Renowned Parisian antique dealer Marin Montagut on the art of collecting

My parents were antique dealers and my grandmother was an artist, so I grew up surrounded by a multitude of objects of all kinds. As soon as I could walk, my parents began taking me to antique shops, flea markets, and even to auction houses. So, this taste for collecting is a family affair that has been passed down from generation to generation. In fact, many of my collections are connected to childhood memories. That’s true for the artists’ palettes I’ve accumulated; they have the power to take me back in time to my grandmother’s house, where I would spend hours watching her paint, fascinated by the colours and patterns that seemed to spring from her hands. Just looking at the palettes conjures up a multitude of abstract paintings, which bloom from the dappled paint on their surfaces.

Another of my favourite collections consists of plaster casts that find their way into my home, where they recreate the atmosphere of the artists’ studios that have always fired my imagination. I like to pose them on stands, where the light plays on their contours and their pallor, or even on the floor, to emulate the ambience of a sculptor’s workshop.

Finding objects endowed with soul is a passion that drives me every day. My mother’s antique store, Coco & Co. in Honfleur, is one of the places where I regularly discover treasures that I then find a place for at home. Whenever I travel, especially to Italy and Portugal, I always return with suitcases full of marvellous finds. For my work as an illustrator and designer, they provide boundless inspiration. Each of my creations and watercolours says something about my world and my memories. From Italy, for example, I brought back silver ex-votos in the shape of a hand, face, foot, and heart, from which I had moulds made to reproduce them in porcelain. In Portugal, I was fascinated by registos, ancient reliquaries with painted and decorated frames of unimaginable refinement; they constitute without a doubt my biggest collection. I hung them together to create a wonder wall along the staircase that leads upstairs. They were my principal inspiration in creating my ‘window of wonder’ decorations. Interspersed among them on the wall are hearts that were once made by nuns using plain cardboard embellished with beads and embroidery. I’m overcome by their simplicity and beauty. Looking at them, I know that one day they will inspire me to make something new.

I have another collection of popular religious art figurines called santibelli (beautiful saints). Despite the Italian name, these naive statuettes of the Virgin Mary, made of terracotta and painted in bright colours with gold accents, are from Provence. I love their story. They owe their name to the Italian immigrant peddlers who used to hawk them in the streets of Marseille. Then, up until the end of the 19th century, they were manufactured in the city’s workshops, where nativity figurines were made. It is said that fishermen’s wives always kept one at home as a talisman to protect their husbands when they went to sea.