PARIS—The eighth annual Parcours des mondes, the leading tribal-arts fair, takes over a constellation of galleries in Saint-Germain-des-Prés from September 9 through 13. Sixty-two dealers from 11 countries, including five from the U.S., are showing a vetted selection of African, Asian, Oceanic and American works. Thousands of collectors and professionals thronged to last year’s edition, the first under the direction of Pierre Moos and his firm, Tribal Art Management. "The only reproach in 2008 was that there were too many people," reports Moos, a collector of African art for the past 40 years. He is hoping to draw an equally abundant crowd in 2009 despite the economic downturn.

Among the standout works on offer are a late 19th- to early 20th-century Bakota reliquary from Gabon, at the Parisian Galerie Alain Bovis; a sinuous, early 20th-century Mumuye statue from Nigeria, which the Roman gallery Dandrieu-Giovagnoni has priced at €80,000 ($113,000); and the Mill Valley, California, dealer Thomas Murray’s Rothkoesque, 19th-century, richly colored silk Sumatran lawon, or woman’s shoulder cloth.

To spark dialogue between traditional Western and tribal art, the Montreal dealer Jacques Germain is installing his sub-Saharan pieces beside modern art at Aittouarès gallery, and Galerie Patrice Trigano is juxtaposing the work of Francis Picabia with African masks and statues brought by the Brussels dealer Bernard de Grunne.

Running concurrently with the fair is the second annual exhibition at the Monnaie, the French mint. "The Dealer’s Eye: A Passion for Tribal Arts," a show of exceptional pieces from private collections that have passed through gallerists’ hands, is a tribute to the importance of dealers in the tribal-arts trade — a realm where dates and signatures are rare and a discerning eye is essential.

While in Town
After a summer en vacances, Parisians return to a cultural bounty, which includes these must-see exhibitions.

Renoir in the 20th Century
This blockbuster show of more than 100 paintings, organized by the Musée d’Orsay, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art and held at the Grand Palais, is the first in-depth examination of works from the artist’s last three decades. September 23 — January 4, 2010.

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice
If you missed this show at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, catch it at the Louvre. Hanging beside 85 works by such masters as the Flemish painter Friedrich Sustris are pictures by the show’s stars, including Titian’s Venus with a Mirror, ca. 1555. September 17 — January 4, 2010

Louis Comfort Tiffany, Couleurs et Lumière
In Tiffany’s first retrospective, at the Musée du Luxembourg, 160 works, including the designer’s ca. 1900 stained-glass Magnolia Window from St. Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum, reveal that his eye for color and composition was matched by technical prowess. September 16 — January 17, 2010

"Tribal Ritual and While in Town" originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2009 Table of Contents.