Nicolas and Alexis Kugel are the fifth generation of antique dealers, their company having been founded in Russia by their great-great-grandfather Elie Kugel. At the end of the 18th century, Elie was a collector of clocks and watches and persuaded his son Joseph to become a clock repairer, who subsequently went on to deal in both clocks and antique silver and jewellery. His grandson Matias, the grandfather of Nicolas and Alexis, was also an antiques dealer in Minsk and St Petersburg. Their father Jacques, who was born in Russia in 1912, immigrated to Paris in 1924 and established his business first in the rue Amélie and then in the rue de la Paix after the war. Specializing in silver and gold boxes Jacques expanded the business to deal in fine furniture, works of art and sculpture. In 1970, Jacques Kugel opened the highly prestigious gallery at 279 rue Saint-Honoré, building his reputation and acquiring important clients from around the world. Nicolas and Alexis Kugel took over the gallery when Jacques died in 1985 and have continued the family tradition of sourcing the finest antiques and works of art to be found anywhere.

Since 2004, Nicolas and Alexis Kugel, has moved to Hôtel Collot, magnificent premises situated 25 quai Anatole-France, on the left bank of the Seine river near the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay, opposite the Tuileries Gardens. This Palladian building was built in 1840 by the distinguished architect Louis Visconti (1791-1853) for Jean-Pierre Collot (1764-1852), director of La Monnaie (the French Mint).

The noble floor of the gallery open to a terrace with a double flight of steps that dominates the Seine. The gallery consists of a succession of rooms, some having kept part of their original decoration, and among them a magnificent floor in precious wood marquetry and a neo-Renaissance panelled ceiling. Galerie J. Kugel is perhaps unique in its range of specialties and the eclecticism of the works of art it offers, which range in date from medieval and Renaissance up to the 1850s, all notable for their rarity or the exquisite quality of their materials. They include silver, furniture, sculpture, Kunstkammer objects, ivories, Renaissance jewellery, scientific instruments, rock crystal, Russian art and paintings. Each piece is rigorously selected not only for its rarity, authenticity and state of conservation but also for its quality, intrinsic beauty and power to evoke a glorious past as well as the skill of the craftsman who made it.

Numerous highly important sales have been achieved over the years, notably the prestigious collection of 16th century Limoges enamels from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy in 1994, the finest in private hands, and the remarkable Armoire au Char d'Apollon by André-Charles Boulle, also from the celebrated designer's collection. An early 16th century mother-of-pearl silver-gilt mounted casket, made by François I's goldsmith Pierre Mangot, allegedly the greatest surviving example from the French Renaissance, sold to the Musée du Louvre in 2000 for an undisclosed sum but was said to be the most expensive object ever acquired by this museum.

In 1996, Nicolas and Alexis Kugel instituted a series of very various and original exhibitions, making the gallery an essential port of call for collectors and museum curators from all over the world and contributing to the rise of Paris as cultural capital. Both scientific and commercial, they have since shown the rigour and dynamism of the gallery.

Their first major exhibition held in 1996 entitled “Panorama de Paris” comprised some 60 paintings, drawings and watercolours dating from 1650 to 1850 depicting Paris and its surroundings. In 1998 Nicolas and Alexis returned to their roots and assembled over 300 Russian works of art including paintings, furniture and silver for their second exhibition “Treasures of the Tzars”. The highlight of the exhibition was the famous 54-carat “Potemkin Diamond” given by Catherine the Great to her favoured statesman and lover Grigory Potemkin which was shown in public for the first time. The Kugel millennium exhibition, “Joyaux Renaissance”, featured some 150 extraordinary pieces of renaissance jewellery. In 2002, 14 000 visitors, a remarkable figure for a private gallery, came to see “Spheres: The Art of the Celestial Mechanic” which featured an extraordinary group of 50 spheres, terrestrial and celestial globes and mechanical orreries of silver, gilt-bronze, rock crystal and ivory dating from antiquity to the early 19th century. Included in this exhibition was a newly-discovered small engraved silver sphere dating from the 3rd century AD, one of only three known celestial globes to have survived from antiquity and the only one in private hands. Equally important was the celebrated “Chef d'oeuvre” of Antide Janvier, the most complex astronomical clock in the history of horology that took 11 years to complete, from 1789 to 1801. In 2006, the gallery paid homage to Nicolas Landau, one of the great antique dealers of the 20th century, called “Prince des Antiquaires” and again, the gallery met a great success. In 2008, the Prince of Liechtenstein did it the honour of lending his finest bronzes: exceptionally, the exhibition « The Bronzes of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Renaissance and Baroque Masterpieces » was not commercial and its only purpose was to offer to the Parisian public the chance of admiring superb sculptures.

To accompany each exhibition scholarly catalogues are published by Kugel in collaboration with the leading art historians in the relevant fields. The publication of the Givenchy Enamels was awarded the Prix Eugène Carrière by the Académie Française. In addition, Kugel has published L' Armoire au char d'Apollon par André-Charles Boulle in 1994, and Alexis Kugel also co-authored with Michèle Bimbenet-Privat La collection d'orfèvrerie du cardinal Sfondrati in 1998, and the catalogue Orfèvrerie française, la collection Jourdan-Barry, co-authored by Michèle Bimbenet-Privat and Peter Fuhring published in 2005.

The Kugel art reference library of over 20,000 volumes and the team of archivists and researchers not only provide an invaluable resource for the business but also assist in research for lost treasures.

Galerie J. Kugel has exhibited at TEFAF Maastricht since 1989.