Contemporary art auctions and the scene at Art Basel Miami Beach may be where it’s at on American shores, but for quality and panache, nothing beats the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris.

“The Biennale is a broader cultural and educational experience,” an architect with the New York firm Shelton, Mindel & Associates, Lee Mindel, said.

“It’s big game hunting in the world of antiques. It can be relied on for the highly coveted and the highest quality,” the interior designer Charlotte Moss said.

The Biennale, which opens next Friday, assembles 111 dealers, mostly from France and other European countries, to exhibit paintings, decorative arts, sculpture, and furniture ranging from classical antiquity to contemporary.

Seven New York dealers will be present in an important year for the fair, in which it returns to the glass-domed Grand Palais after a 14-year diversion to the Carrousel du Louvre, during which time the Palais was restored; it had been sinking into the ground.

Of course, what’s on display is the chief attraction, and this year, with an expansion of dealer specialties, the fair promises to be a stimulating place where the current interest in mixing periods and styles can be fully explored.

“It’s rare that there’s even the prospect that a lot of these things can be collected and simultaneously viewed in person,” Mr. Mindel said.

The New York dealer L&M Arts LLC, best known for its concentration on postwar and contemporary art, is a first-time exhibitor. It be bring such works, by Rothko, de Kooning, and Yves Klein. Yet it also bringing a rare Degas, which it values at $10 million.

The last of these, a bow to more European tastes, is part of an overall approach.The gallery has taken plenty of calls already but is reluctant to take holds or do pre-sales. “We’d like to do it the European way, the old-fashioned way,” an L&M partner, Dominique Levy, said.

And it is thinking similarly by hiring the designer of the Neue Galerie, architect Annabelle Seldorf, to turn its booth into a traditional grand salon consisting of a library, a living room, and an entrance, with period and custom-designed furniture. “We want it to feel like someone’s home,” Ms. Levy said.

While L&M is placing modern works in traditional décor, Didier

Aaron, with outposts in Paris and New York, is doing the opposite, placing an 18th-century chair in a contemporary ambience. The dealer, known for focusing on 18th- and 19th-century European furniture, has commissioned Jacques Grange, who designed One Beacon Court, to design its booth.

“We think that the period room is finished. It’s boring now. We’d like to show our client that we can put 18th-and 19th-century furniture in a modern, contemporary ambience, right next to a painting by Jeff Koons,” one of Didier Aaron’s art experts, Bill Pallot, said.

So let the mixing begin and the minds expand. At the Biennale, one can examine an Oriental bronze from Christian Deydier’s eponymous gallery (Mr. Deydier runs the association of dealers that organizes the the Syndicate National des Antiquaires), and then scope out a 13th-century French ivory Madonna, being shown by the New York dealer Anthony Blumka. And one can look at a classical antiquity from Ariadne Galleries before taking good measure of the large-scale 1814 painting of the Duchess de Montebello, which will be on offer at the Adam Williams Fine Art’s booth.

This year Mr. Mindel has his eyes on Jean Michel Frank ivory tables from Nelson Rockefeller’s estate, offered by Arc en Seine. His past purchases include a table from Charlotte Perriand’s Rio de Janeiro apartment.

The fair is gearing up the same week that the Musee des Arts Decoratifs reopens (with a gala Tuesday night). And there are other advantages of the Paris location. Fair-goers won’t find chilled wraps at the concession stand, but rather lunches and dinners prepared by top French chefs, such as the Hotel Ritz’s Michel Roth, who on the opening day will be serving crepes with caramelized hazelnuts and lamb with artichokes. And then there’s the French sense of timing: The fair stays open until 11 p.m. daily through September 24.

The opening party Wednesday night is a highlight of the global social calendar.”I often wonder who wears all that couture. Then you go to that dinner and there it is. And the women do it effortlessly, with such elegance and ease.” Mr. Mindel said.

Those from New York who plan to attend the fair include Mr. Mindel and Ms. Moss as well as Henry & Marie-Josée Kravis; Paola and Michael Schulhof; Hilary and Wilbur Ross, and the designer Peter Marino.