Ambroise Vollard: Recollections of a Picture Dealer

"Two Ladies in a Café"
by Camillo Innocenti

Ambroise Vollard was a French art dealer, one of the most important in French contemporary art at the beginning of the 1900s. In his autobiography he engagingly recounts his own background and his interactions with the artists of that time, including Cézanne, Renoir, Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. Born on the French island of Réunion, the youngest of ten siblings, he found the instinct to collect very strong, although at the age of four, it was only pretty stones and broken china. His schooling led to the study of law, and it was for this that he left home to continue his education in Paris, where we pick up the story of his life in his own words:

"Paris! The very magic of the name predisposed me to admire everything. But it was the little things - the shops with their goods displayed outside, the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter - that interested me enormously. Above all, I was fascinated by the quays and bridges of the Seine, where the second-hand booksellers had their boxes. There had been something of the collector about me from childhood, and hunting about in these boxes, I developed a passion for engravings and drawings. Those were the days when for three francs, or even two, you might pick up some such treasure as a fine, lively drawing by Guys.

One day, I fished out a little picture of peasants dancing in front of a fire, which I thought a marvel of chiaroscuro. I bought it for a small sum. It was signed Innocenti. This bargain procured me a great deal of respect among my compatriots and one of them, whose opinion carried weight declared it was as good as a Rembrandt. As a result of this purchase I became acquainted with the artist, who invited me to visit his studio at Neuilly, and it was through him that I came to know the future director of the Union Artistique, where, as will be seen, I was to make my first campaign as a picture dealer."

To be continued

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