Foire de Chatou: how the trade buys
From 25 September to 4 October, more than 320 dealers set up on the Île des Impressionnistes. Heir to a medieval fair expelled from Paris in 1970, Chatou has neither glass roof nor scenographer. That is exactly what makes it a school: the one where you learn to look before you buy.
Reading time: 5 minutes
On Thursday 24 September at eight in the morning, the Foire de Chatou is not yet open to the public, and yet the aisles are full. It is trade day: dealers buy from dealers. A commode moves from one stand to the next before it has seen its first visitor; a pair of wall lights changes price three times before noon. The next day, when the gates open at ten, some of the best pieces have already found a buyer. Understand that, and you understand the fair.
A week apart, Paris offers two ways of selling an old object. At the Grand Palais, Fine Arts Paris presents a hundred galleries in a signature scenography. At Chatou: 21,000 square metres of white tents, more than 320 professionals, earth, gravel and a gourmet aisle. The two worlds know each other well. More than one piece shown beneath a glass roof began its second life on an island.
A fair older than the Louvre
It is still called the ‘Foire nationale à la brocante et aux jambons’, and the ham is no whimsy. In the Middle Ages, pork butchers from the provinces came to sell their cured meats on the parvis of Notre-Dame during Holy Week, taking advantage of the crowds of the faithful. The fair was regulated as early as 1451, moved from street to square as neighbours complained, interrupted by the Revolution and re-established by decree in 1804. In the 19th century, scrap merchants and rag-and-bone men joined the butchers: the ‘scrap fair’ ended up eclipsing the ham fair. In 1869 the police settled it on boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where it stayed for almost a century.
In 1970 the Paris police prefecture expelled it from the capital. The antique dealers’ union, the SNCAO, saved it by moving it, with the town’s support, to the island at Chatou where Renoir painted the Luncheon of the Boating Party at the Maison Fournaise. The fair has been held there twice a year ever since, in March and September. The edition opening on Friday is the 111th.
What Chatou does better than the salons
The fair has no vetting committee in the sense of the great salons, but it has something else: every exhibitor is a registered professional, obliged to invoice and to describe what they sell. The SNCAO promotes a ‘100% professional’ label and offers free appraisals on site. In practice, this means a buyer can demand an invoice stating the period, materials and condition of the piece, and that document binds the seller. Less spectacular than a jury, more useful day to day.
The second advantage is volume. More than 320 stands means seeing, in a single day, ten armchairs of the same model at different prices, in different conditions, with different restorations. No salon allows such direct comparison. For an interior architect who needs to learn to tell an original base from a replaced one, Chatou is a crash course for a ten-euro ticket.
Where to look if you love the 20th century
The exhibitor directory announces a majority of antique furniture and objects, but the 20th century has claimed its place in the aisles. Several stands describe themselves as specialists in ‘20th-century furniture’ and lighting; others in ceramics and tableware, mirrors, antique textiles, paintings. The names matter less than the method: a first, quick lap of the whole fair without stopping, to spot; a second, slow one, to look; a third, targeted one, to negotiate. Those who buy at the first stand regret it at the tenth.
The reflexes that make the difference
Come early, and on a weekday if you can: on Saturdays the fair draws up to thirty thousand visitors per edition, and you cannot examine a veneer while elbowing through a crowd. Bring a torch and a tape measure: the first reads the bottom of a drawer or the underside of a chair, the second saves you from bringing home a bookcase that will not fit through the door. Turn furniture over: it is underneath that you see tool marks, pegs, labels, restorations. Always ask what has been redone; a serious dealer answers without being pressed.
Haggling is expected, but it too has its rules: a discount is asked for after you have shown that you have looked, not before. Finally, plan the transport: specialist carriers are present on site, and there is free parking under the Chatou bridge. A piece bought on Sunday can be delivered to Paris within the week.
And the ham?
It is still there, in the gourmet aisle, alongside the oysters, foie gras and regional produce that have made the fair’s reputation for eight centuries. Lunch is good, which is no small thing when you have been walking for five hours. It is also where deals that did not close in front of the stand are concluded around a table.
Why go this year
Because the fair remains one of the rare places where one can still buy a quality piece without an intermediary, from a professional who found it themselves. Because the market is tightening: fine 20th-century furniture is becoming scarcer, and Chatou is one of the places where it resurfaces before rising to the galleries. And because the eye is trained by looking at a great deal, quickly, and by making a few mistakes. Chatou is the ideal place to make them cheaply, and to learn not to make them again.
Practical information
- 111th Foire de Chatou, Foire nationale à la brocante et aux jambons, Friday 25 September to Sunday 4 October 2026; trade day on Thursday 24 September
- Île des Impressionnistes, 78400 Chatou. RER A towards Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Rueil-Malmaison station then free shuttle (10 am – 12.30 pm and 1.30 – 7 pm), or Chatou-Croissy station on foot. Free parking under the Chatou bridge
- Opening hours: daily 10 am – 7 pm, last entry 6 pm
- Tickets: €10 · students €7 · groups of 10 or more €6 · free for under-15s
- Services: free appraisals, carriers on site, valet parking, dogs on a lead admitted
- Organiser and official website: SNCAO-GA, foiredechatou.com