Ambroise Vollard (1866 – 1939) was a French art dealer who is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He is credited with providing exposure and emotional support to numerous then-unknown artists, including Paul Cézanne, Aristide Maillol, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Louis Valtat, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, Georges Rouault, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. He was also an avid art collector and publisher.Born in Saint-Denis, Réunion, he was raised in the French Indian Ocean colony. After his matura in La Réunion, he went to study jurisprudence in France from 1885, for a while in Montpellier, then at the École de droit in Paris, where he received his degree in 1888. During his studies, Vollard converted himself into an “amateur-merchant” by becoming a clerk for an art dealer, and in 1893 established his own art gallery, at Rue Laffitte, then the center of the Parisian market for contemporary art. There Vollard mounted his first major exhibitions, buying almost the entire output of Cézanne, some 150 canvases, to create his first exhibition in 1895. This was followed by exhibitions of Manet, Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh, for Gabriel Mourey, French correspondent of The Studio in Paris, this was simply a matter of “Scylla and Charybdis”. These were followed by a second Cézanne exhibition (1898), the first Picasso exhibition (1901) and a Matisse exhibition (1904). Much has been made of his physical appearance and countenance, however, he was also a very shrewd businessman who made a fortune with the “buy low, sell high” mantra. His clients included Albert C. Barnes, Henry Osborne Havemeyer, Gertrude Stein and her brother, Leo Stein. Having put on the first Picasso exhibition, in 1930 Vollard commissioned Picasso to produce a suite of 100 etchings which became known as the Vollard Suite. An earlier Vollard Suite was commissioned from Paul Gaugin in 1898–99, a smaller group in woodcut and monotype, which Vollard did not like.Vollard would later write biographies of Cézanne (1914), Degas, and Renoir. In 1937 he published his autobiography, Vollard was depicted in numerous portraits in his lifetime, as a result of his relationships with many artists of the period and his influence on their careers. The first of these was Portrait of Ambroise Vollard painted by Cézanne in 1899. Other notable portraits include, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard in a Red Headscarf by Renoir in 1899, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard with a Cat, painted by Pierre Bonnard c.1924, and Portrait of Ambroise Vollard painted by Pablo Picasso in 1910. Picasso opined that, “they all did him through a sense of competition, each one wanting to do him better than the others”. With war approaching, Vollard set out in July 1939 from his cottage in Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre to travel to his mansion on the Rue Martignac, where he had stored 10,000 artworks. Nearing the junction to Pontchartrain, on a very wet road, his chauffeur-driven Talbot skidded and then somersaulted twice. Having fractured his cervical vertebrae, there he lay with his chauffeur until found dead, aged 73, the following morning. After his death, Vollard’s executor was fellow dealer Martin Fabiani, who was instructed to divide his collection between his heirs: Madelaine de Galea, an alleged mistress; and his brother Lucien.