The work of an antique dealer involves not only works of art, but also a significant amount of researching, risks, expertise, and both successful and perhaps ill-advised gambles. Among those who have attempted to capture the allure of this exclusive profession, films directors undoubtedly play a significant role. We’ve compiled a list of movies featuring antique dealers, to discover that fiction, while functional to the show, often betrays a role that can’t be reduced to a mere stereotype.
Let’s dive into the first story in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch (2021), which is loosely inspired by the life and work of the renowned antiques dealer Joseph Duveen. The episode begins with a painting by Mr. Moses Roselthaler, a troubled artist sentenced to 50 years in prison for a double murder. As luck would have it, the art dealer Julien Cadazio was imprisoned in the adjacent annex, for tax evasion of course. But even a cell can be a place of business: ‘Every artist sells all his works. That’s what makes you an artist: selling them. ‘ The painter’s request for ’50 cigarettes, or rather, make it 75’ is met with a counter-offer from the antique dealer, raising the price of the painting he wants to buy to 250,000 francs. It might be a clumsy imitation of Duveen’s technique to inflate the value of his purchases, but it seems that in this particular case, it only serves to get by with a mere promise and a deposit of 83 cents, a marron glacé, and four cigarettes. A somewhat limited advance for a ‘masterpiece worth a considerable, perhaps even exorbitant, sum of money. But not yet’.
Let’s briefly touch on the intrigues of Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Best Offer (2013), which is filled with twists and turns that involve hybrid market figures rather than gallery owners. The true antique dealers played a crucial role behind the scenes providing the works displayed in Franco Maria Ricci’s collection, set up in his spectacular villa in Fontanellato, in the province of Parma.
We’re taking a flight from Europe to Buenos Aires to meet Arturo Silva, a professional gallery owner and the protagonist of the Argentine film Mi ombra maestra (Gastón Duprat, 2013). Here the art dealer’s reputation as a swindler takes a dark turn, as he transforms from a filibuster merchant to a murderer (no spoilers, the premise is in the opening). The myth of the mad artist is not abandoned in the movie, but it’s the one that shakes the moral integrity of those around him. At least there’s a grain of truth in elevating ‘even the scam as a highly artistic work’. When the entire incredible scaffolding threatens to crumble, it’s all because of ‘one of those idiots obsessed with honesty’.
Even the contemporary art gallery owner, who plays a pivotal role in the events of the mediocre thriller Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy, 2019) is complicit: ‘I cherish loyalty, but I’d kill to showcase your work.’ A cliché that, to varying degrees, unites art dealers in cinema, especially those of second and third order, and is epitomized in the tattooed maxim on his arm: ‘No death, no art’.
To emphasize the point, Mick Jagger takes on the role of a collector-merchant in The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi, 2019). In his Como villa, he casually reveals that he once purchased a portrait of a ‘woman in a red scarf’ by Modigliani, only to discover it was a forgery. He then cleverly offloaded it to the Tate Modern. Once again, the only thing that’s real is the work that ignited the imagination of the story’s backdrop, likely the portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne au foulard that went under the hammer in 2016 (London, Sotheby’s; June 21, lot 12), reaching a staggering price of nearly 50 million euros. But the hunt for masterpieces in the film’s plot will take us far beyond the alleged fraud, further tarnishing the image of the poor gallery owners, already distorted like a Modì painting.
In Mortdecai (Eric Aronson, 2015), the antiquarian’s name that lends its title to the film, the protagonist himself immediately sets the tone: ‘I’m an art dealer, not a charlatan, a rogue, perhaps, a mischief-maker, I’ll grant you that, but never an absolute acrobat.’ The staging in the presentation reveals the true colors of those who preach one thing and practice another, as the story takes a rather exhilarating turn. When it comes to selecting the actor, it’s best not to overthink it.
You might realize that Johnny Depp, a former pirate, fits the role of an antique dealer like a glove. In this case, a thrilling black-market heist, with methods that are undoubtedly less tragic than the illicit trafficking of archaeological finds depicted in La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, 2023). The receiver is a master of disguise, a crafty art dealer who orchestrates a motley crew of young, unfortunate, and ill-equipped grave robbers. Maybe it’s true that to revive the magic you need to wait for midnight—not because everything breaks like in Cinderella, but because it comes true, as in Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, 2011). To meet Picasso and Dalí, and experience the lively can-can at the Moulin Rouge with Toulouse-Lautrec. Not to mention dropping by Gertrude Stein’s salon and witnessing the live phone negotiation for a Matisse at 500 francs. “Excuse me, I was wondering… could I take six or seven?” A stroke of economic genius made possible only by taking a leap into the past. In contrast, their contemporary, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, seemed to travel into the future with his prophetic purchases.
In the world of cinema the art dealer still plays the swindler in thrillers and the clown in comedies. But there’s another side to the story, full of adventures, commitment, and remarkable discoveries, that’s still waiting to be told. For now, though, fiction blends into reality with a simple device that romanticizes the facts, turning them into a cartoonish figure that serves the narrative—a cinematic trick to get a laugh (from someone with a different job, of course).
