Sosthène Grasset d'Orcet

Sosthène Grasset, who signed himself Grasset d'Orcet, lived at Larnaca when the first French mission to Cyprus arrived in 1862, and the route that mission followed was largely his. He was born at Aurillac on 6 June 1828 and died at Cusset on 2 December 1900^4,10. Bonato gives 1901 for his death².

Settling at Larnaca

Bonato reports that he studied law in Paris and trained in the studio of the sculptor Elias Robert, and that after his father's death he travelled in the Mediterranean and settled at Larnaca before 1860². Dates for his arrival differ. Fivel and Masson have him seeing the Amathus vase in 1856, while Foucart-Borville has him settled at Larnaca shortly before 1860 and there until 1864^4,5. He married in Cyprus Aimée Laffon, whose uncle was the Larnaca merchant Paul Tardieu⁴.

Edmond Duthoit, who disliked him at first, described him in early 1862 as a small man with an artistic head, once rich, running a large farm he knew nothing about and eager to make a name in the arts⁴. Duthoit's letters also mock his Greek and call him the mission's head cook, and later speak of "le brave M. Grasset"⁴.

The French mission

In May 1860 Guillaume-Rey introduced Grasset to Hortense Cornu, who was close to Napoleon III and whose initiative led to Ernest Renan's Phoenician mission⁴. On 10 July 1861 Grasset wrote to Renan hoping to take over the Cyprus part of the work. Renan gave it instead to Melchior de Vogüé, who set out with Grasset's itinerary and list of sites, among them the Amathus vase, Kouklia, Soli and Dali¹. Bonato writes that it was "sans doute en partie grâce à lui" that the party did not travel "à l'aventure"¹. Renan thought little of him, and Grasset resented it; Bonato says Renan used his influence to have an article by Grasset refused by L'Illustration².

In 1862 Grasset received the party at Larnaca and guided Vogüé, then Duthoit. With Duthoit he dug at Athienou and Dali and went to Soli, where Duthoit found the syllabic inscription now in the Louvre^3,4. On 7 April 1862 he wrote to Vogüé criticising Duthoit's work at Golgoi and proposing to read the Dali tablet². Annie Caubet suggests that the large deposit at Golgoi may have been found thanks to his indications⁹. Foucart-Borville judges his 1892 account of Duthoit's sterile digs exaggerated, and says he played a useful role, especially over the Amathus vase and in buying fine statues for his own collection, which ended in the Louvre⁴. The 1864 engraving of the Amathus vase in L'Illustration used Duthoit's drawings with Grasset's text⁴. Foucart-Borville has him leaving Cyprus for Paris in 1864, yet a letter of November 1865 is dated from Salamis^2,4.

The seated stele

A funerary stele of a seated woman, dated by Hermary to the late first century CE, was found by a peasant. Vogüé's notebook places the find at Athienou; Grasset later said Dhali². According to Bonato, the Pasha, who sought it, had the finder imprisoned. Tardieu bought it for 600 francs, two of them as an indemnity for the finder, ceded his share to the mission at cost, and Grasset negotiated the sale². Grasset offered it to Renan for 500 francs and co-ownership to Guillaume-Rey. Renan left the decision to Vogüé, who bought it with his own money, and Bonato says Grasset was then ruined².

On 8 November 1865, writing from Salamis, Grasset asked Vogüé for 1,000 francs for the stele, of which he had received 300, and threatened to send it to England; he added that the Louvre had treated him impolitely over the statues of Horace White². Duthoit wrote on 7 August 1865 that Grasset had given way to Tardieu and that the statue was still in the Larnaca customs. It reached France in 1866, and Vogüé gave it to the Louvre in 1880². Foucart-Borville and Masson identify it with the Louvre's seated Venus given in 1880, though a small statue, AM 3424, 45 cm high, may instead be the piece Tardieu bought⁴.

Decipherments

His 1873 memoir for the Prix Volney on the Cypriot language is described by Hermary and Masson as fanciful, and Masson calls it "un tissu d'inepties", although one passage records an observation of the Amathus vases where they stood^5,6. He published "Idalie et ses sacrifices humains" in the Revue Britannique in 1890 and "Monsieur Renan en Phénicie" there in 1892^13,14.