Three pictures came home with us this summer, none of them planned, all of them carried back on my knees in the car. This is where we found them, and how we look.
Go early, or do not go
The dealers arrive before it is light and buy from each other before the public is let in. By nine the good things have already changed hands twice. We aim to be walking the stalls by half past seven with coffee in hand, and we are usually done by ten.
Take cash in small notes. Take a tape measure, a torch for looking at the backs of things, and a blanket for the boot. Nobody wraps anything.
Where we go
- Antibes, Cours Masséna, the brocante on Thursdays and Saturdays. The most reliable of the lot and an easy morning from Cannes.
- Cannes, Allées de la Liberté, Mondays. Small, but it is on our doorstep and it has produced more than it should.
- Villeneuve-Loubet and the villages inland, for the vide-greniers. These are house clearances rather than dealers, so the prices are kinder and the digging is harder.
The village vide-greniers move around and are announced late. Ask at the bakery, or look at the posters taped to the lamp posts on the way in.
Buy the frame, keep the picture
The gilt frame above was leaning against a table leg with three others, and I wanted it for something else entirely. The drawing inside it, a young woman in profile in an old French headdress, is the reason it is still together. It has been in the sitting room since.
This is the usual way round. Good frames are cheap because they are heavy and awkward, and often there is something worth keeping behind the glass.
What to look at, quickly
You will not have long, so look at three things. The back, because old stretchers, old nails and old dust are hard to fake and tell you more than the front. The edges of the canvas, where you can see whether the paint was worked or printed. And the frame corners, which is where a piece has usually been repaired.
Then decide on the picture itself, not on the idea of a bargain. We have carried home two or three things over the years that we bought because they were cheap, and they are all in a cupboard.
On haggling
Ask, once, politely, and in French if you can manage it. Vous faites un prix? is enough. You will usually be met somewhere in the middle, and if you are not, that is the price. Grinding away at a stallholder over ten euros marks you out and gets you nothing.
Buy two things from the same stall and the arithmetic tends to soften on its own.
They are for sale
All three of these are hanging in the apartment at the moment, and all three are for sale. There is one of each, and once one goes it does not come back. They sit in the boutique alongside the chouchous, and if something catches your eye we will take it down and post it, or leave it wrapped for you if you are coming to stay.
Then we will go and find something to hang in the gap.