Artist and designer Marin Montagut’s boutique on the Left Bank in Paris has become a whimsical delight for design lovers. In this abridged extract from his new book ‘Timeless Paris: Ateliers, Emporiums, Savoir Faire’, Marin shares five of his favourite ateliers and emporiums in the City of Lights
MARIN MONTAGUT AT HIS EPONYMOUS STORE ON 48 RUE DE MADAME. IMAGE: ROMAIN RICARD FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
Marin Montagut, 48 Rue Madame— Paris 6E
I grew up in Toulouse, and, thanks to my parents, who were antique dealers, and my grandmother, who was an accomplished artist, I developed an appreciation for beautiful things at an early age. No detail escaped my notice and every object seemed to have its own tale to tell. But secretly I harboured the hope that, one day, I would live in Paris. I finally arrived in the City of Lights a few days after my nineteenth birthday, with little more than my paintbrushes and a box of watercolours.
Instantly, I knew I could never live anywhere else—Paris was destined to be my forever home. I continued to explore the capital’s byways over the years, determined to seek out the city behind the scenes, with all its secrets and surprises. Venturing across these thresholds, I found myself stepping into boutiques and workshops steeped in history and brimming with unexpected treasures. I encountered hidden museums, traditional ateliers, and old-world emporiums, and the dedicated men and women who are the humble guardians of a priceless heritage of artisanal and ancestral expertise.
These timeless places and professions have been an inspiration for my own creations. In the spirit of this Paris of yesteryear, committed to traditional arts and craftmanship, I opened my first store on Rue Madame, just steps away from the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens that I hold so dear. It took me months of searching to find the perfect spot: a former upholsterer’s workshop with an old-fashioned store window and façade. I reconfigured the space to create three distinct rooms: a curio shop, a boudoir, and a studio. With my passion for all things from the past, I carefully restored the original parquet floors and terracotta floor tiles, and salvaged pigeonhole shelving from an old grocery store in the south of France to display my treasures.
(LEFT): MARIN MONTAGUT OUTSIDE HIS STORE, PAINTED IN HIS FAVOURITE COLOUR – GREEN; (RIGHT) MARIN’S SIGNATURE CREATIONS ARE HANDMADE IN HIS MONMARTRE STUDIO, AND HE ALSO SOURCES ANTIQUES AND TREASURES WHEN HE TRAVELS. IMAGES: ROMAIN RICARD FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
My favourite colour is green, and I’ve used every shade, from the palest to the deepest. I chose Parisian kiosk-green to frame the glass partition in front of my studio. You can hear the creak of ancient timber floorboards in my shop, and breathe in the scent of old wood panelling. It’s a voyage into a childhood wonderland, recalling my youthful dreams of Paris. The inscription on the façade of this modern-day store reads “Purveyor of All Kinds of Objects.”
With my watercolours, I conjure up items to brighten up my everyday life: stationery, tableware, boxes, pillows, and silk scarves, each with a different story to tell. My signature creations are entirely handmade in my Montmartre studio, including the illusory “livres à secrets” (hollow books), based on an eighteenth-century tradition, and the “vitrines à merveilles” (wonder windows) evoking imaginary escapades. I also bring back intriguing and beautiful finds whenever I travel. My love of antique hunting, which stems back to my childhood, has never left me. Each week, I return laden with old globes, apothecary jars, insect display cases, and other curiosities to delight my future visitors. Nothing brings me more pleasure than seeing the treasures displayed at 48 Rue Madame become your own cherished memories.
Musée de Montmartre, 12 Rue Cortot— Paris 18E
THE MUSÉE DE MONTMARTRE. IMAGE: LUDOVIC BALAY, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
Tucked away at the end of an old cobbled street, at 12 Rue Cortot, the Musée de Montmartre recalls a time when the rustic butte was filled with windmills, willow trees, fields, and vineyards. Artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries relished the hillside’s bucolic atmosphere. Renoir was among the earliest painters to move here. Later, between 1912 and 1926, Suzanne Valadon, her son Maurice Utrillo, and her husband André Utter lived in one of the studios.
Beautiful and heedless of social conventions, Suzanne Valadon charted her own course as a painter. Starting out as a circus acrobat, and later becoming an artist’s model, she learned painterly techniques by observing the artists she posed for, including Puvis de Chavannes, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Renoir. Encouraged by Cézanne and Degas, she began to paint independently and became known for her landscapes, still lifes, flower bouquets, and female nudes.
THE MUSÉE DE MONTMARTRE. IMAGE: LUDOVIC BALAY, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
A flight of stairs leads to her modest apartment, with its floral wallpaper, and to her studio, which has been faithfully reconstructed by the designer and scenographer Hubert Le Gall, based on the artist’s canvases and contemporary photographic documentation. The floorboards creak beneath your feet, and the air is suffused with the distinctive aroma of turpentine. It’s easy to imagine Valadon painting in the company of Utter and Utrillo. The illusion is sustained by the easels and frames stacked up in a mezzanine above. A little Godin stove once provided a modicum of warmth; the studio’s vast windows overlook a breathtaking panorama, but the winters must have been bitterly cold.
On the ground floor, the museum displays temporary exhibitions and houses the Café Renoir. The building’s terraced gardens offer views over Paris and the vineyards of Montmartre. In springtime and summer, water lilies bloom in the little pond and, under the arbour, the fragrance of roses perfumes the air.
