MUSÉE D’ART CLASSIQUE DE MOUGINS

Egyptian Gallery

When Christian Levett was a young commodities trader in Paris, he spent his Sundays working off hangovers by walking through the Louvre. “I think I covered every single piece there and believe me, it took some time,” the now 44-year-old, British-born Mr. Levett joked over coffee recently near his vacation home here. “That was really my arts education.”

That was in 1997. Six years later, as his earnings exploded, Mr. Levett, like many hedge fund multimillionaires, plunged into the art market, focusing on hand painted rare books and buying ancient Roman coins.

At that time, the young trader was still oblivious to the market in antiquities. “One day I was ticking off my annual subscription list for catalogs from Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams,” he remembered. “I had overlooked the antiquities catalogs. I just couldn’t believe that I could buy an ancient helmet, or an eight-foot-high statue or a 2,000-year-old sarcophagus.”

Driven by a new-found passion and backed by a fortune estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Levett became a voracious buyer, assembling one of the world’s largest private collections of ancient arms and armor. Today, his scores of Greek hoplite helmets, Roman greaves and shields, along with Egyptian sarcophagi, Greek statues and ancient glass, are the crown jewels of his Musée d’art classique de Mougins, housed in a series of medieval buildings in the heart of the small village in the hills above Cannes.

The museum has become a surprising draw in the South of France. It was the only French museum nominated for the 2013 European museum of the year, and it shared the Ken d’Or 2012 award for best museum with the Louvre.

Greco-Roman armor display

Though Mr. Levett did not study art in college, he did have some interest in the field as a youngster, growing up in Essex, England, the son of a bookmaker and a mother with a strong interest in history.

“There happened to be a shop that sold coins at the end of our street,” said Mr. Levett, dressed in blue jeans and a sport shirt. “I was always fascinated by the history of the First and Second World Wars so as a kid I built a collection of very cheap coins and World War campaign medals.”

To read the complete article, see:
Investments in Antiquities Pay Off in Museum in the South of France (www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/arts/international/investments-in-antiquities-pay-off-in-new-museum-in-the-south-of-france.html?ref=arts&_r=0)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web