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The piece? Just 24 rust-coloured steps, arranged in a spiral. Yet this section of staircase fetched 450 160 euros on Thursday 21 May at an auction held by the Artcurial auction house. No wonder: these 24 steps once formed part of the 1,665 that run up the Eiffel Tower.
The section from the Iron Lady, 2.75 metres high, belonged to the helical staircase that linked the second and third floors of the tower at the time of its inauguration in 1889. During renovation work on the monument in 1983, when lifts were installed, the staircase was dismantled and cut into 24 sections.
Few of these sections “have remained in France and been kept by their original buyers”, according to Artcurial.
The appearance on the market of this one, from a private collection where it had spent 40 years, is rare enough for the initial estimate for the 24 steps to have been put at between 120,000 and 150,000 euros.
Even with a final price of 450,160 euros, this section of the Eiffel Tower staircase is still a long way from holding the record. In 2016, a similar section put up for sale by the Sotheby’s auction house went for 523,800 euros.
It has to be said that, beyond being able to boast of owning a piece of one of Paris’s symbols, this purchase also brings their collection into the very exclusive and prestigious circle of sites and collections that house a section of the Iron Lady’s staircase.
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 even at Disneyland.