From the Paleolithic to Picasso - the rise of ceramics. Billy Jobling Billy Jobling is Senior Writer and Researcher in the Post-War and Contemporary Art department at Christie's, London. ‘Needless to say Sèvres has killed ceramics’, wrote Paul Gauguin in 1889. ‘… With the American Indians it was a central art. God gave man a little bit of mud, with a little bit of mud he made metal and precious stones, with a little bit of mud and a little bit of genius.’ Gauguin’s own radical ceramic works, of which around sixty survive today, rarely appear on the market and can command hundreds of thousands at auction. These vivid, deliberately non-functional vessels were part of his engagement with the ‘primitive’ artistic spirit. The great Spatialist Lucio Fontana, who pushed clay into bold sculptural shapes, similarly claimed to detest ‘lacy designs and dainty nuances.’ His dramatic, Baroque-inspired figures and Crucifixions of the 1940s are especially sought after; a spectacular ceramic fireplace hit the record price of €1,450,200 in 2015. The delicate, decorative objects these modern artists so disdained are, of course, only part of the story. Pottery has been part of human life since the Palaeolithic era and covers myriad forms and functions, from the practical to the pretty and the earthy to the ethereal. Broadly, though, to make ceramics has always meant to work with your hands. The increasing interest in ‘craft’-based TV shows such as Channel Four’s The Great Pottery Throwdown speaks to a renewed popular appreciation for the handmade and tactile. In our age of NFTs and immaterial imagery, ceramics offer something to hold on to, and seem to be having something of a moment. This year’s ennoblement of Sir Grayson Perry, while also honouring Perry’s achievements as a broadcaster, writer and public figure, is testament to ceramics’ ascendancy in the field of contemporary art. Twenty years ago, Perry was the first ceramic artist to win the Turner Prize. His vases might look classical or domestic from afar, but incorporate subversive images and text that deliver biting social commentary and complex autobiographical themes. His Warhol-Basquiat tribute I Want To Be An Artist sold for a record-breaking £632,750 in 2017; twelve more vases have achieved prices over £100,000 since then. PERRY, Grayson b.1960 I Want To Be An Artist, price realised £632,750 Christie’s The ceramics of Pablo Picasso are a perennial—and accessible—auction favourite. Plates, plaques, bowls and vases produced at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris can be found for a few thousand dollars upwards. Inventive, colourful and often charming in design, these editioned works offer an appealing entry point to the Spanish master’s practice. A unique prototype of his Grand vase aux femmes voilées (1950), which sold for almost a million pounds in 2013, holds the record—still a bargain relative to his work on canvas. Collectors of a more esoteric persuasion might consider George Ohr, the self-styled ‘Mad Potter of Biloxi’, who died relatively unknown in 1918. His studio, a five-story wooden pagoda in Biloxi, Mississippi, overflowed with pots in transgressive shapes and colours, many of them rumpled, frilled or ‘scroddled’—made from scraps of differently coloured clay. Half a century after his death, a cache of some seven thousand pots was rediscovered in his son’s auto-repair garage. Artists Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol began buying Ohr in the 1980s, followed by celebrity collectors including Steven Spielberg and Jack Nicholson. He retains a devoted following today: exceptional works command thirty to fifty thousand dollars at auction. The equally rebellious Peter Voulkos, who founded the art ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute in 1954, reinvented ceramics during the years of Abstract Expressionism. ‘Calling Peter Voulkos a ceramist’, wrote Karen Rosenberg in 2016, ‘is a bit like calling Jimi Hendrix a guitarist.’ A master of functional pottery, he went on to work gesturally and monumentally—sometimes in front of a live audience—creating towering behemoths from paddled, wheel-thrown and slab elements. These ‘stacks’ have sold for major prices in recent years, but Voulkos’s chargers, bowls and plates can still be picked up for a few thousand dollars. LEIGH, Simone b.1967 Untitled VI (Anatomy of Architecture Series), price realised $819,000 Christie’s Among Voulkos’s students was the West Coast abstractionist Ken Price, whose psychedelic fired-clay sculptures drew on Surrealism and surf culture. His work was recently included in the Hayward Gallery’s group show Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, which closed on 8 January this year. The exhibition showcased the medium’s wild mutability in an array of works—by turns painterly and sculptural, cerebral, playful and technically dazzling—by artists including Price, Takuro Kuwata, Rachel Kneebone, Jonathan Baldock, Beate Kuhn and Leilah Babirye. At the Whitechapel Gallery in 2021, Theaster Gates’ exhibition A Clay Sermon explored the material, social and spiritual potency of clay, from its ritual and ceremonial uses to its role in colonialism. Alongside his own early hand-thrown pots, large stoneware vases and totemic ‘Afro-Mingei’ sculptures—which combine themes of Black identity and Japanese philosophy—Gates made a selection of historic ceramics from collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum. ‘As a potter’, the Chicago-based artist said, ‘you learn how to shape the world.’ Simone Leigh, who last year became the first Black woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, uses ceramics—among other media—in similarly complex works that layer references to African traditions, ethnographic research, and feminist and post-colonial theory. After years working in relative obscurity, her star has risen over the past decade. A small-scale sculpture from her Anatomy of Architecture series, which conflate women’s heads with pitcher or vase-like forms, recently sold for more than $800,000 at auction. In Leigh’s hands and others, the future of ceramics in contemporary art looks brighter than Gauguin could have imagined.Heavy lies the hand that wears the Crown. How the royals unburden themselves through writing.