Deyrolle, 46 Rue de Bac — Paris 7E
DEYROLLE, ‘A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES’. IMAGE: LUDOVIC BALAY, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
Deyrolle is a cabinet of curiosities like no other in the world. It is surely the only place in Paris where one can see a donkey paying court to a lioness, while an albino peacock poses a few feet away from a polar bear. Beneath glass bell jars, magnificent Brazilian blue butterflies take flight, while lobsters and spider crabs suggest the forms of contemporary sculptures. Meticulously arranged in their cases, scarabs shimmering with hues of gold, bronze, and emerald are displayed like natural precious gems.
The firm, founded in 1831, originally specialised in taxidermy and selling supplies for natural history collections. In 1888, the shop moved to an old town house on Rue du Bac. In addition to its collections of insects and stuffed animals, the company also had an educational mission, producing and selling wall prints and specialised works on flora and fauna. In 2001, Louis Albert de Broglie bought the internationally renowned firm, which attracted scientists, students of entomology, and curious visitors with the beauty and ambience of the collections housed amid magnificent eighteenth-century panelling. Since 2007, Deyrolle pour l’Avenir (Deyrolle for the Future), instigated by Louis Albert de Broglie, has perpetuated the firm’s instructional calling, reinventing it with custom-designed prints dedicated to the preservation of our planet.
IMAGE: LUDOVIC BALAY, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
Tragically, very early one morning in 2008, a fire broke out in the store. The cabinet of entomology and 90 percent of the collection were reduced to ashes. Great design houses and artists rallied to save this legendary site, and a benefit auction was organised. The funds raised were used to restore the devastated premises, reconstitute a collection, and reproduce the old wall prints. Today, as in the past, new generations continue to fall under the spell of this enchanting place.
Féau & Cie, 9 Rue Laugier — Paris 17E
ANTIQUES AND CURIOSITIES AT FÉAU & CIE. IMAGE: IMAGE: LUDOVIC BALAY, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
The Ternes district of Paris was still a village among fields in 1875. The entrepreneur Charles Fournier decided to locate his new workshop there because it was close to the Plaine Monceau, a neighbourhood frequented by the rich and powerful. These were the clients who purchased Fournier’s antique wood panelling to adorn the walls of their private residences.
The grandfather of the current owner, Guillaume Féau, purchased the business in 1953. Over the decades, three generations of the Féau family—decorators with a keen eye for antiques—have tirelessly frequented auction houses, gradually accumulating an impressive collection of incomparable pieces. The entire history of French decor from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries is represented here, in the nooks and crannies of this vast labyrinth. It extends beneath a monumental steel and glass cupola, reminiscent of one of Eiffel’s lofty structures. Wainscoting, doors, trompe l’oeil works, and carved panels highlighted with gilt or painted decorations are displayed, as well as mirrors, mantelpieces, fountains, plasterwork, drawings, and engravings. It is an authentic living museum of French decorative heritage.
SKETCHES AND WATERCOLOURS OF FÉAU & CIE BY MARIN MONTAGUT. IMAGE: MARIN MONTAGUT, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
The business shifted its focus in the 1990s and ceased the sale of antiques, with rare exceptions made for a few museums, foundations, and knowledgeable collectors. Féau & Cie now supplies the most prominent designers, and it works on about a hundred projects annually. Scrupulously preserved antiques serve as models for reproductions, created in their own workshops and destined for luxurious residences throughout the world.
Soubrier, 14 Rue de Reuilly — Paris 12E
SOUBRIER ON RUE DE ROUILLY. IMAGE: PIERRE MUSELLEC, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
Maison Soubrier has been owned by the same family for over two hundred years. The firm originally produced period furniture, before moving into antique dealing. Louis Soubrier, the current owner, spent years visiting auction houses to indulge his passion for historic furnishings and beautiful objects, which he then sold to a few fortunate clients.
In recent years, the firm has focused exclusively on rentals. This extraordinary destination is a well-kept secret that’s open only to the trade, and attracts professional designers, decorators, and stylists from film, theatre, and television. Once past its portals, the visitor enters a courtyard and encounters two marble sphinxes flanking the entrance. Inside, an antique elevator panelled with original wainscoting, which dates back to 1900, moves between the three floors at a stately pace.
THE EXTERIOR OF SOUBRIER. IMAGE: PIERRE MUSELLEC, FROM TIMELESS PARIS: ATELIERS, EMPORIUMS, SAVOIR FAIRE BY MARIN MONTAGUT, FLAMMARION, 2021
The unparalleled collection extends over 32,000 square feet (3,000 m2). It is meticulously organised by category, and everything on show is available for rent, from a Napoleon III-era presidential desk from the Élysée Palace, to an immense baroque mirror decorated with horns, or a copper deep-sea diver’s helmet; curiously, the most frequently borrowed piece in the catalogue is a 1920s cheval glass (full-length mirror). This accumulation of antique furniture, paintings, and objects—reminiscent of a vast cabinet of curiosities—is imbued with an indefinable scent that mingles dust, polished wood, and old documents, calling to mind the attic of a charming provincial home.
Extracted from Timeless Paris: Ateliers, Emporiums, Savoir Faire by Marin Montagut, Flammarion 2021, RRP £30; marinmontagut.com
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