Toovey’s specialist William Rowsell has established the saleroom’s reputation as leaders in the auction of Louis Vuitton trunks. The Louis Vuitton explorer’s ‘malle cabine’ is an early trunk and was beautifully crafted but quite plain in comparison to later examples. The inscribed name and initials to the top and sides are believed to relate to Dr Edward Percival Dickin. He was born in Yorkshire in 1871, studied in Paris and worked at Northampton Hospital. Although water damaged it made £66,000 at Toovey’s. The similar example without provenance made £30,500.
The famous Louis Vuitton LV was not used until 1896. The early 20th century Louis Vuitton travelling case with overall monogram canvas covering had the maker's label to the interior with an authenticating stencilled serial number '169485'. It sold at Toovey’s for £4000.
The early story of Louis Vuitton is a romantic one caught up with the industrial and political revolutions of 19th century France. The company’s founder, Louis Vuitton, spent his early childhood in Anchay in the Jura region on the eastern borders of France. The 1830s witnessed a significant migration in France from countryside to city. In 1835 the thirteen year old Louis Vuitton left home. It took him two years to walk the 292 miles to Paris as he worked to feed himself along the way. He arrived in the city in 1837. These qualities of determination and hard work would inform his life and success.
At the age of sixteen Louis Vuitton was taken on as an apprentice in the workshop of the successful packer and box maker Monsieur Marechal where he quickly gained a reputation for his abilities in this fashionable field of enterprise.
In 1854 he married Clemence-Emile Parriaux and left Marechal to found Louis Vuitton. To begin with he specialized in packing fashions and fragile objects. It was not until 1858 that he introduced his revolutionary rectangular, stackable trunks. They were an immediate success and the business expanded.
Napolean III and the French Empire was re-established in 1852 and Louis Vuitton was hired as the personal box maker to the Empress of France, Eugine de Montijo.
Louis Vuitton’s son George Vuitton would build on his father’s reputation and establish Louis Vuitton as a worldwide company and luxury brand. A reputation which endures to this day.
Rupert Toovey is a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington - www.tooveys.com- and a priest in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester.