STARTING POINT
The vast majority of collections entrusted to us at the time of an initial review were built by accumulating opportunities, with no formal strategic framework. This absence of framework surfaces at the moment the collection must serve a larger purpose: transmission, wealth structuring, patronage, institutional engagement.
Our first task is then to give the collection — whatever its age — a direction and a legal framework suited to its value.
OUR INTERVENTIONS
Collection direction
Exhaustive mapping of the portfolio, valuation at market, coherence analysis. Definition of a collecting thesis aligned with the client's intentions and the constraints of their wealth. A prioritised plan of arbitrage.
Succession planning
Mapping of intergenerational expectations, projection of tax scenarios, activation of available instruments — including dation en paiement (settlement of tax through artworks), dismemberment of ownership, and gifts to foundations. Conducted in close coordination with the family's notary and existing advisors.
Legal structuring
Setting up dedicated vehicles — civil partnership (société civile), foundation of public interest, foreign-law structures where the family situation calls for them. Design of family governance tools around the collection: charter of use, management committee, decision and arbitrage procedures.
Patronage & gifts
Design and conduct of patronage operations — corporate acquisition of works by living artists, dation, gifts to foundations or museums, long-term institutional deposits. Orchestration of the tax, transmission and recognition dimensions together.
Expert reports & litigation
Expert reports prepared for legal proceedings — contested successions, divorces, disputes between co-owners, provenance challenges, customs appeals. Reports drafted to be admissible before French civil courts and usable in international arbitration.
WORKING WITH EXISTING ADVISORS
All our engagements are conducted in explicit coordination with the client's principal wealth and legal advisors. We do not seek to replace them. We bring the dimension none of them covers alone: a fine knowledge of the works, of the market, and of the arbitrage that follows.