Always smiling, passionate about her profession, like most of her colleagues, Patricia Casini-Vitalis is one of the auctioneers ofCase Concluded on France 2. The expert gave an interview to Current wife in which she looks back on her career in a profession where the female presence is rather rare, on her husband and her daughters and on her passion for sport.
How were you recruited on the show Deal concluded ?
Patricia Casini-Vitalis: Three years ago, a casteuse from the show came to ask me questions about my job. She forwarded the video to Warner, which producesDeal concluded. They contacted me the following week to start filming.
What are your links with the various experts?
PC-V. : We are a very close-knit team. I knew some of them, since, for example, we were in the same professional room with Jérôme Duvillard. We have known each other for a very long time. I already knew a lot of colleagues, like Delphine Fremaux-Lejeune. It only strengthened our bonds of friendship. We all like to share our knowledge. We all have this didactic side. My mom was an English and literature teacher. I think it marked me.
Do you have more affinity with one of the experts in particular?
PC-V. : It’s more of a generational affinity, but I really like Harold Hessel, the mainstay of the show, as well as Marie Renoir who is brand new and Diem Crenais. They are all adorable. We belong to a small profession where we are both colleagues and competitors. We appreciate each other but I don’t see them outside of the profession.
“If I was no longer doing the show, I would continue to see Sophie Davant“
What are your relations with Sophie Davant?
PC-V. : There, it was a real crush. She really is a friend. We hardly see each other outside. It’s happened to us, but we have crazy schedules. He’s really someone I would enjoy continuing to see if I wasn’t doing the show anymore. She has eyes sparkling with intelligence and benevolence. She is a beautiful person. She has real talent. It is not there for nothing.
Let’s talk about you. How old are you ?
PC-V. : We will say that in my head I am 50 years old, that’s for sure! And in my character, I am 50 years old … even 30. That’s all I’ll tell you, I won’t say more (laughs)
Where are you from ?
PC-V. : To go back to the sources, I have Italian origins, more precisely from Tuscany, hence my name Casini. And also Spanish by my mother, of Catalan origin. After traveling a lot with my parents, I arrived in Cannes at the age of 13.
What is your background ?
PC-V. : I was admitted to Sciences Po at a very young age, at 16, but that didn’t interest me. I finally got a master’s degree in law in Nice. One fine day, by chance, while I was a legal agent trainee, I met an auctioneer in Avignon. He was looking for an intern and offered to work with him. I accepted and I went on an internship with him, a bit like in the theater, to see. And I stayed there. I had my auctioneer exams. At the time, our professional bodies were in charge of training us for three years, during a professional internship with our colleagues, after having obtained our legal diplomas. We then passed an exam, part on the history of the Arts and another part on all matters related to the procedure. This allowed me to work as a judicial auctioneer. There are very few of us on the show. I believe there are Yves Cosqueric and Jérôme Duvillard.
Does that lead you to do other tasks?
PC-V. : First of all, we are ministerial officers, so we do public service. We are responsible for valuing the assets of companies in compulsory liquidation and selling their assets. We may also be called upon to sell the seized goods to private persons. We also take care of guardianship, we work regularly with the courts. We are trying to get as much money out of all of these assets to pay off as much debt as possible, or to allow all these people who are under guardianship to have as much money as possible to make ends meet. We really do it with them.
“My parents had a strong family awareness“
You finally came to the job of auctioneer by chance. Did you already have this taste for art?
PC-V. : Yes, my mother was an antique dealer. When we returned to France, she was unable to transfer to Cannes where my father worked. She quit teaching and joined forces in an antique shop. So I have been soaking in this bath since I was 14 years old. This is the reason why the auctioneer with whom I had traveled by train told me: “You seem to know a lot about a lawyer“.
What profession did your father have?
PC-V. : He worked at Renault. He sold cars and trucks. He has been transferred several times. He was in charge of promoting this or that car. For example, in Madagascar, he was promoting 4L. Then he did the same in Italy, then in Kenya, Morocco, Algiers where I was born … He traveled a lot. He took us every time. My parents had a strong family awareness. Even when my father was only transferred for four or six months, the four of us left with my five-year-old brother, my junior. I had to change schools several times.
