The Guardian looks at the new museum opening in France because of a Brit’s obsession with Antiquities:

Christian Levett, the 41-year-old son of an Essex bookmaker, is to throw open the doors of the Mougins Museum of Classical Art next month for visitors to admire approximately 700 works spanning 5,000 years that he has acquired over the past seven years. […] Levett, who made his fortune in investment management, is a family man who drives a Mini, spending his money on art and antiquities. He says his “mania” for collecting began at the age of seven with Victorian coins, “which cost almost nothing”. Later in life, he was astonished to find that he could buy antiquities: “I assumed they were only in museums.” His interest in antiquities and their history led him to purchase an archaeology magazine called Minerva.

He is surprised that prices for antiquities are still so low compared with those for impressionist or contemporary art, although they have risen in the past 12 months. In 2008 he paid £600,000 for his Hadrian statue; today it would cost him a few million.

‘Compulsive’ art collector builds French museum to display ancient treasures (Guardian)