A collection of medieval items dating back to the 10th century will be going up for auction in Paris in November. The medieval treasures, which include ivories, enamels, gilt-bronze, an illuminated Gothic manuscript and pressed leather cutlery cases, are expected to raise between € 2-3 million.
The medieval works of art in the Collection of Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot (1871-1946) were in large part inherited from his father-in-law Victor Prosper Martin Le Roy (1842-1918) who put together a magnificent grouping at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th centuries in France. The sale includes exceptional pieces, acquired from the most eminent collections of art of the 19th century among them Frédéric Spitzer, Michel Boy and Eugène Piot. The magnificent works of art assembled by Martin le Roy was studied and later enriched by his son-in-law, Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot, French art historian, curator at the Louvre and director of the Cluny Museum. His expertise as a scholar was highly regarded and supported by major publications about tapestries and medieval enamels. It was in 1906 that he undertook the publication of the Catalogue raisonné in five volumes of the Collection of Martin le Roy with the intention of making it possible for scholars to discover the treasures that the collection contained.
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