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The piece itself? Just 14 rust-coloured steps, arranged in a spiral. Yet this section of staircase went under the hammer for 450,160 euros on Thursday 21 May during a sale at the Artcurial auction house. And with good reason: these 14 steps once formed part of the 1,665 that run up the Eiffel Tower.
Standing 2.75 metres high, this section of the Iron Lady came from the helical staircase that linked the second and third floors of the tower when it opened in 1889. During renovation work on the monument in 1983, and the installation of lifts, the staircase was dismantled and cut into 24 sections.
Few of these sections “have remained in France and been kept by their original purchasers”, according to Artcurial.
The appearance on the market of this one, from a private collection where it spent 40 years, is rare enough that the initial estimate for the 14 steps was put at between 120,000 and 150,000 euros.
With a final price of 450,160 euros, this section of the Eiffel Tower staircase is still far from holding the record. In 2016, a similar piece put up for sale by the Sotheby’s auction house fetched 523,800 euros.
Beyond the fact that the buyers can boast of owning a fragment of one of Paris’s defining landmarks, the purchase also brings their collection into a very exclusive, prestigious circle of sites and collections that house a section of the Iron Lady’s staircase.
Other sections have been installed, among other places, in the gardens of the Yoishii Foundation in Yamanashi (Japan), another near the Statue of Liberty in New York, and one at Disneyland.