It was on it's finely veneered Brazilian rosewood surface that Napoleon, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, the King of Prussia and the King of Saxony signed the treaty of Tilsit on a raft on the river Nieman on 8th July 1807. A diplomatic triumph for Napoleon, the treaty destroyed at the stroke of a pen the European coalition that England had worked so tirelessly to build (and finance) against Napoleon and threatened to bankrupt his most tenacious adversary by expanding the 'continental system' that forbad his allies to trade with Great Britain.
The size and quality of the table is testament to the opulence of Napoleon's travelling entourage and given that it had to be transported from Paris across Europe to Lithuania and back again, it must surely constitute one of the grandest pieces of campaign furniture in history.
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