Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Dealer · Agent · Numismatist

Paul Lambros

1819–1887 · Greece

Athens antiquities and coin dealer (died 1887), named in Cypriot records as a buyer of a Nicosia coin collection, an intermediary for de Vogüé and the expert who judged a Salamis relief modern.

Biography

Paul Lambros, an Athens dealer in antiquities and coins, turns up in Cypriot collecting records three times. Salomon Reinach wrote at his death on 24 October 1887, aged 67, that he was a well-known numismatist and antiquary and "un connaisseur des plus experts", playing in the trade a role like that of Castellani. Reinach adds that Berlin owed him part of its recent purchases of Greek ceramics and bronzes1.

In a letter of 4 May 1863 to Melchior de Vogüé, Dimitri Pierides reported from Larnaca that G. Michaelides of Nicosia had sold all his coins to "M. Lambros" for about 2,000 drachmas, among them some 300 common Lusignan pieces2. Bonato names Paul Lambros, with Aimé Peretié, among the dealer intermediaries through whom de Vogüé bought, later than 1871-75; the text does not say what Lambros supplied3.

In 1885 Reinach reported that a bronze relief of Athena, said by the workmen of Max Ohnefalsch-Richter to come from the baths at Salamis, had been shown by "M. P. Lambros, d'Athènes" to be modern1. Reinach wrote that had Lambros left memoirs they would hold curious revelations1.

Life and work

  1. May 1863
    Pierides's letter of 4 May 1863 to de Vogue reports that G. Michaelides of Nicosia had sold all his coins to 'M. Lambros' for about 2000 drachmas (some 300 common Lusignan coins among them); Pierides had judged them worth 1000 francs.

    NicosiaBonato 2000

  2. 1884–1885
    Lambros demonstrated that a bronze relief of Athena, said by Ohnefalsch-Richter's workmen to have come from the Salamis baths, was a modern object (published in Ephemeris 1884).

    SalamisReinach 1891

  3. 24 October 1887
    Died at Athens aged 67. Reinach calls him a connoisseur who played in the antiquities trade a role like that of Alessandro Castellani, and says the Berlin Museum owed him part of its recent acquisitions of ceramics and bronzes of Greece proper.

    AthensReinach 1891

Connections

3 people
Melchior de VogüéG. Michaelides of NicosiaMax Ohnefalsch-RichterPaul Lambros
Sales & giftsColleagues

Sales, gifts & bequests

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

Sources

  1. 1.Salomon Reinach (1891). Chroniques d'Orient.
  2. 2.Lucie Bonato (2000). “Chypre dans les archives de Melchior de Vogüé, III-IV : la correspondance de Dimitri Piérides”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 30, 99-118.
  3. 3.Veronica Tatton-Brown (ed.) (2001). Cyprus in the 19th Century AD: Fact, Fancy and Fiction. Oxford, Oxbow.