“The inaugural Salon du Collectionneur, organised by the French dealers’ association Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA) will be held September 12-18 at the Carrousel du Louvre, followed almost immediately by the privately organised Pavillon des Antiquaires et des Beaux-Arts from September 20-28 in a marquee in the adjacent Tuileries Gardens. The two events may yet prove complementary, but they are competing.
The Pavillon des Antiquaires, organised by the Société d’Organisations Culturelles (SOC) and owned by Paris dealers Patrick Perrin and Stephane Custot (both SNA members), has until now been staged annually in early April and the move to September is seen by the
SNA as a deliberate challenge to its new event, which will alternate with the Biennale.
After rebutting an SOC suggestion that the two fairs should merge SNA president Christian Deydier commented upon ‘the behaviour of some of our members, who have damaged the Syndicat’s image in order to satisfy personal ambition.’
His association’s fair, main-tained Deydier, ‘is reserved first and foeremost for SNA members who do not take part in the Biennale’ – although the 85 exhibitors so far signed up include many French dealers (like Deydier himself) who do.
One-third of the exhibitors come from outside France with Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Switzerland and England (Robert Hall and John Whitehead among them) represented.
The Salon du Collectionneur promises to be totally different from the Biennale with presentation more businesslike than luxurious and the exhibitors split into six themed sections: Asian; ceramics; fine art; furniture and objects; tribal and antiquities, and silver, jewellery and textiles.
Meanwhile the Pavillon des Antiquaires will host more than 70 dealers, including several
big guns of the Paris furniture trade (Segoura, Aveline, the Perrins) who are Biennale stalwarts. Others at this fair who took stands at last year’s Biennale include London-
based Richard Green and Pelham Galleries, De Jonckheere, Moretti of Florence and Vanderven & Vanderven.”
Paris: Pavillon move to challenge Salon is ‘damaging’
THERE will be plenty of antiques activity in central Paris this autumn, centred on two major fairs each with their quota of high- profile international dealers. A feast for fairgoers, but also behind the scenes a feast for those with a taste for intrigue since, as is so often the case with the Paris trade, there is plenty of politics involved. My Paris-based colleague Simon Hewitt takes a peek behind the arras and reports:
