HOUSE TOUR | ROOMS & GARDENS | WORLD OF CABANA
There is a particular art to collecting—a pursuit led by intuition as much as scholarship, where objects are acquired not just for their aesthetic value, but for their ability to hold and transmit stories. For Melissa Ulfane, founder of Pushkin Press, collecting has always been about narrative. She talks Emma Becque through her home in Paris ahead of a major auction of its covetable contents.
BY EMMA BECQUE | ROOMS & GARDENS | 31 JANUARY 2025
Melissa Ulfane's hôtel particulier in Paris © François Halard
Melissa Ulfane's Paris home — an expansive 17th-century hôtel particulier — is testament to her personal philosophy on the importance and power of objects. Now, in a landmark sale at Dreweatts auction house, that collection, spanning centuries, will be dispersed into new hands. "A profoundly personal collection, from which it will be difficult to part," she says. "But these pieces with their patinated histories deserve to be lived with, not stored away."
Ulfane's house, assembled over time like a carefully constructed novel, reflected her devotion to craftsmanship and her eye for items with soul. François Halard, whose photographs immortalised the house's poetic grandeur, says: "It is more than the collection of Melissa Ulfane. It is the spirit of Paris. It is the authenticity of the space and the beautiful architecture of the 17th-century. It is 'l’élégance parisienne' and l’art de vivre of Melissa. It combines books, furniture, carpets, antique textiles, chandeliers, and paintings mixed with extraordinary objects. It is the flowers all over the house. It is the light shining in the rooms. It is a sleeping beauty brought back to life..."
The high-drama bathroom at Melissa Ulfane's home in Paris © François Halard
This layered palimpsest of place, memory, and artistry was not merely a backdrop for Ulfane's life but an active participant in it. The restoration, guided by architect Laurent Bourgois and decorator Hugh Henry, was an exercise in careful resurrection. The house had been stripped back—walls bare, details erased—but traces remained.
"There were clues—the odd panel, a fireplace, the original shutters," Ulfane recalls. Rather than imposing an artificial perfection, the approach was one of reverence. "It wasn't about making it perfect," she notes. "It was about making it feel like it had always been this way."
Collecting, for Ulfane, has always been an intuitive process shaped by serendipity and personal connection. "Everything I bought was an immediate response," she says. Her journey began with Old Master drawings — anonymous yet rich in history — before expanding into Venetian glass, antique textiles, and contemporary paintings.
A monumental 17th-century Flemish biblical tapestry depicting Judith and Holofernes was one of her earliest purchases in Venice and remained a defining piece. "I wanted a Venetian palace in London," she laughs. "That tapestry saw everything." A blue velvet sofa from the library of Castello di Duino, where Rainer Maria Rilke wrote the Duino Elegies, remains untouched. "I never reupholstered it — I liked to think the author might have sat there."
Among the sale's highlights is Aperiatur Terra (2004) by Anselm Kiefer, an imposing, textural artwork woven with biblical references, alongside Cette baie-là (2015), a luminous mixed-media work by Miquel Barceló. Another departure Ulfane never quite expected is a striking Art Nouveau mirror, its frame a cascade of carved wooden hair reminiscent of a mythological Medusa. "That was one of those pieces I never imagined selling," she admits. It hung in my bedroom for years, watching over everything."
Melissa Ulfane's hôtel particulier in Paris © François Halard
The collection extends beyond paintings. A Meissen porcelain chandelier, once part of the royal House of Hanover's collection, twinkles with its vibrant Rococo florals. At the same time, a pair of four-tier étagères designed by Eugène Printz for the Cité Universitaire of Paris nods to Ulfane's appreciation of modernist functionalism. "I've always loved pieces that feel like they belong to a particular time and place," she says.
But collecting, she insists, is also about release. "Things come into your life, and they must move on at some point." Her recent shifts—between Paris, Venice, London and Tangier—have prompted a reassessment of space and possessions. "I used what I could and then had all this beautiful excess. Keeping it locked away felt wrong."
For young collectors, her advice is simple: read. "I think people are overwhelmed by choice now. But to understand an object, its place in history, its cultural significance —you must read," she says. "Books open doors to different periods, different aesthetics. The great collectors — Christopher Gibbs, Robert Kime — had that breadth of knowledge." She gestures to her former library, stacked high with books. "Go to places like Daunt's. Read about the worlds you're interested in before you buy into them."
The sale at Dreweatts, fittingly titled Spirit of Place, speaks to Ulfane's belief that objects belong as much to locations as they do to people. "There's a great sadness in letting go," she reflects. "But these things have lived with me, and now it's time for them to go and live with someone else."
The Dreweatts auction, Spirit of Place: The Collection of Melissa Ulfane, takes place on 4 March 2025 at Dreweatts Donnington Priory, with viewings from 28 February – 4 March 2025 in Newbury and 12 – 14 February 2025 in London on Pall Mall.
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