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"View Slideshow\n\nAriane Dandois is a Parisian of regal looks and manners who, 35 years ago, opened a gallery on the Left Bank that sold Asian art and antiquities to discerning collectors like Yves Saint Laurent. Her following grew, and by the time she moved her business across the river to a glamorous corner duplex on the Place Beauvau, the inventory reflected her own polyglot heritage and eclectic taste, with an emphasis on the Neoclassical period in northern Europe. The Japanese screens for which she always had a penchant cohabited with rare German commodes, Neapolitan chandeliers, Louis XV fauteuils, Empire beds, Swedish mirrors, Russian tables and, on a more modern note, midcentury garden furniture. But when Dandois decided to retire (or, perhaps one should say, to reinvent herself) and her daughter and partner, Ondine, declined to take over, she consigned the contents of her storerooms to Sotheby&amp;#39;s. The two-day auction took place in October 2007.\n\nAny femme du monde worth her salt knows how to make a grand entrance, but Mme Dandois engineered a grand exit. She invited Juan Pablo Molyneux, a master of opulent historicism, to create an installation that no visitor was likely to forget. Molyneux approached the commission like a scenographer. &amp;quot;The suspense and rivalry of an auction make it a kind of theater,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;So why not do something droll and original, we thought, but turning the preview into a dramatic experience? I conceived the galleries as a series of tableaux vivants\u2014the kind of baroque court entertainment that some of the objects in the sale might once have served to furnish or illuminate. But here the objects become the actors, while potential buyers can enter the scene, as in a virtual reality game set in the ancien r\u00E9gime, and become\u2014or imagine themselves becoming\u2014players in it.&amp;quot;\n\nMolyneux&amp;#39;s pantomime unfolded against a series of fantastical, trompe l&amp;#39;oeil wall treatments produced by Scanachrome. The super-enlarged, high-resolution images were printed on seamless fabric by the English company, &amp;quot;and it&amp;#39;s the only time,&amp;quot; he says wryly, &amp;quot;that polyester has ever crossed the threshold of a Molyneux interior. The idea came from one of my first contacts with Surrealism. Years ago I saw a show at which a small engraving had been projected 40 feet wide and 20 feet high. But computers have refined that technology, and it&amp;#39;s now used by preservationists all over Europe. In many cities, enlightened landmark laws stipulate that the scaffolding of a historic building under restoration has to be shrouded with an image of its fa\u00E7ade, so it turns an eyesore into a poetic ghost.&amp;quot;\n\nThe Dandois auction, Molyneux reflects, &amp;quot;was one of my greatest challenges as a designer. Not logistically, because even if there were too many windows and mechanical systems that had to be concealed, I had an ideal space\u2014vast and lofty\u2014in which to conjure palatial illusions. No, my real dilemma, ironically, was that of a palace architect 300 years ago. I had no choice or discretion about the furnishings and no leeway to edit them. Everything in the sale, a jumble of styles and periods, needed to be on display. I had to work with pieces that I loved and pieces that I didn&amp;#39;t, giving them a unity they didn&amp;#39;t have inherently. But then it came to me: This chaos is dreamlike, so treat it as a dream and overwhelm the discord with something a bit supernatural.&amp;quot;\n\nWorking with associates from his Paris and New York offices, Molyneux configured the floor as a labyrinth full of surprises, with tricks of perspective at every turn. The entrance was a trellised garden room hung with a majestic chandelier from a Genoese palazzo. The largest of the four galleries was transformed into a cavernous underworld of vaulting arches, turrets and catwalks with scenes from Piranesi&amp;#39;s Imaginary Prisons (16 etchings of the mid-18th century that influenced neo-Gothic architecture and, much later, Surrealism). Leaving that smoldering inferno, one wandered into a suite of rooms from the Hermitage: the Jordan Gallery, with its monumental staircase and colonnade; and the Armorial Hall reinterpreted as an intimate drawing room glowing like an opal parure. Beyond French doors valanced with lace, one glimpsed a tangle of branches backlit by the silvery dusk of a Russian winter. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#39;t tell you how many people have wanted to buy the walls,&amp;quot; Molyneux says. But selling the walls wasn&amp;#39;t necessary. Of 828 lots, all but 10 found buyers, and at record prices\u2014a total of $32.2 million, more than double the low estimate.\n\nAn hour before the preview ended, and with it, the magic show, Dandois paused on her rounds to take stock of all that she was letting go. &amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s a bit sad,&amp;quot; she said, &amp;quot;because it&amp;#39;s not the turning of a page, it&amp;#39;s the closing of a book. On the other hand, when it&amp;#39;s over, I&amp;#39;ll be a free woman.&amp;quot; And how will she use her freedom? &amp;quot;To go camping in Mongolia.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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