Hôtel Drouot, the auction house on rue Drouot since 1852

The Hôtel Drouot on rue Drouot was inaugurated on 1 June 1852 by the Compagnie des commissaires-priseurs de Paris. Having outgrown the Hôtel Bullion, the company bought the site of the old Pinon de Quincy manor near the Salle Le Peletier in 1850 and commissioned the architects Lejeune and Levasseur: fourteen rooms over two floors.

Paris was then the capital of the art market. One of the city’s first hydraulic goods lifts was installed there in 1869 by Félix Edoux. Drouot sold the French Crown Jewels in 1887, the furniture of Émile Zola’s town house in 1898 and the collection of Jacques Doucet in 1912.

From 1976 to 1980 sales moved to the former Gare d’Orsay while the building was rebuilt. The new hôtel by Jean-Jacques Fernier and André Biro, opened on 13 May 1980, reinterprets Haussmann-era architecture and keeps part of the original metal frames. Since 2009 bidders have been able to take part online.

In the 9th arrondissement, sixteen rooms host some seventy independent auction houses. Paintings, furniture, jewellery, books and works of art pass through every week, on view the day before each sale, and La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot announces the sales to come.