François Delestre, expert in impressionist art, answers to the Artfinding's exclusive interview about his specialty and vision of the art market.
Robert Stoppenbach and François Delestre founded the gallery Stoppenbach & Delestre in London in 1982. It specialises in French art of the 19th and 20th century. The challenge of dealing specifically in French paintings, drawings and sculpture was met with worldwide interest from collectors, museums and dealers. The international position of London in the art market had always meant that some galleries dealt with French art at the same time as British art and Old Masters. Located at 25 Cork Street in the West End, adjacent to Bond Street, the gallery is in the midst of other major galleries and auction houses. Stoppenbach & Delestre has close contacts all over the world, including France (François Delestre resides in Paris) the Netherlands and the USA. They are members of the Society of London Art Dealers and the Syndicat National des Antiquaires.
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| Impressionist and modern art trends and analysis - since 2005 |
The Stoppenbach & Delestre gallery is based in London and is specialized in French pictures. For François Delestre, the English market is very keen on collecting French pictures such as the Barbizon School since it is very similar to the British landscape painters. As he says, "the English are living on an island, they use to travel a lot, and therefore they happen to be open-minded; this is how I would explain that English collectors collect French pictures, and that French collectors are not much into English paintings".
Historically the Barbizon School, the Belle Epoque paintings and the Pre-impressionism art are right in the middle of sure values Old Masters and more speculative modern art. For François Delestre, his specialties are closer from the Old Masters, financially speaking; "our speciality is a sure value investment, the artists we represent won't hugely rise in value, but won't loose any value either".
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| Jacques de la Beraudière | Robert Landau | Franck Prazan |
Stoppenbach & Delestre
25 Cork St
London W1S 3NB
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7734 35 34 - Fax: 020 7494 3578
Email: contact@artfrancais.com
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Comments
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Robert (2010-12-02)
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La Biennale des antiquaires est obsolète! Ca fait presque 10 ans que la Tefaf l'a détronée. La Biennale est franco-francaise, on y trouve toujours les memes exposants avec les memes oeuvres d'art, et plus ca va moins il y a d'exposants et moins il y a d'oeuvres. 25 € l'entrée pour voir 3 sculptures et 1 commode c'est un peu cher payé. La ou je me retrouve dans les propos de ce monsieur c'est qu'à Maastricht au mois de mars il n'y a rien d'autre à faire que d'aller se perdre dans les allés de la Tefaf. Du coup on y consacre sa journée, on y prend son temps (mais pas trop parce que c'est immense!) et on peut plus aisement apprécier les oeuvres. D'un autre coté, une foire comme la Brafa de Bruxelles a lieu dans une grande capitale européenne et pourtant on y trouve les memes atouts que la Tefaf: des galeries de qualité, beaucoup d'exposants et m'a-t-on dit des stands bien moins chers qu'à la Biennale.
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Jams_Todd_London (2010-12-01)
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Besides Corot, Rousseau, Millet and a few others, the Barbizon School doesn't worth much on the art market. So as Francois Delestre says, it can't be speculative since either no one knows anything about it, either the today's prices are to low to guaranty these paintings to be a good investment. Regarding the similarities between the Barbizon School and the British landscape painters, if you have any hesitation please go for the English paintings: much more poetic and well executed.





















