Some Paris dealers receive clients at home, where the antiques for sale share space with the objects they keep. The setup has also given several dealers more freedom to travel.
Christophe de Quénetain’s clients enter his Paris home through a basement and a narrow corridor. A service lift takes them to the top floor. Across the city, other dealers have also turned their homes into sales rooms, displaying antiques where they live.
The change is immediate: visitors arrive at a private home, often for tea or a cocktail, rather than a conventional gallery. De Quénetain says sellers need time to explain works and help clients understand them. Access to his apartment is restricted, so large furniture stays in a warehouse outside Paris. The rooms hold smaller pieces, including a Sèvres porcelain vase from Marly-le-Roi that belonged to Louis XVI. He also has a showroom apartment in Millbank, London.
Sylvain Lévy-Alban says leaving his Quai Voltaire gallery gave him more freedom to travel and look for new pieces. He sold the gallery in 2019 and now receives clients in an 18th-century apartment in Paris’s 1st district. Designers Michael S. Smith and Brian McCarthy are among his visitors.
Burgundy silk curtains came from Charles de Beistegui’s Venetian bedroom. A floral mirror by Hubert Le Gall is for sale, as is an obelisk by Mongiardino. The porcelain is a family heirloom and is not for sale.
The private setting contrasts with public appearances such as the Ceuta royal visit, where crowds gathered around Felipe VI and Letizia before whistling at a minister.
Laurent Guelfucci says living with objects builds a relationship that changes over time. He specializes in late art nouveau and art déco furniture. He opened a gallery at the Louvre des Antiquaires in 1980, later lived in New York, then spent more than a decade in Berlin. He returned to Paris in 2023.
His duplex occupies a former 1920s artist’s studio overlooking Parc Montsouris. Works by André Groult sit alongside pieces by Jean-Michel Frank. Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann is represented there, as is Kichizô Inagaki, the woodworker responsible for many of Eileen Gray’s most extraordinary pieces.
In the 7th district, Marie-Anne Derville’s home puts her own taste on display. Its monochrome rooms pair black and white with metallic finishes, alongside Biedermeier and French classicist references. Some pieces are her own designs. They include Louis Vuitton trumpet-shaped floor lamps made for a women’s prêt-à-porter show at the Louvre last autumn.
In May, aluminum regency-style chairs appeared at the Frick Collection during the Cruise 2027 show.
Florence Lopez uses her former sculptor’s studio in the 4th district as a theatrical setting, changing the installation around a theme. Her current display pays tribute to Odilon Redon, with blue and yellow tones and porcelain leaves by Bella Silva. She often invites clients to dinner. After one particularly successful evening, she sold the table and lamp. The mirror and decoration went too. Her planned next arrangement would feature three tables by Marcel Breuer.
Jean-Paul Beaujard spent nearly half a century as a French antiques dealer in New York, serving clients including Bunny Mellon and Lee Radziwill. He also decorated Diane von Furstenberg’s apartment at the Carlyle Hotel. Since returning to France in 2017, he has lived in an art nouveau duplex on the Rive Gauche. An octagonal, double-height salon looks towards Notre-Dame.
The furnishings include fabrics and rugs he designed for Edmond Petit and Carpet Society. Other pieces came from auctions or private homes. Beaujard’s approach is simple: dealers acquire what they love.
At Galerie 54, Éric Touchaleaume and Martial Vigo meet clients in an apartment inside a building designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens. The gallery focuses on modernist figures such as Charlotte Perriand. Gio Ponti is represented there, as is Jean-Michel Frank.
Touchaleaume’s finds include Le Corbusier desks and chairs from Chandigarh’s Capitol complex. Lamps from the same group are on display. He also sent Prouvé’s three Maisons Tropicales from Africa. The pair run another gallery at Les Calanques east of Marseille and are planning a third in central France.
Other Paris dealers have chosen different ways to bring customers closer to the objects. Antoine Billore launched his business through Instagram in 2021, then moved to a warehouse showroom in the 11th district. It is open by appointment and sits apart from the antiques quarter in Saint-Germain and the design galleries of the Marais, the Financial Times reported.
The wider market is also finding distinctive settings for decorative art. Design Miami chief executive Jen Roberts described Paris as an important market in the centre of Europe. The event she discussed took place at Hôtel de Maisons in the 7th district.
Christie’s planned its Paris Classic Week for 3–5 November. The Exceptional Sale: L’esprit français was to comprise around 60 lots. In partnership with Féau Boiseries, the works were to be presented among historic decorative interiors the company had assembled over 150 years. The article first appeared in issue 220 of AD España.
