Design & Decoration S04 ep8 : Christophe De Quenetain, Quenetain Gallery, [Paris]

Interview with Christophe Quenetain

Christophe de Quénetain studied at Lycée Kléber in Strasbourg and at the Université Robert Schuman in Strasbourg, France, where he obtained a Law degree. ?He read History of Art at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris and had two BAs with honors in "Histoire des arts appliqués à l'industrie" (History of Industrial Decorative Arts) and "Architecture, Décor et Ameublement des Grandes Demeures" (Great house's architecture, design, decoration and furnishing). Christophe also studied with skilled cabinetmakers of the famous Ecole Boulle where he developed wooden works expertise. After training at the Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ebénistes (Cabinet Maker Research Center), he joined in 2000 the Galerie Chevalier in Paris where he was in charge of the documentation and the organisation of major international fairs –Biennale Internationale des Antiquaires and TEFAF- and of the show –"Tapisseries coptes, textiles d'Egypte IVe-XIIe siècle". Galerie Chevallier is specialised in the finest French, Flemish and European tapestries, working for museums and prominent collectors (Copt tapestries, Egyptian textiles from the 4th to the 12th Century). After completing his thesis at the Ecole Pratiques des Hautes Etudes in Paris, he gave lectures on Fine Arts at Christie’s Education in Paris from 2002 to 2007. Christophe also joined the international auction house, Pierre Bergé & Associés in 2005 where he was the director for French and Continental Furniture and Fine Arts department. At Pierre Bergé & Associés, Christophe developed a strong professional relationship with an international client basis of prominent collectors, renowned interior designers and curators from major international museums. Christophe's knowledge and expertise have been acknowledged and recognised by senior curatorial staff of major international museums, as Musée du Louvre, Chateau de Versailles in France, the Frick Collection in New York, the Norton Simon Museum in Passadena, the Huntington Collection in San Marino, the John P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa, Canada... with whom he has kept a strong relationship.

 

10:59
I'm Christian Quenetaine , I'm hunted bidder in French classical furniture and I
have also an activity of art historian band. I've published some boring books and
boring articles.11:11

11:18
I was studying law and the law was so boring for me, I said what could I do now,
without losing my years of law and I decided , I said, oh, I was to do art history and
I should become an auctioneer and when I was to do art history I said, I don't want
to be a mere auctioneer because you don't have a real compact review of that, so
after the ecoldido and eccolbul , I started PhD about a family of cabinet maker.
11:50

11:57
It's very technical, for example when you have a Chinese panel who arrive in
France, it's impossible to, to put it like that together. How could you resolve this
problem. So a French workshop beside it to match letter, as the Chinese one. So for
example, on this table, you have the top which is Chinese and the side which are
Parisian and the things who helps me a lot to be a student as the ecolbul, I was also
a cabinet maker, so i know how to make it piece of furniture.12:33

12:40
All these people who come from Dutch, or Germany became French when they
were in Paris and there is French facts that all these workshop except Jagani or
Hankinson, lot of the most important name, are German or a Dutch, as a must. And
I think that it is like the gold tooth of the center. You could be one of the better,
best artist in France but before spending three or four years in Rome art history,
Diavidi you weren't as good. 13:16

13:22
And after, the same thing happen when all the goldsmiths from France who went
after, they not, in Great Britain, they were French at the beginning, but they create
the new style and the creator of the English silvers.13:39

13:45
You don't have a lot of books, so you have to study in the French archive. Five
years after you saw a piece auctioning, you said that this is, it was in Mr. blah, blah,
blah, in the 18th century, so you have to be very fast and you have to have good
memory. I finished an article about the collection of Alpha Arc Hilo, so I went in
Russian archive in London, I studied inventory and I found ,you couldn’t imagine,
all the piece in Botulin, in the American museum, comes from the collection of , at
the auction and this is ending no doubt of them and everything start with
wondering, one table that I sold to one of my client and I was studying the table
and it's always like that. You really try to find something, you never find it, but
when you don't want to find something, five years after you say, oh, it was this one.
14:42

14:48
I have two or one of my good friends called Alexi Marie, who is one of the, the
most famous young designer in Paris, to make the first story. And I said to him,
you do what you want and I did that, to show that the impact on these works with
come top ratings. He send me some drawings, which were you know the drawings
as the fashion designer did, so I understand is his ilerate, when I saw it, I said, wow,
he put a kind of 70's decoration touch in this now classical piece. 15:24

15:33
Most important things was my, first good deal. I was student, I saw porcelain and
they put that in the catalogue that it was a 19 century piece and I said I'm sure that
it is 18. But I didn't know why. I bought the piece with all my money as a student.
Six months after that I saw a, the same porcelain in the Royal collection in London.
So it was bingo and after that I could make the document and I sold the piece, I
don't remember, I think that I bought it for one and I sold it twenty. 16:17

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Christophe De Quenetain, Quenetain Gallery, ???