Louisiana Purchase Portfolio on Display and to Auction

A green leather portfolio, believed to have housed the documents relating to the Louisiana Purchase and exhibited only once before in the United States nearly two decades ago, goes on public view at Sotheby’s New York today until June 11.

It is being showcased alongside other Napoleonic treasures from the private collection of Pierre-Jean Chalençon before the sale on June 25 at Sotheby's Paris.

A landmark moment in the history of America and beyond, the Louisiana Purchase saw 800,000 square miles of land transferred for the sum of $15m from French ownership to that of the American state in 1803. The original treaty documents in both English and French are now housed in the Washington Archives.

The portfolio is gold-stamped with the name of Francois Barbé-Marbois, the man behind the negotiations, for whom the deal was strategic. As he once reflected on Napoleon’s motivations, the sale was meant to prevent British domination of the Americas: “I shall be useful to the whole universe,” Napoleon wrote, “if I can prevent their [the British] ruling America as they rule Asia.” So momentous was the deal that even 150 years later he was commemorated on an American postage stamp.