Inside the World of Jean-Marie Rossi, the Collector Who Transcended Trends

Eclecticism—even if the word is somewhat overused today—is what best defined Jean-Marie Rossi’s taste. Collectors of the finest 18th-century furniture knew they would find, in his gallery on Place Beauvau in Paris, a few surprising departures, like astonishing creations by Charles-Guillaume Diehl or Édouard Lièvre. As for his close friends, whom he welcomed to his famous Sunday evening dinners at his property in Rueil-Malmaison, they were accustomed to experiencing the spoils of his voracious collecting: works by friends César and Arman in conversation with Chinese porcelains, Carlo Bugatti armchairs, and paintings by Jean Fautrier. His daughter, Marella Rossi, who worked alongside him for many years and now runs the gallery, explains what made his eye so distinctive and what drove his enthusiasms.

Collection Jean-Marie Rossi, D'un monde l'autre

Please, tell us about how your father got started.
Jean-Marie began in 1956, at the age of 25, by walking into the antique shop of Maurice Aveline, who very quickly offered him a partnership. Together, they scoured the major sales in England and found marvels, such as a BVRB sideboard that my father later sold to Anténor Patiño. At Aveline’s, there was traditionally a room of Louis XIV, the Louis XV room, and the Louis XVI room… My father gradually overturned this established order by mixing in English and Italian furniture, which at the time had no market appeal at all. He then became interested in the 19th century, but only in pieces that were out of the ordinary. He loved furniture that was modern, ahead of its time, whatever the period.

At the same time, he became interested very early in contemporary art…
Yes, he always said his job as an antiques dealer stopped at 7 p.m., and after that he rushed to exhibition openings. In 1960 he attended Yves Klein’s famous performance dragging a nude woman through paint. He was friends with César, Arman, Jean-Claude Farhi, and Bernar Venet. They saw each other constantly, even on vacation in the South of France in summer. Daniel Buren later found in his notebooks that my father had been his third client. In his apartment at 8 Avenue de Breteuil, he asked Jean-Pierre Raynaud to create a 125-meter work. When I was born, Mimmo Rotella gave my parents a painting, and César created two marble expansions on antique andirons. Later, in the house in Rueil, my bathroom was covered with twenty-two panels by Arman, and Farhi designed my headboard. My siblings and I were raised in this exceptional eclectic atmosphere that trained our eyes for beauty.

There is also this remarkable passion for Jean Fautrier.
He was passionate about his work. Between the ages of 25 and 30, he bought many of his pieces and even signed a contract with the gallerist Michel Couturier to sell his paintings. There are nine works in the sale, including a famous Hostage Head.

In a completely different vein, your father assembled a major collection of Chinese blue porcelains.
He was insatiable when it came to them. It was a collection he was deeply attached to because it had been started by his father, who left Milan for Paris at 19. He began as a specialized lathe worker, then became a brilliant engineer who invented the tapered roller bearing and created his factory in Levallois-Perret. Thanks to this success, he settled with his wife on Avenue Émile-Acollas, on the Champ-de-Mars.

When did he move the gallery to Place Beauvau?
In 1999. After Maurice Aveline’s death, he had remained on Rue du Cirque and hadn’t even changed the sign. But, when the opportunity arose to move to Place Beauvau, he didn’t hesitate—the visibility was extraordinary, and the space was more than double, nearly 700 square meters.

Is that when you joined him?
Yes. My mother was already working with him, but she called me to come help in this new space.

Had he already passed on his passion to you?
I had been immersed in it my whole life! When we were children, every Saturday he would pick up my twin sister and me to go to Drouot and have lunch in the neighborhood with dealers. From room to room, he would ask us which objects we liked best… Fortunately, we often we chose well!

Was it difficult working with him?
My father had a strong personality—everyone knows that. But his passion for beauty transcended everything. Sometimes he would lower the price of a piece of furniture just like that, simply because he wanted it to go to someone worthy of it. He often said, “You must give your clients ambition."

How would you define his taste?
Some called him “the anticipator”! It’s true—he anticipated trends; he never followed them. He listened only to his heart and intuition. The great Parisian antique dealers each had their specialty, but not him. His curiosity was all-encompassing. He had a reputation for having a very sharp eye; he was a discoverer. Jean-Marie said contemporary art had given him this innovative eye in choosing furniture—avoiding pretenders and minor masters, whether in art or furniture. When I proposed exhibiting contemporary art in the gallery, it was to follow his philosophy. In truth, his worked presaged the movement of mixing styles and periods. He wasn’t very enthusiastic at first, but later he was delighted to meet Michelangelo Pistoletto or Malcolm Morley, and to reconnect with his friend Daniel Buren, who beautifully dressed the façade of the Place Beauvau building with his famous stripes for a temporary exhibition at the gallery.

Are there 18th-century pieces in the sale?
Of course—that’s the very DNA of Rossi taste! For example, there is a beautiful desk attributed to Noël Gérard that belonged to Hubert de Givenchy; a metal-marquetry commode by Nicolas Sageot; a small mahogany desk from Bagatelle; and an Italian commode from 1760 with Japonist floral veneer that had been presented in a sale as Art Nouveau! That’s typically the kind of furniture my father loved: hard to define and innovative for its time. And to make this tribute as faithful as possible, we asked François-Joseph Graf to design the scenography of the exhibition before the sale. He had designed the layout of the Place Beauvau gallery and was a regular at the Sunday evening dinners—he will know exactly how to recreate my father’s singular and scholarly universe.