Think outside of the box when collecting big names. Richard Smyth Richard Smyth is a writer and critic. His latest novel The Woodcock was published by Fairlight Books in July, 2021. Success, for an artist, can be both a constriction and a liberation. Success – sales, a reputation – may furnish the time and means to work; it may also, though, fix the artist on rails, so to speak, limiting their creative direction, sapping the will to explore their talents, and setting them on that thankless course: giving the public what they want.  In art, of course, a living is a living, and many artists are happy in their pigeonholes. But no matter how strong an artist’s brand – to use 21st-century parlance – there are nearly always adventures, experiments, to be found in their work, if you look closely enough. LORD GROSVENOR'S SWEET WILLIAM IN A LANDSCAPE George Stubbs, ARA, 1779 read more at Rountree Tryon Galleries ‘Any artist constantly has to balance between following their creative impulses or continuing with tried and tested territory that they know provides a living,’ says Rowland Rhodes, Associate Director at Rountree Tryon Galleries. ‘If a niche has been found and demand is there, it might seem risky to go in a different direction. On the other hand, artists don’t want to be seen to be standing still and those that manage to successfully evolve and diverge over time are often considered the best.’ Few artists are as closely associated with a specific subject as George Stubbs (1724–1806). From the late 1750s onwards, Stubbs was celebrated as the greatest of all horse painters; his masterpiece Whistlejacket today hangs in the National Gallery, and his Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath fetched £20 million at auction in 2011. But prior to his move to Lincolnshire in 1756, Stubbs had been a jobbing portrait painter in the north of England. Even after fame, there was more to him than horses. ‘In the 1760s Stubbs began to paint more ‘exotic’ animals,’ Rhodes explains. ‘These subjects are perhaps considered secondary to his well-known equine works but were brought into the spotlight in 2013 when his paintings of a kangaroo and dingo were saved for the nation following an appeal from the National Maritime Museum.’ These works were commissioned by the botanist Sir Joseph Banks, who had voyaged in the Pacific with Captain Cook and provided Stubbs with sketches and descriptions of the animals. ‘The paintings are regarded not only important to art but also science and exploration, and it was considered a huge triumph to raise the £4.9 million required to keep them.’ AUTUMN GARDEN WALK Jonathan Atkinson Grimshaw 1879-80, oil on canvas $445,000 at M.S. Rau A tidy sum, of course – as was the £6.8 million paid for Stubbs’ Tygers At Play in 2014. It is, however, still some way short of Gimcrack’s £20m, and Stubbs’ ‘exotic’ animals remain obscure in comparison to his equine subjects.      SUR LA TERRASSE C R W Nevinson 1919-1920, lithograph £22,000 available at Goldmark Gallery Critical responses to work that deviates from a customary theme can be unpredictable. The reputation of Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893), for instance, rests chiefly on his remarkable nocturnal urban landscapes. Less well-known are his handful of ‘fairy’ paintings. Works such as Spirit Of Night and his depictions of Iris, goddess of autumn, showcase Grimshaw’s masterly handling of gloom and luminescence in a new way; there is a different kind of beauty here, and layers of magic and eroticism that are somehow absent from his nocturnes of Leeds and Glasgow. For some admirers of Grimshaw, these works constitute a fascinating excursion; others feel more strongly. ‘It is a remarkably effective and haunting fairy image,’ writes the critic Christopher Wood of Spirit of the Night, ‘and one can only wish Grimshaw had painted more of these, and fewer versions of the Liverpool docks.’ Change, of course, is not always an artistic decision; often, it is imposed from outside, and the artist has no choice but to forge a new path in response. Just as we can imagine an alternative timeline in which Siegfried Sassoon lived out his days as an obscure country versifier, Wilfred Owen as an unknown Keatsian in suburban Reading, so we can wonder in what directions artists such as Frank Owen Salisbury (1874–1962), Paul Nash (1889–1946) and Christopher Nevinson (1889–1946) might have gone, had war not intervened. ‘Many [painters] became official war artists or documented experiences while serving abroad or on the home front,’ says Rowland Rhodes. ‘This was uncommon ground for all, and forced artists in a different direction.’ There is of course a near-infinite range of variables, creative, emotional, social, political, that might push an artist toward a new theme, genre or style. It’s likely, though, that they may have to wait for their less on-brand works to get the recognition they may or may not deserve – and they may be waiting forever.        ‘The more famous or collected an artist becomes, the greater the interest is in all the work they made,’ says Rhodes. ‘In many cases, the knowledge and appreciation of ‘off brand’ works is not until after an artist’s lifetime.’

