This truly magnificent and precious fan is one of very few known of this type and would have been extremely expensive when it was originally sold. The present example is particularly rare, being signed by Czapek & Cie and made for presentation by Napoleon III. Juliusz Gruzewski, Czapek?s partner, was a personal friend of Napoleon III, a fact which no doubt allowed him to become watchmaker to the Emperor, supplying many of the watches that were given by him as diplomatic gifts.
Czapek & Cie. Franciszek Czapek was a Polish émigré who arrived in Switzerland in 1832 after the fall of the Polish insurrection against Russia. On May 1, 1839, Antoni Patek and François Czapek (his name having been gallicized) established a business in Geneva under the name of Patek et Czapek. The partnership lasted six years, during which some exceptional watches were produced. After the dissolution, Patek established Patek, Philippe Co. with a new partner, Adrien Philippe, and Czapek founded "Czapek et Cie", also with a new partner, Juliusz Gruzewski. Czapek?s new company did well. Gruzewski was a personal friend of Napoleon III, and Czapek quickly became watchmaker to the court of the Emperor (Unger's calendar for 1850, Warsaw, 1850). He had a factory in Geneva, a shop in Warsaw, and another in Paris. He wrote a small book about watches and watchmaking in which he announced that he was working on a larger volume, but he unfortunately died before publishing it.
Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoléon III (1808?1873) President of the French Republic from 1848 to 1851, from 2 December 1851 to 2 December 1852 the ruler of a dictatorial government, then Emperor of the French as Napoléon III, until 1870. The nephew of Napoleon I, he spent his youth in exile in Switzerland and Germany (1815 ?30). With the death in 1832 of Napoleon's son, Napoléon-François-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte, Duke of Reichstadt, he became the claimant to the French throne. After an abortive coup d'état, he was exiled by King Louis-Philippe to the U.S. After another attempted coup (1840), he was arrested, tried, and imprisoned. He escaped to England (1846) and returned to Paris (1848), where he was elected to the National Assembly. He evoked the legend of Napoleon Bonaparte to win the popular vote as president of the Second Republic. To expand his power, he staged a coup in 1851; in 1852 he became emperor of the Second Empire. Seeking to re-establish French power, he led France into the Crimean War and helped negotiate the treaty at the Congress of Paris (1856). He sided with Sicily against Austria (1859) and was victorious at the Battle of Solferino. He helped Italy achieve unity and annexed Savoy and Nice (1860). France enjoyed prosperity during much of his reign. In the 1860s he gradually introduced political liberalization. He expected material rewards from his "Latin empire" after installing Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico (1864 ? 67) but was disappointed. He kept France neutral in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), but in 1870 Otto von Bismarck contrived to involve France in the disastrous Franco-Prussian War. After leading his troops to defeat in the Battle of Sedan (September 1870), Napoleon III surrendered and was deposed as emperor. He went into exile in England and died there in 1873.