The Family of Auguste Dreyfus
Seven Baptismal and Birth medals of a Franco-Peruvian Dynasty

361, Lot: 641. Estimate $200. Sold for $150. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PERU, Republic. 1821-pres. AV Medal (23mm, 10.13 g, 12h). The Birth of Luis Augusto Emilio Dreyfus y Gonzalez and Maria Emilia Augusta du Bois y Gonzalez. Dually dated 21 May 1874 and 5 December 1874. · LUIS AUGUSTO ·/ DREYFUS Y GONZALEZ, NACIO/ EL 21 DE/ MAYO 1874 / · MARIA EMILIA AUGUSTA ·/ DU BOIS Y GONZALEZ, NACIO/ EL 5 DE/ DICIEMBRE/ 1874. Choice EF, original loop for suspension.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams.

Auguste Dreyfus was born to a Jewish family in Wissembourg, Alsace, in 1827. By 1852, he and his brothers had established a cloth trading business in Paris, but Auguste had moved to Peru by 1859. Here, he converted to Catholicism. In 1868, he arranged an exclusive contract with the Peruvian government to be their sole exporter of bat guano, then an extremely important component in the manufacture of gunpowder. This contract made Dreyfus fabulously wealthy and enabled him to underwrite several loans to the government. 

Auguste married Sofia Bergman in 1862 and, after her death in 1871, remarried to Luisa González Orbegoso, Marquise de Villa Hermosa, in 1873. This second marriage bore him two sons - Louis and Édouard - and two daughters - Maria Emilia and Maria Julia. Louis eventually inherited his mother’s title by special permission of Spanish king Alfonso XIII. Édouard would go on to become an important lawyer, as well as a painter, writer, and amateur composer, the latter under the pseudonym Jean Dora.