Ambroise Vollard: At Dumas' Union Artistique

"A Walnut Tree in the Thomery Meadow" by Alfred Sisley

"M. Alphonse Dumas had opened a picture gallery, which he called the Union Artistique. It was not with a view to making money. He merely wanted to balance the expenses of his own painting by the profits to be made out of selling other people's work. But he was particularly anxious not to be taken for a dealer.  'You see,' he said, 'I come of a family of artists. It's not a shop I've opened, it's a salon. I am a gentleman serving as intermediary between the artist and the customer.' It was with him that I eventually obtained a 'paid job' as a picture dealer.

One day, M. Dumas brought a large portfolio to the Union Artistique. He opened the portfolio and took out Manet's gorgeous watercolor, 'Olympia,' then a roll containing the original drawings for 'Le Chat Noir et le Chat Blanc,' a state of the colored lithograph 'Polichinelle,' several admirable drawings in red chalk and a dozen sketches of cats. 'I think that's all,' he said. But on his shaking the portfolio there fell out a delightful study of a woman, painted on parchment. 'How my friends would have ragged me if they had seen that!. . . Now make it your business to get rid of the lot for me, at the best price you can.'

Good things must have some mysterious force of attraction in them. Although, following the instructions of my chief, I only showed the Manets with the greatest discretion, in a day or two they were all sold. Only one thing vexed Dumas. The customer who bought 'Le Chat Noir et le Chat Blanc had insisted on our relieving him of a Sisley.

'And I had sworn,' said Dumas to me, 'never to buy an Impressionist. We must hope you'll find an opportunity of passing this Sisley on to some chance customer. Anyway, do your best!' So one afternoon I resolved to pull off a bold stroke. I removed the Debat-Ponsan that was in the window and put the Sisley in its place. Five minutes later it was sold. This was not because the Impressionists were in favour (the year was 1892), but it just happened like that.

Dumas' first words when he came back were: 'Look here, Vollard, you'll have to go to the collector who foisted it on us and ask him to take his picture back at a low price.' 'But I've sold it,' I said, 'to a stranger. He talks of coming back some day to see if we've got anything else of the same kind.' 'Of course,' Dumas said, 'you told him the firm doesn't deal in that sort of stuff, and it was only by chance...' 

Life in these surroundings was beginning to be more than irksome.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)