PARIS
WATCHING Chanel-clad Americans graze on foie gras as they pored over gilded 18th-century consoles and Ruhlmann cabinets at a preview of the 22nd Biennale des Antiquaires — Europe’s grandest antiques show — you would never guess that there was a strain in French-American relations.
But at an opening gala on Sept. 13, presided over by Bernadette Chirac, wife of the French president, American accents were scarce. Were American consumers of French décor avoiding Paris for political reasons, or have terrorist threats and the rising value of the euro scared them away? One dealer suggested that perhaps the rise of midcentury modern has dampened the American appetite for European antiques.
At the preview dealers stared with naked envy and expectation as Henry Kravis, the New York financier, and his wife, Marie-Josée Kravis, a French-Canadian economist, paused before a pair of sofa-size canvases by Jean-François de Troy with an asking price of $3.7 million. When the Kravises moved on, you could almost hear the dealer, Maurice Segoura, exhale.
Other participants whose every raised eyebrow and half-smile dealers scrutinized included Ronald Lauder, Christopher Forbes, Linda Wachner and Felix Rohatyn. But they were the exceptions this year, as Americans, who last year accounted for 60 percent of sales at the biennale, stayed away in droves.
Only 5 of the 56 members of the American Friends of the Biennale des Antiquaires, a six-year-old honorary committee that lends prestige to the fair, showed up for the opening, held in the bowels of the Louvre. (The show, open to the public, runs through Sept. 28. For information: http://www.biennaledesantiquaires.com.)
“America is the leader of the world economy,” said Jacques Perrin, a leading purveyor of 18th- and early-19th-century French decorative arts. “But nobody is traveling.”
Some blame Sept. 11, others a disdain for the French among supporters of the war in Iraq. With the added obstacle of a strong euro, the fair’s organizers went to extravagant lengths to lure American collectors, offering them private peeks at the residences of Baron Guy de Rothschild and Count and Countess d’Ornano, lunch with the United States ambassador, drinks with the French culture minister and an after-hours visit to the Fondation Pierre Bergé Yves Saint Laurent and its retrospective of Saint Laurent’s work.
These and dozens of other entertainments were free to a handpicked list of 78 curators and museum trustees and 42 influential decorators, including Jamie Drake, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s interior designer. Also on board were Brian McCarthy and Sandra Nunnerly, designers best known for using 18th- and 19th-century antiques in modern interiors.
The Americans who made the trip were able to wallow in the ministrations of French antiques dealers, who are among Europe’s most adept flatterers. “We’re making a big effort to welcome the Americans because we depend very much on the American market,” said Christian Deydier, a dealer in Chinese antiquities and the president of the Syndicat National des Antiquaires, the group that organizes the biennale.
He brushed aside talk of tension between the countries, exerting championship-level charm. “We maybe had a bad position because we don’t take part in the war,” he said. “But when we speak about art, we forget all the trouble over the decision between our president and your president. Don’t forget that the Americans were Europeans first, eh? They came from France, from Germany, from Italy, a long time ago.
“So we are cousins,” Mr. Deydier added, rather emphatically. “Don’t forget Lafayette!”
Still, General Lafayette might have been taken aback by the heavily guarded American embassy and by the nearby Rue Boissy d’Anglas, which is blocked to traffic. “My mother warned me not to come to Paris, and so did friends back home,” said Sunny Brownstein, a Denver socialite, wearing giant pearl and diamond earrings as she chatted at the gala. Ms. Brownstein hit town with her 25-year-old daughter, Callae, staying at the Hôtel Georges V between shopping forays.
“I’m not hearing any American voices at the hotel,” Ms. Brownstein said. “Just discreet Middle Easterners.”
Low attendance by Americans may reflect a growing trend. “The pattern of the American collectors has changed,” said Thierry Millerand, an antiques consultant with offices in New York and Paris. “They don’t travel as much, period. And the market for good French furniture is very slow at the moment.”
Mr. Millerand also noted with some distaste that “decorators have been pushing 1950’s and 1960’s things.” He continued: “There’s a strong market for museum-quality things bought by serious collectors. But it’s a very small group. Maybe 20 in the world.”
