Charles Maurice Camille de Talleyrand-Périgord, fourth duc de Dino

The fourth duc de Dino bought the first Lambousa treasure of Byzantine silver in Cyprus and sold it to the British Museum. Charles Maurice Camille de Talleyrand-Périgord was born on 25 January 1843 and died at Monte Carlo on 5 January 1917. He collected medieval and Renaissance arms and armour between 1885 and 1900, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art bought the collection in 1904¹.

A note that Cobham supplied to I. K. Peristianes in 1910 says the duc acquired the silver in March 1897 from the private collection of G. A. Mozeras of Larnaca¹. Charles Hercules Read of the British Museum noted that Dino bought it in Cyprus for 150 pounds and asked 1,000¹. R. S. Merrillees found nothing that Dino wrote about his collecting or about coming to Cyprus¹. He visited the island again in 1898; a letter of April that year says he came to look for arms¹.

Read inspected the silver in London in July 1898, and the Trustees agreed to buy when funds allowed. An independent valuation was 400 pounds, and 500 pounds was agreed after some duplicate spoons were withdrawn. Dino reported the cheque on 20 April 1899, and 28 items entered the museum that year¹. On 30 July 1898 he had let Constantino Ressman have four of the spoons¹.

Merrillees writes that the removal of the treasure from Cyprus was "both irregular and illegal" and that it "could have been smuggled out by the duc de Dino himself or by someone acting on his behalf". He found no request for an export permit in the Chief Secretary's index for 1897 and 1898¹. No charge or investigation of Dino is recorded.