How did you meet your husband?
PC-V. : As all of our artistic classes took place at the Louvre school, you had to be in Paris. I met my husband, Jacques Vitalis, with friends during my internships. He was CEO for 25 years of a publicly traded company. When my daughter was born, I started looking for a study so that I could exercise. As I could not afford to settle in Paris, because buying a study was extremely expensive, I had to take a compass and turn around the capital to find a place nearby. It fell on Châlons-en-Champagne. My daughter was 2 years old. It allowed me to run my family life, commuting and my job at the same time. At one point, I was pregnant with my second daughter, I couldn’t climb the stairs in the metro. My husband then told me that we were going to do the opposite. We settled in Châlons and it was he who made the round trips by train to Paris.
“It’s a profession that is still very masculine“
How was your research study?
PC-V. : It was not very easy. At the time, there were very few female auctioneers. We were barely forty in France. I have had many refusals. I was, for example, answered: “My wife wouldn’t stand for me to partner with another woman“. Another colleague told me that it bothered him for the reputation of the study that I am a woman. It is a profession which is still very masculine but it is progressing slowly. In Drouot, where I am currently working. one of the shareholders, there are barely ten / twelve female bosses.
You are now working in Paris with your daughter Lorenza. Was it you who gave him a taste for the job of auctioneer?
PC-V. : I hope so ! (laughs). At the age of six, she was already trying on jewelry before it was presented to the public at a sale. She was passionate. It was in his genes, with an antiquarian grandmother and an auctioneer mother! He’s my partner now.
Is it difficult to work with your daughter?
PC-V. : She did her internship with another auctioneer, but it’s true that it’s not easy. I think it’s harder to grow in the shadow of your mother but today she has taken her marks. She knows that we are in the same boat and that I am not forever. I will give him the place.
Do you have another daughter?
PC-V. : This is my eldest daughter. She was working with me. She has since had a partner and they have a 4-year-old daughter named Adèle. Now she works for a notary in Châlons-en-Champagne.
“For three years, everyone has called me Patricia“
Did your participation in the show have any consequences on your professional activity?
PC-V. : Yes, there is a certain notoriety which means that there is a bond of proximity and trust that is immediately established. Throughout my career I have been called “Master“, and there, for three years, everyone calls me Patricia.
In 2019, we saw a sequence where you accidentally broke two small shot glasses. Does this kind of incident sometimes happen to you?
PC-V. : It was the first and only time in my career. Normally, in a liqueur cellar, the small glasses which are in the cellar cannot fall because they are well hung. But there were copies inside that didn’t fit properly. It is not supposed to fall because it is used to be transported for a picnic. It was completely mismatched.
In February, viewers got to see your emotion in front of a marble bust. Was it the rarity of the item that made you cry?
PC-V. : Yes, there are objects which are rare but it is especially the quality of execution which is magnificent. We always look at the time of the craftsman, in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, with all these people who did not have an electric mill. Today, artistic marble is worked with a strawberry. Before, it was really with the little chisel. What talent ! I get goosebumps when I see a beautiful object. Sometimes I have tears in my eyes. In museums, I watch and cry (laughs).
With the success of the show, have you noticed an evolution in the type of objects that are presented?
PC-V. : It is very clear! This is good, but I find it important to make people understand art from small things. It should not be that, in Deal concluded, there is a deviance which means that we go only towards objects of great luxury. Otherwise we would cut ourselves off from a large part of our audience.
Besides your taste for flea markets, do you have any other passions?
PC-V. : Oh dear, so many that my husband can hardly stand it! I come from a family of sportsmen. Very early on, I swam, I did a lot of scuba diving. I have had my boat license since I was 18 years old. I like piloting planes, technique, romantic and contemporary music. I also did car rallies when I was a student. My father gave me the car bug very early on. Quite frankly, I say this to all the boys on the planet, I drive a lot better than a very significant number of male drivers! (laughs).
Is your short hair your little distinguishing feature?
PC-V. : I had very long hair until I was fourteen. And after an illness that lasted six months, I had to cut them off so I could take care of them, as I was bedridden. Afterwards, they were a bit long but very quickly, at university, I cut everything short. Since then, I have always kept this cut!
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