824 after Washington's death.
"The medal has been kept in our family for more than 180 years," the 48-year-old M. du Houssoy said, "but it was originally George Washington's, and it belongs to America." Six days before the Dec. 11 auction, it will be on display at Sotheby's; on view in America for the first time since the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago.
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
The Marquis de Lafayette? Yes, of course. But that was then. This time, it is his great-great-great grandson.
Arnaud Meunier du Houssoy arrived in New York from Paris on Saturday to be celebrated at events in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and the nation's capital to mark a season of Lafayette commemorations.
It is the 250th anniversary year of the birth of the Revolutionary War general, and a major new exhibition — "French Founding Father: Lafayette's Return to Washington's America" — recently opened at the New-York Historical Society. Next month there will be a multimillion-dollar auction of a historic gold medal of the Society of the Cincinnati: an enameled patriotic badge created for George Washington that was presented to Lafayette in 1824 after Washington's death.
"The medal has been kept in our family for more than 180 years," the 48-year-old M. du Houssoy said, "but it was originally George Washington's, and it belongs to America." Six days before the Dec. 11 auction, it will be on display at Sotheby's; on view in America for the first time since the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago.