One hundred and sixteen years ago Nathan Wildenstein inadvertently introduced a formidable legacy and an unparalleled inventory of fine art.

"Be daring when you buy and patient when you sell. Time does not matter, you'll always find a client for every painting. Sometimes they're not born yet".

These words are Nathan Wildenstein's (1851-1934) the founder, in 1875 of the galleries that today bear his name, whose reach is global and whose reputation is unparalleled.

In its beginnings, Wildenstein & Co. specialised in French Eighteenth Century painting and was largely responsible for the growth of its popularity, both in America and in Europe. In the following years, the scope of Wildenstein widened and by the early 1900's the Gallery was handling paintings, sculpture and works of art of all schools from the fourteenth century primitives to contemporary European and American artists.

Concurrent with this time, a steady expansion evolved in terms of the Firm's own growth. Wildenstein began to adopt its now ingrained international character. In addition to the Paris premises at rue la Boetie, the New York Gallery was opened in 1902 and in 1933 moved to its present location at 19 East 64th street. In 1925, a London gallery was established in the Nelson Historical House at 147 New Bond Street and in 1940, a gallery was opened in Buenos Aires where it is currently located at Cordoba. Pre-empting the Japanese interest in the great European works of art, Wildenstein established a gallery in Tokyo in 1973. Wherever there were and are great collectors, Wildenstein & Co.'s passport is its sheer presence in every locale and unquestionable access to the finest works of art available anywhere in the world. The family's investments were solely in its professional assets and accordingly, the Wildenstein inventory today reflects the maxim of its founder: 'Never buy a painting that you can't afford to hold on to and have your grandchildren sell'. 

In the years since Nathan Wildenstein first sold a painting on commission for a client, the Firm's activities have been extremely varied but always rarefied. They have lent paintings to thousands of exhibitions in both the United States and Europe; they have gained renown for their acquisition of famous private collections, among them the Foulc collection of Italian and French Renaissance paintings and works of art; the Rodolphe Kann collection of Dutch art and the Oscar Schmitz and Fayet collections of French Impressionist works. And these are just the ones that are public knowledge. The Firm has placed pictures in every museum of importance in the world from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to The Australian National Gallery in the country's capital. Throughout its history, Wildenstein has arranged some of the most important retrospective exhibitions of major artists, countless outstanding group shows and has presented selections from the great museums on both sides of the Atlantic.

Wildenstein & Co. clearly stand apart; how we know this almost contravenes the standard laws of research for an impermeable veil of secrecy hangs over Wildenstein's art of dealing largely because Wildenstein numbers amongst its clients the world's outstanding private collectors. Fourteen years into its second century of art dealing and headed by three successive generations of Wildensteins - Nathan, Georges and, Daniel whose sons Guy and Alec are also active in the business - the Firm is today, still the evocation of the galleries of old in protocol, elegance and stature.

Nathan Wildenstein moved to the French capital from his family's home in Alsace in 1870. The Prussians had annexed the French provinces of Alsace and half of Lorraine as part of the Franco-Prussian War victory settlement. Wildenstein was not the only French man to flee the unwelcome rule of the Prussians. The French reclaimed both Lorraine and Alsace at the conclusion of World War I. There were no thoughts of return though for the Wildensteins, by then entrenched as art dealers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nathan Wildenstein first turned his hand to business in Paris with a clothing shop, but was quick to realise the profit to be realised in art when he sold on commission a painting left behind by one of his customers. One of the many probably apocryphal stories about the founding of Wildenstein has Nathan's wife complaining at the number of paintings Nathan returned with after forays into the shops and by-ways of Paris. However the transition was effected within the space of five years of being in an unsettled post-war Paris, Nathan was dealing in both art and antiques from the rue la Boetie. From the 1890's, the Wildenstein galleries have dealt solely in the fine arts and by the end of the nineteenth century, Nathan Wildenstein was one of the biggest art dealers in the world in league with Lord Duveen, Gimpel, Knoedlers and Agnew.

The years 1870 to 1910 in art were indisputably those of the Impressionists, the last movement in art that can be considered singularly French. Though later famous for curating significant exhibitions of Impressionist art having shifted their focus this way in the 1920's through the interest in and activities of Georges Wildenstein, it is not for this style that the Wildenstein Galleries were first reputed. Their name was established, and the success of their venture into turn of the century New York was guaranteed by, their substantial holdings in and knowledge of 18th century French art.

Reviewing in Connoisseur in 1952, an exhibition honouring both the Wildenstein's 50th year in New York and the centenary of the birth of Daniel Wildenstein, a staff writer expressed succinctly, the period's now somewhat neglected virtues.

"The great eighteenth century is ushered in by two exalted Watteaus; a rare and interesting little panel, Halt of an Army, where the leafy grace of a great tree in the background falls like the balm of mercy on the pitiful group of wounded soldiers, and the Mezzetin, where we find again the contrivance dear to Watteau of drowning the shrill cry of human anguish in a chorus of melodious natural beauties of water, woods and garden light. It is the well-bred courtesy of that restraint, the hallmark of all 18th century French art, that so often led the superficial observer to turn away from truly great works before he had sounded the depths that lay beneath the bright surface. On the other side, it is the same elusive secretness that has won for it so many devoted adherents among the best informed connoisseurs. For these the Wildenstein show provided a rare opportunity with outstanding examples of Nattler, Drouais, Pater, Lancret, Perroneau and the highest of them all, the great and simple Chardin".

Control of the Wildenstein Galleries and the firm's fortunes, passed directly from Nathan to his son Georges (1892-1963) who in addition to accentuating the accent on Impressionist works, also instigated the Wildenstein's legendary art reference libraries, widely thought to be amongst the finest in the world. Georges was also the publisher of La Gazette des Beaux Arts and upon his death in 1963, Wildenstein Galleries passed to Daniel, born in 1917 and known in his own right today as "the biggest dealer of them all", no doubt in relation to both his knowledge, inventory and devotion to dealing in the grand manner. A neat, dapper man with the intense look of an academic, Sorbonne educated Daniel Wildenstein is as renowned for his world famous horse racing stables in Europe and the US as he is for his authority on Claude Monet about whose life and work he has written the seminal two part tome. A member of the Institut de France in addition to his other activities, Daniel is resident in Genthod, Switzerland dividing his time between the Wildenstein Galleries around the world and his Swiss home. Sons, Guy, a director of the London gallery and from all accounts a champion polo player, and Alec, a consultant to some of the US's biggest collectors and museums assure that the Galleries will remain a family concern into its fourth generation.

But we meet not with a Wildenstein of either latter generation, but with the erudite Frenchman Jacques Durand-Ruel, Vice President of Wildenstein & Co. and himself, part of a family whose long, detailed and illustrious association with fine works of art bears comparison with that of the firm in whose headquarters he is now ensconced.

The New York premises of Wildenstein, now the lynchpin of the firm's global activities are located on East 64th Street, in a regal five storey building built for Wildenstein & Co. in 1932 by the architect Horace Trumbauer reflecting the artistic and stylistic nuance for which Wildenstein first found prominence in the French Masters. Self-contained and apart, the grand style, the mannered formality and inherent gentrification are at once apparent and footsteps echo intrusively in the ecclesiastic silence most often reserved for museums and churches. It is an expectedly beautiful environment discreetly dotted with examples of Wildenstein's art; tastefully luxurious and a rarefied haven a simple doorstep up from the noisy New York street outside.

The Durand-Ruel family business, until the closure of their Paris gallery in 1976 - "for family reasons" - was also that of art dealing. The demise of the Durand-Ruel business is indicative of a sorry trend. In a 1978 interview with ARTnews, Daniel Wildenstein bemoaned the lack of competition at the pinnacle end of the market. "Dealers are important", he said. "Art dealers have created collectors, who in turn have created the great museums. But now I think we are an endangered species. In my grandfather's time, there were probably 20 really top painting dealers. Even in 1939, there were still perhaps a dozen. Now we are standing like a dinosaur. And I don't think that it is very healthy to be alone". Undoubtedly, that situation thirteen years ago has not radically changed for the better. The nature of dealing art has fundamentally altered. Daniel Wildenstein was speaking before the eighties, the decade when art, like so many of the finer things was a commodity and the great collectors - those whose sheer love of great art and appreciation of the essentially of the objet d'art were sharing the purchasing forum with those who had much money to spend on the cultural gentrification of a corporate image. Additionally, the benevolent tax system as regards the purchase of artworks in the States aligning advantage for both museums and public philanthropy, and the purchaser has been reviewed auguring a time of less munificent purchase.

In short, the great collector may be nearing as round an extinction as the dinosaur with whom Daniel drew comparison.

Jacques' father Charles, encouraged neither of his two sons into the family business perhaps sensing the increasing hold of the auction houses - "like the casinos of the 19th century", says his son, and the increasing extent to which the art that his family had made its name with in the 1870's "defending" and sponsoring the Impressionists, would find their final expensive resting places in the world's great public galleries. Between 1923 and 1955, Wildenstein sold the one Toulouse Lautrec painting of a dancer five times, its price increasing from $1800 to $275,000 in that time. That rate of exchange is unlikely to occur in 1991. Galleries such as the Getty in California, have annual purchasing budgets upwards of US$40 million with which to bring pictures home for the long stay, or as Daniel has said, "The merchandise is [becoming more and more scarce]. When you sell a fine painting you cannot replace it".

Whatever Charles Durand-Ruel's rationale, his sons heeded his advice; Jacques studied engineering and then business, spending 17 years of his professional life working in the oil industry. It was only at the personal invitation of Daniel Wildenstein that Jacques returned in 1985 to the business of art dealing. A particularly tempting offer because of the high esteem in which Jacques' father held Daniel. He has no regrets and readily admits that "I am very happy here".

"My father did not generally like art dealers", says Jacques frankly, momentarily dropping his omnipresent guard, "but he always enjoyed meeting M. Daniel Wildenstein. My father thought that M. Wildenstein was the only one who was truly knowledgeable and truly loved paintings. In this business generally, you see a lot of dealers who see paintings as merchandise straight from the beginning. This is not to say that M. Wildenstein is not a good businessman because he is, but emotionally he enjoys looking at new paintings. He has the real life - it is a full pleasure - really lived and enjoyed by the heart and the brain, even physically, it is amazing when you show him new acquisitions, just looking at his eyes or face and you can see the difference; the judgement whether it is of good quality. There is both a gift and an education there".

"The true art dealer ought to be an enlightened connoisseur ready to sacrifice what seems to be his immediate interests to his artistic convictions, and at the same time be ready to join the fight against the speculators, rather than take part in their activities". Paul Durand-Ruel, Jacques' great grandfather, writing in the December 1869 issue of the publication he founded, La Revue Internationale de L'Art et de la Curiosite.

Jacques' own pedigree portends a fascinating initiation into the rites of artistic passage. In the 1830's, Jacques great-great grandfather Jean Fortune Ruel extended his Paris stationery shop's supplies to include paints and brushes, eventually accepting paintings from his artist customers as payment for their materials. But it was Jean's son, Paul Durand-Ruel, who penned the above definition of the true dealer's creed and is familiar to all students of Impressionism, who was pivotal in establishing a new direction in the family's professional sphere. Jacques underplays his ancestor's virtues, merely stating that Paul could: "Yes, have been considered a man of foresight", but this seemingly dismissive judgement is accompanied by a small chuckle. As well he might. The "foresight" Paul Durand-Ruel showed was to switch in 1870 in London his allegiance as an art dealer from the Barbizon to the Impressionist school of painting. Fleeing the Prussian's seizure of Paris, Paul met with Pissaro and Monet in London, taking an immediate and immense liking to their works. So much so, that he purchased the entire contents - at no small cost - of Monet's studio. Paul Durand-Ruel was to prove the Impressionists' most loyal and generous of patrons.

"You always have to go forward", explains Jacques of Paul's seeming impulsive change of loyalties. "Barbizon was still contemporary but it was rapidly becoming not contemporary. The Impressionists were the heirs of the Barbizon school. My family switched naturally from the Barbizon to the Impressionist school".

The Barbizon school, prominent in France between 1830 and 1870, took its name from the village of Barbizon, the gateway to the forest of Fontainebleu, 30km southwest of France. disdainful of the anthropomorphism and romanticism of the landscape painters that had preceded them in the Academy, the Barbizon artists took their easels to the plainer roads and byways of France. Paul Durand-Ruel abandoned the school just as they were attaining their highest prices, and their greatest popularity.

With the Impressionists today fetching surreal prices, it is difficult even now to conceive of the courage of Durand-Ruel's move. Truly a man ahead of his times! Impressionism caused considerable consternation for most people viewing it for the first time. Art rarely today, provokes the same controversy or outrage; with the exception perhaps of the Mapplethorpe furore. The unsuccessful trying of the Cincinatti curator for obscenity for showing Mapplethorpe's photographs was the talk of New York!

Jacques takes up the gauntlet as his ancestor before him might have in discussing the issue. Forward thinking in the face of short term adversity is an inherited trait. "For one year, there was all this controversy about sado-masochism", says Jacques referring to some of the more colourful content of the late photographer's imagery. "Robert Maplethorpe", he laughs, shaking his head. "It is still going on. It is a very tricky problem because it is censorship. It is against liberty. What has really shocked me is that every newspaper talked about this story for a year, and no newspaper" - he explains vigorously tapping a notepad - "has shown those photographs. The art has not been allowed to speak for itself. So I think that is the main argument. Everybody talks about it. Nobody shows it".

It is the principle Jacques defends as well as the inherent talent of the man, but he then adds, in a nice historical irony, that he doesn't know if in his very vivid depictions of male homosexuality Mapplethorpe didn't overstep the mark into the "truly obscene. My God!" He laughs heartily, possibly recalling to mind the press reports accompanying his great-grand-father's 1876 exhibition of Impressionist art.

"These so-called artists, the Impressionists", wrote Leopold Wolff in Le Figaro in that year, "call themselves uncompromising; they take canvas, paint, brushes, slap on several colours at random, and sign the thing. A dreadful display of human vanity carried to the point of madness".

Paul Durand-Ruel stood firm in the face of the public and critic's scorn. He was well-rewarded. Pierre Renoir honoured Durand-Ruel's steadfastness with an exquisite portrait. What it reveals of its subject is a septuagenarian (born in 1831) with rosy cherubic cheeks, lounging in a chair, a man at ease with himself and the passage of his life. At the time of the portrait, Renoir and Durand-Ruel had been friends for decades, time having vindicated and rewarded both men. It was a pleasing portrait for good reasons.

In 1882, Europe was in recession. Durand-Ruel's bank crashed. "It wasn't like today", says Jacques. "Banks didn't try and help each other out. Everyone was happy that a competitor was down. My great-grandfather was almost bankrupt with a lot of Impressionist paintings. He couldn't sell them in Europe. He had a few customers but not many. And although he organised yearly shows in London, Geneva, Rome and Berlin, and every two years in Russia, he could not sell the thousands of paintings that he had. A few American friends suggested he go to New York and in 1866 he travelled to America to exhibit them; half of which was the Barbizon school style because he was still well-known for this collection. He found collectors in America - quite a few and right from the very beginning. That is why you have very good collections in this country - not because the Americans are richer than the Europeans - that is simply not true, it is because the Americans had the choice from the very beginning. And the secret to buying good paintings is choice. Even if one is not knowledgeable, you can see the difference. Art is just comparison and Americans had a lot of choices available".

In 1885, the American Arts Association (AAA) was only too happy to assist with the shipping and mounting of a significant collection of Durand-Ruel's Impressionist works.

Exhibited in the AAA's own gallery, the exhibition met not with Parisian hostility but with American enthusiasm. The journey across the Atlantic was the saving of Durand-Ruel.

It is therefore no irony that many years later, Jacques Durand-Ruel sits in the Vice-President's chair of Wildenstein & Co., a firm whose own permanence bears comparison with the Masters and whose steely, accomplished reserve is a reminder of where the great traditions and patrons of art originate. It is a bastion of old world tradition in New York City, where art in all its many shapes and forms has free expression, a myriad varied mediums and cultivates an eclectic audience.

In 1970, the Wildenstein Gallery in New York mounted an exhibition entitled, A Tribute to Paul Durand-Ruel, a Hundred years of Impressionism. The catalogue that accompanied it is both informative to read and splendid to behold which is not surprising considering the resource material available to the Gallery on site. The Wildenstein archives, containing photographs and catalogues is world famous, as is their heavily guarded immeasurably priceless inventory of paintings that few are privy to view - a veritable treasure trove that in 1978 alone included 20 Renoirs, 25 Courbets, ten each of Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin and Corot; 2 Boticellis, 8 Rembrandts, 8 Rubens, 9 El Grecos and 5 Tintorettos. The storage room in New York is justifiably referred to as 'The Vault' and inside, the inventory exceeds 10,000 paintings, none of which go unrecorded.

The Wildenstein's are enigmatic, discreet and enormously respected and in defiance of the passage of time, still dealers in the grand tradition, as famed for their learning and scholastic pursuits as for their educational, cultural and philanthropic involvement in the larger community. In 1970, they exhibited in their New Bond Street London Gallery, a sampling to the world of Argentina's finest painters. This cultural exchange was organised with the assistance of the Argentinian Ministry of Culture. Again in London in 1965, the Wildenstein Gallery exhibited the work of 17th century Roman artists. Proceeds were used to "save Gosfield Hall for the Nation as a residential nursing home with hospital wards for the elderly, sick and infirmed of limited means".

In addition to his publisher's achievements at the Gazette des Beaux Arts Georges Wildenstein is also remembered as the acknowledged authority on Gauguin. Founded in 1869 by Charles Blanc but brought to fruition under George's editorship, the Gazette now has Daniel Wildenstein on the magazine's four man board of directors whilst son Guy is the magazine's administrateur. Not surprisingly, the magazine now publishes an edition in English, runs no advertisements and conveys an impression of dignified, non-partisan learning.

"Early in life Duveen noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation". S.N. Behrman writing in his biography of the preeminent 19th century art dealer, Lord Duveen.

In their 1963 obituary of Georges Wildenstein, the London Times described him as Duveen's heir. This veiled sort of cynicism is commonly encountered when talking about art dealers. What goes on behind their awesome doors is a mystery to most by design. Simply because the dealings are and must be in camera, discreet to the point of exclusion of all unnecessary parties to a transaction. It is the golden rule of the top art dealer and one not readily compromised.

"A client of Wildenstein, first of all, has a lot of taste and wants to buy something of utmost quality. We want only to sell good quality paintings. That is the first thing: quality. The second element is secrecy, discretion", says Jacques reinforcing the foregone conclusion and in doing so is ever so slightly warning of further probing as to a more detailed client listing. "Discretion works both ways, for the buyer and for the seller. You had Mr. Bond who buys a painting for $60 million at the auction houses and everybody knows about it, in the exact same way as someone who was losing ten million dollars at the casino table in one night. Wildenstein buyers want to be protected from fame which is useless. Their friends will know, but not the world".

Interestingly, Wildenstein has added another artistic plume to their crowning agenda but comparatively recently as historically, they have never been known for their dealings with contemporary art. The overwhelming impression a study of Wildenstein leaves is that of a noble history, its reputation further excelling each time an artistic classic changes hands through the firm or indeed leaves the sanctity of The Vault. Yet housed upstairs on this October day awaiting exhibition amidst a fitting tableau is the work of a young New Yorker. The exhibition held late last year was of Rhonda Roland Shearer's bronze sculptures. The catalogue, as is the norm for Wildenstein, is of the highest quality for nothing of quality is done in half measures. There is a curiously obscure introductory essay by noted novelist the recently departed Jerzy Kosinski, as well as an excellent piece by Roderick Frazier Nash suggesting that Shearer's sculptures are best appreciated in the context of contributing to the resolution of the globe's contemporary environmental concerns. Wildenstein also recently mounted a retrospective of Dubuffet, one of the late twentieth century's most difficult artists, impossible either to overlook or to stylistically locate. At one point, he was sculpting and scoring his canvasses as if they were mud packs.

Today, as yesteryear, Wildenstein & Co. is an abiding monolith in a commercial culture that seems to be reaching a nadir of sorts. The museum culture that today seems pre-eminent is squeezing the middleman, the dealer, from the supply end. But if anyone would be able to surmount the artistic odds, it is undeniably Wildenstein. "This is by far the biggest gallery in the world and you have a much broader choice", says Jacques of the state of their art. "If you have more choice, you have better pleasure and a much greater chance of buying a very good painting". Perhaps the great collectors, albeit less visible than they ever were and much played down in number, are still continuing this age old tradition. Art is after all, the most private of pleasures to these people and a timeless occupation. But Wildenstein will never tell and the world is not likely to find out easily otherwise.