Puces Portrait: Dominique James
At the Marché Vernaison, third-generation dealer Dominique James brings a lifetime of knowledge to the search for exceptional eighteenth-century furniture.
This interview is excerpted from my book The Paris Flea Market (Prestel, 2024), described the New York Times as “a celebration of the culture, history and oddball treasures of the market”.
With roots in Saint-Ouen stretching back to the years between the wars, Dominique James belongs to one of the Puces’ great family dynasties. His grandfather began as a junk dealer, clearing houses with a cart while his grandmother ran a restaurant on Rue Pasteur in Saint Ouen, before his father established the family business at the Puces in 1948. His uncle joined him in the 1960s, and together they transformed Maison James from a dealer in contemporary furniture into a specialist in nineteenth- and eventually eighteenth-century French furniture. During the “trente glorieuses”, as he calls it, from 1970 to 2000, the business really took off, fuelled by a booming export market and strong demand for 18th-century French antiques from American buyers, and the family expanded into several stands at Vernaison. Today, a deep affection for the eighteenth century and an instinct for the exceptional object remains at the heart of Maison James. In an era of Google and Instagram, he remains attached to the old ways of the trade – to knowledge accumulated through looking, handling and hunting for objects, and to the thrill of the find.
