Tribute to Anisabelle Berès-Montanari
The Art Dealers' Union (SNA) pays tribute to Anisabelle Berès-Montanari—antiques dealer, expert, and former president of the SNA—who has passed away at the age of 78.
Born in 1948, she was the daughter of Huguette Berès—founder of the Quai Voltaire gallery, which specialized in Japanese prints—and Pierre Berès, a major figure in the world of rare books and manuscripts. She joined the family business in 1975, the very year she married Amedeo Montanari, a dealer in antique frames. Two vocations, two firms, yet a shared vision of what the profession demands.
She took over the management of Galerie Berès in 1990, dedicating more than fifty years of her life to it. With a background in law, history, and archival research, she approached every artwork with a rare level of attention: the kind that seeks out an object's origins, context, and history before speaking about it. Those who knew her remember a woman of strong character—precise, exacting, yet never condescending—for whom knowledge was not merely an ornament but the very heart of the profession.
A member of the SNA since 1990, she was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2006 and a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2008. In November 2019, she was unanimously elected as the first female president of the Syndicat National des Antiquaires (National Antiques Dealers' Union) since its founding in 1901:
"My true pride lies in being the first female president of the SNA—no small feat in a field like ours."
Her ambition for the profession was both simple and demanding: to defend members regarding the concrete issues affecting them, and to make Paris an art hub worthy of its true potential.
