It really did belong over the throne.
A British family discovered that a mirror hanging above their toilet once belonged to France’s last queen, Marie Antoinette — and could now leave them flush with as much as $13,000 when it hits the chopping block next week.
The 20-by-16 inch mirror hung over a downstairs toilet for 40 years because the unidentified owners who inherited it “never really thought it to be worth anything,” auctioneer Andrew Stowe told South West News Service.
“They seemed to find it more interesting than valuable,” he said.
When they took it to be valued, however, Stowe said the family soon found “a wonderful paper trail,” including a catalog from an 1880 auction for the estate of the late Napoleon III, which “sealed it as the real deal.’’
The wife of King Louis XVI, Antoinette is thought to have kept the mirror in a larger collection at a palace before she was executed in France’s revolutionary fervor in 1793.
“Once we discovered all of this incredible evidence it really did become something special,” Stowe told the agency.
”To think one of the most famous historical figures looked into this very mirror is just spellbinding,” he said.
The mirror will be auctioned on Nov. 13 and is expected to fetch at least $13,000.