CIRCA 1890, PROBABLY BY LOUIS MARCY

Louis Marcy (1860-1945) was born Luigi Parmiggiani in Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy. Having spent time in Lyon, Brussels and Paris, it was not until the early 1890's that he emerged as Louis Marcy, a dealer in antiquities in London. He sold Gothic-style works of art, many incorporating enamels, to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. He continued to trade in such works of art well into the 20th Century, and appears to have been initially financed by the Spanish artist Ignacio León y Escosura (1834-1901). In 1905 his activities as an anarchist led to his arrest and the discovery in his Paris flat of no less than 1,300 works of art. In 1924 he returned to Reggio Emilia and purchased a large house which he, like Spitzer before him, decorated in the Mediaeval and Renaissance styles. Here he housed his collection, which in 1932 he sold to the town. Although there are important paintings, his collection includes, as might be expected, large numbers of works of art in the Mediaeval style such as enamelled jewellery, chess boards and champlevé enamel caskets, etc. (see M. Campbell & C. Blair, '"Vive le Vol": Louis Marcy, Anarchist and Faker', in M. Jones (ed.), Why Fakes Matter, London, 1992).