Background
Ferrary was born in the sumptuous Hôtel Matignon, Rue de Varenne in Paris, where he resided until his death in 1917. Once the festive gathering place for the Ancien Régime society, at the start of the Bourbon Restauration in 1815, Louis XVIII traded the Hôtel de Matignon for the Élysée Palace. It is now the official residence of the Prime Minister of France.
Ferrary was the son of the Duke and Duchess of Gallièra. His father, Raffaele de Ferrari, came from an ancient and rich family of Genovese bankers and was a wealthy businessman made Duke of Galliera in Genoa by Pope Gregory XVI, and Prince de Lucedio by Victor-Emmanuel II, King of Italy. Raffaele de Ferrari was founder of the Crédit Immobilier de France with the Péreire brothers, rivals of the Rothschilds, who financed many of the major construction projects of the second half of the 19th century: railroads in Austria, Latin America, Portugal, upper Italy and France (the Paris-Lyon-Marseille line), the digging of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel and the Suez Canal, and the reconstruction of Paris designed by Baron Haussmann. It is said that Rafaelle Galliére Ferrari died stuck in one of his immense safes.
Ferrary's mother, the Duchess of Gallièra, born Maria de Brignole-Sale, was the great niece of the Princess of Monaco and daughter of the Marquis Antoine de Brignoly-Sale, ambassador of the King of Sardaigne in Paris, under the Restoration and during the reign of Louis-Philippe. After the death of Ferrary's father, the Duchess proposed that Philippe, Count of Paris (heir apparent to the French throne) take up residence at the Rue de Varenne. He came to occupy the ground floor of the Hôtel Matignon. The Duchess soon became disenchanted with the adverse social environment for the monarchists, quit Paris, and left Hôtel Matignon to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, who made it his embassy in France. Ferrary was then adopted by the Austrian Count of Renotière von Kriegsfeld and he adopted Austrian nationality. Upon the death of his father, he renounced all of the titles. Thereafter, he preferred the name, "Ferrary"; his calling card reads "Philipp von Ferrary". Collectors and dealers usually refer to him simply as "Ferrary".
Read more about this topic: Philipp Von Ferrary
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