PARIS.- The last 500 masterwork prints from the Henri M. Petiet collection, come to sale with Ader Nordmann in Paris on November 25 & 26 at the Opera Comique.

This sale will be an old-fashioned auction with only bidders in the room allowed to participate, no telephone or online bidders, as decreed by David Norman. Prices range from Euros 1,000 -25,000.

The sale includes the complete and entirely signed set of the Vollard suite by Pablo Picasso as one lot. This will be the first time that a complete and entirely signed set of the Vollard Suite by Pablo Picasso will be offered for auction in a Petiet sale. This set alone is estimated at between 1.5 and 2 million euros.

Petiet purchased the Vollard collection during the Second World War some 31,000 prints. Most of Picasso’s prints were not signed, but he was encouraged to sign them and did so after much negotiation.

The handsome collection of Matisse prints are very sought-after by UK collectors. The artwork of Henri Matisse are rarely on the print market and this sale offers a wonderful collection by the artist.

Henri M. Petiet was a bold and daring art dealer who helped cultivate a world-wide appetite and interest in prints. The story of his exceptional life is related by Christine Oddo in her book L’art et son marchand : Henri Marie Petiet (Art and its Dealer: Henri Marie Petiet), available September 19th from the publisher Editions des Cendres.

If he did not like the way a potential client handled a print he would say that they were not fit to buy the print.

Born into a family renowned for over two centuries in administration, military, politics and industry — his ancestor Claude Petiet, Minister of war under the French Directory, had recommended the young General Buonaparte as chief commander of the Army of Italy and signed his nomination letter —, Henri M. Petiet was in no way predestined to become the great print dealer that we know him as today.

Endowed with great intelligence and a prodigious memory, of a scientific mindset and an appetite for collecting, he first became interested in trains then in cars, but his primary passion was the print. As early as 1925, at the age of 31, he became an art dealer, buying prints at a prolific rate and storing them at 8, rue de Tournon, in his shop “A la belle épreuve”, as well as in his apartment. Two years later he launched himself internationally by developing the market in the US.

Petiet played a key role in enhancing the place of the print in major American collections, both public and private, thanks to the confidence and trust he gained from important curators, such as Carl O. Schniewind and Harold Joachim in Chicago, Agnès Mongan at the Fogg Museum, Elisabeth Mongan, Eleanore Sayre in Boston, Adelyn Breeskin in Baltimore, and dealers such as Georges Keller or collectors like Lessing J. Rosenwald.

He very quickly sought to become the sole publisher of prints in order to control prices. He therefore amassed an impressive collection of artists: He owned numerous prints by Gauguin, Bonnard, Matisse, Derain, Toulouse-Lautrec, he became an avid promoter of Mary Cassatt’s engraved work, he acquired a great deal of prints from Marie Laurencin and Suzanne Valadon, he supported artists such as Gromaire and Goerg, even in the darkest hours of the Occupation.

The Christine Oddo’s book " Henri Marie Petiet, Art and the dealer" has been translated and is available in English.