House of Metallurgy and Industry of Liège

Here in the "House of Metallurgy" you will find the remarkable object with a fantastic story: Napoleon's zinc travel bath. This was made and presented as a corporate gift by the 19th-century Liege resident Jean-Jacques Dony. He wanted to obtain Napoleon's rights to the lands near Moresenet to mine zinc ores. This chemist had developed a unique technique for extracting zinc from ores. Dony was an inventor and chemist and had developed a unique technique to extract zinc from zinc ore (a type of ore). A technique that was much better and led to much greater extraction than how it had been done until then. His plan was to win Napoleon's favor to secure the mining rights. And what better way to do that than to create a link between Napoleon's needs and his product: zinc. Napoleon apparently was always cold. Therefore, Dony made a zinc bath with a thermal siphon that automatically heated and circulated the water. He gifted it to Napoleon in 1809 as a thank you for the concession he had just owned for 4 years. Napoleon loved his gift and would take the bath with him on all his military campaigns. And Dony retained the rights to operate the mine. Napoleon's bath can still be found in this museum today. When Napoleon was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, he could not take his bath with him and had to leave it behind in his castle of Fontainebleau. But he loved it so much that he had an exact replica made by a local blacksmith.

Dromos