A section of the spiral staircase used by millions of visitors to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower goes under the hammer at the Artcorelle in Paris in May.
Parts of the Eiffel Tower’s stairs have been sold at auction before. There are 24 of them since the top two flights of the spiral staircase were removed in 1983 to install an elevator. Today there is one exhibition on the first floor of the tower and three more in French museums. The remaining 20 lots, ranging in size from 6.5 to 30 feet, were auctioned in December 1983.
Artcorial now has a lot number for sale. 1 of 1983 Stair Auctions. It is 2.75 meters (9 ft) high with 14 steps revolving around a sheet metal cylinder mounted on a cross-shaped base. It has been in the same private collection since the sale, and has been restored by workshops charged with the ongoing maintenance of the Eiffel Tower. It has been painted brown to match the color of the stairs when they were removed.
Some of the twenty lots sold in 1983 remain in France and are still in the possession of their original buyers. Many elements have been added to prestigious collections and sites around the world. One of them can be seen in the Yoshi Foundation Gardens in Yamanashi, Japan, another near the Statue of Liberty in New York and even in Disneyland. Others now belong to major international private collections.
The pre-sale estimate is €40,000 – 50,000 ($46,000-58,000), but is sure to go for much more. The last time Artcorelle sold an Eiffel Staircase piece in 2020, the pre-sale estimate was €30,000-40,000 and it sold for €274,475. It also holds the record for the most expensive set ever sold, section no. 17 which sold in 2016 for €523,800.
It took only two years and 200 men to build the Eiffel Tower. The finished structure was 300 meters (984 ft) high and had 1,710 steps from bottom to top. It was built for the Exposition Universelle, the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, marking the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. It was intended to be demolished after the exhibition, like all the other pavilions, but Gustave Eiffel was able to convince the government to erect it on the grounds that it was an excellent lookout tower in wartime and an ideal meteorological station in peacetime. The “temporary” showpiece thus ushered in a new era in engineering and iron construction and became an icon of the city of Paris forever.
