Expert and dealer in ‘extra-European’ arts, Ratton built a large network of customers in France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States and was responsible for the first sales and exhibitions of so-called primitive arts. For a few years after 1930, he associated with the art dealer Louis Carré, with whom he organised sales and exhibitions. As part of their collaboration as the ‘Carré-Ratton firm’, they bought objects using common funds. After the firm dissolved, the objects they had not sold were shared between them.