antique collector

Mr. Ackerman, himself a filmmaker by trade, is also a dusty hunter: an antique collector who only searches for still-sealed bottles of vintage alcohol, usually American whiskey.

But after doing some research and talking to experts, the 52-year-old antique collector may have made the purchase of a lifetime – an original work by Picasso.

The box had belonged to her mother, an avid antique collector.

Technicians were hunched over cast-iron gadgets — stop motors, compressors, track relays — that looked as if they belonged in the workshop of an eccentric antique collector.

Opened as a delicatessen in 1831, today it has the air of an antique collector’s drawing room, with portraits of noblemen on the wall, cherubic sculptures perched in corners, bulky drapes, and ornate candelabras and crystal decanters strewn throughout.