3:00 P.M. Back at the gallery, Deydier has a meeting with a potential client who wants his expert opinion on some Chinese pieces. But the phone rings, and the meeting is postponed until the following morning. Another call, and Sigalony passes it to Deydier, who explains tax law to a dealer. “He’s an art market Google,” says Sigalony. “People call him all the time with questions.”

4:00 P.M. Drops in on neighboring dealers, who not coincidentally all show at the Biennale. Sees a chic beige upholstered Ruhlmann chair at Vallois, specialists in 20th-century French furniture. But it is across the street at Pascal Lansberg’s contemporary-art gallery that he is really smitten. “It’s too late,” he sighs, standing in front of a lush Wesselmann still life of roses and a smoking cigarette. “I can’t afford it.” Then, propped in a corner, an eye-popping Kenny Scharf—like a Kandinsky with cartoonish black octopuses—grabs him. Lansberg is asking €140,000 ($221,000). Deydier mulls it over.

5:10 P.M. The car crawls across Paris to the office of Françoise Dumas and Anne Roustand, specialists for 30 years in staging charity galas. They are arranging the Biennale dinner; all 1,300 tickets—at €1,000 ($1,580) each—have already been sold, leaving 600 people disappointed. “Françoise knows everyone,” Deydier says. Implied is that she also knows everything about them, including who is no longer talking to— or sleeping with—whom.

5:30 P.M. Hellos all around. With Dumas and Roustand are Marcadé and Bénech, who present their garden design. Deydier seems bemused as they talk. When shown the digital projection of the border edging, he says, “C’est horrible, horrible.” Bénech seems philosophical about it, but Marcadé’s mouth twists in disappointment. A tea tray is brought in. The china pot and cups are painted with lions, giraffes and palm trees. Deydier appears more delighted with them than with the fake palms of the plan.

6:45 P.M. The car takes Deydier home to the 8th arrondissement.

THE NEXT DAY
11:30 A.M. Sigalony shows in the man who canceled yesterday: Robin Lobatto, an English dealer in classic cars. He shakes hands with Deydier, sits down and takes from his leather satchel a greenish, clearly heavy statue of an elongated man on a pedestal, about two feet high. Lobatto says this is one of 50 objects his father brought back from visits to China.“Yes, but it’s a reproduction,” says Deydier, “sold in the museum shop to tourists. The original is a life-size 12th-century B.C. bronze from the Sanxingdui site in Sichuan province. I know it very well.” This one is not even bronze. Charming and considerate, Deydier entertains the disappointed Lobatto with amusing stories of deceptive practices. “Next time you come to Paris, bring me a bronze,” he adds. “I will have a look. You never know.”

"A Day in the Life" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.