One of the museum-quality pieces on display at the biennale is an elaborate mechanical desk thought to have been made in 1755 by Jean-François Oeben, an important cabinetmaker. Shown by Philippe Perrin, it is made of oak, amaranth, tulipwood and ebony, with ormolu mounts. It went to an anonymous Parisian buyer for $1.85 million.
Galerie Vallois, which specializes in early-20th-century furniture, is presenting a rare suite of furniture designed by Armand-Albert Rateau. It includes an oak desk with ebony marquetry, topped with leather, and it has never before been on the market. A drawer-pull bears the initials of its original owner, Marie Jeanne Lanvin. The entire stand was sold out on opening night. The buzz was that the mystery buyer was Mr. Kravis, who dined with the gallery owners, Bob and Cheska Vallois, at the gala. (Mr. Kravis declined to comment.)
The relative quiet meant plenty of elbow room for serious buyers. The interior designer Lee Mindel purchased a 1962 table by Charlotte Perriand that was fashioned from a single piece of 13-foot-long wood. He declined to disclose the selling price, saying only that the desk was for an important American client.
Another designer, Charlotte Moss, went back to New York with a list of items to propose to clients who had stayed home. She was at Jorge Welsh’s stand admiring a blue-and-white Ming platter when a friend, Ann Nitze, walked by. “That’ll look wholesome at someone’s next barbecue,” Ms. Nitze, an art dealer, said dryly.
Ms. Moss and Ms. Nitze said they wouldn’t dream of skipping the biennale. “How could you be in my business and not be here?” Ms. Moss said.
For some, the real excitement lay across the river, at a palatial building on the Quai Anatole France, where J. Kugel, a third-generation antiques business, opened its luxurious new showroom the night of the gala. The shop, in three floors of a riverfront hôtel particulier clearly involved a sizable investment, but Alexis Kugel, 38, and Nicolas Kugel, 41, the brothers in charge, seem optimistic about finding buyers for their most expensive wares. “The market for masterpieces is booming,” Alexis Kugel said. He acknowledged that “the market for middle-range items has never been so bad.
“For me it shows that collectors are much more careful,” he continued. “We’re trying to sell the highest quality in an appropriate setting. I’m very confident and optimistic. Of course if we weren’t, we wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.”
At the opening reception Pierre Merle, a New York lawyer, was being led around by Baroness Hélène de Ludinghausen, the president of a foundation that is financing the restoration of the Stroganoff palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. Was Mr. Merle thinking of snapping up a 1755 ormolu candelabrum for the palace, with a price tag of $518,300? “It’s out of my league,” said Mr. Merle, who went home empty-handed.
Nicolas Kugel observed that there were fewer Americans than expected. “We have a lot of French dukes and duchesses,” he said, studying the crowd. Among the few Americans was Dodie Rosekrans, the San Francisco socialite, who peered at a huge Louis XVI bed, circa 1785, of royal provenance and attributed to G. Jacob, from the collection of Baron Guy de Rothschild. The price is about $395,000. “I came just for this,” she told Mr. Kugel, referring to the new gallery.
John W. Teets, a former chairman of Greyhound and of Dial Soap, and his wife, Nancy, marveled at the Kugels’ wares. “I collect French Empire clocks,” Mr. Teets said. “I’ve got about 60 of them. All 1810-1820, gold ormolu.” Three clocks were on display, but Mr. Teets, too, left without making a purchase.
The Teetses are members of the American Friends of the Louvre, a group that raises money for the museum. They had been weekend guests of Mr. Forbes, the chairman of the group, who had rounded up 22 lively prospects at his family’s chateau in Normandy. So far, so good. Mr. Forbes has already raised nearly $1 million.
He said that he had qualms initially, given the tensions between the two countries, but found that his fund-raising met with no resistance, even when he requested a minimum gift of $10,000 for those wishing to join the chairman’s circle. “Maybe people have forgotten that the Louvre’s in France,” he said.