Discovering secrets beneath the surface of a painting can dramatically alter its value. Billy Jobling Billy Jobling is Senior Writer and Researcher in the Post-War and Contemporary Art department at Christie's, London. Examining a painting can be rather like visiting the scene of a crime. What material clues have been left that might tell us how—or when—the work was made? Can we retrace the movements of the artist’s hand, or see someone trying to cover their tracks? Often, the answers lie beneath the surface. Short of physical micro-sampling, infrared imaging offers insightful information that uncovers many hidden clues. A form of energy beyond the visible light spectrum, infrared radiation (IR) passes through some pigments, but not others: crucially, it is absorbed by the dark materials painters have historically used for underdrawing, such as charcoal and graphite. Used correctly, infrared reflectography (IRR) captures an image that effectively renders the paint layer transparent, revealing potentially critical evidence below. Museum discoveries made using this technology, such as the startling spectre of a man behind Picasso’s Woman Ironing (1904), have made headlines for their art-historical importance. As well as institutions, however, the advantages of IRR are available today to private collectors, auction houses and insurers through leading analysis firms like ArtDiscovery. Left, Red and Blue Rayonism (Beach) by Mikhail Larionov. Right, X-ray image of the painting. Credit: ArtDiscovery ‘We use it both alone and in combination with other techniques to answer questions around the condition, the process of development, and the authenticity of works of art’, explains the company’s UK director, Dr Jilleen Nadolny. ‘It has been used to reveal aspects of an artist’s creative processes, underdrawings, alterations and reworkings (sometimes revealing overpainted or faded signatures, text or drawings) and restorations. Infrared examination can also be used to differentiate between certain groups of pigments and inks. IRR methods have come a long way since the Vidicon cameras developed in the 1960s, which required multiple small images to be mosaiced together. ArtDiscovery’s scanning technology is fine-tuned to each artwork, using cameras with different capabilities to record high-resolution images across a range of wavelengths. What is uncovered can be transformative. One client’s painting, Dr Nadolny tells me, had been attributed to a follower of Bellini, and was marred by some later restoration. ‘However, on the basis of the quality of the underdrawing revealed through the IR, the client was able to present the work to a Bellini expert, who reattributed the work to the master himself, increasing tremendously the market value of the object.’ A variation on the reflective technique, known as ‘transmitted IR’, captures IR energy that has passed X-ray-like through an object, exposing even more deeply hidden information. ‘Using transmitted IR on a work that was undergoing research as a possible Titian, we revealed the stamp of King Charles I, “CR”, on the back of the painting, which had been covered for centuries by a lining canvas. The discovery, which helped to confirm the provenance of the piece, allowed the work to realise its full value.’ ArtDiscovery also employ IRR scans in combination with X-rays, their cousins from lower down the electromagnetic spectrum. One such instance found a painting hidden beneath a newly discovered work by Kandinsky; the concealed composition was matched to a known sketch by the artist, bolstering the attribution. ‘A similar case was a painting deemed to be “after John Constable” that we analysed through technical imaging, unveiling features that helped experts confirming its attribution to Constable himself’, says Dr Nadolny. ‘The artwork, purchased for $5,000, is now estimated to value around $5 million.’ Such dazzling revelations, beyond the reach of the human eye, have sometimes led to the view that the authenticating role of the ‘connoisseur’ might one day be rendered obsolete by cold, hard science. ArtDiscovery, whose team are both technical art historians and trained conservators, see the disciplines as complementary. Carbon-14 dating, for example, can allow connoisseurs to form an opinion according to solid evidence of an object’s age. Equally, scientific work can help to quantify the subtle hallmarks of a specific artist’s technique. Having seen dozens of both real and ersatz Modiglianis, ArtDiscovery has been able to build a detailed dataset on the artist’s idiosyncratic brushwork, which has become a valuable resource for the scholars currently revising his catalogue raisonné. Working together, scientists and connoisseurs are able to pool their expertise to draw conclusions with the greatest degree of certainty—and that certainty has enormous value. As the field of art analysis evolves, new techniques such as sound and laser imaging and elemental mapping promise to reveal new depths of information, though it may be some time before these technologies become viable for regular commercial use. ‘As objects are complex structures, there are many variables when considering the challenges of authentication and attribution’, explains Dr Nadolny. ‘We try to offer the best options to our clients in a manner that works with their objectives.’ For now, infrared imaging remains a vital tool in ArtDiscovery’s interdisciplinary work and is sure to uncover many more exciting secrets yet.

When auction estimates go out the window, it can be a big problem. By Charles Hartley Charles Hartley is the Director of Hartleys Auctions Ltd. and specialises in arms, militaria, fieldsports and taxidermy. An Arts and Crafts style brass table lamp, early 20th century. Sold by Hartleys Auctions for £3,600 after an estimate of £150-250. A week ago, the editor of The Open Art Fair Magazine, came to me with a sad tale of an old man who undersold his table. It was a couple of years ago and the gent was flogging his furniture, having sold his stately. “Not to worry”, the guy said when the young Londoner who had been sent down to buy it turned up, “local chap at the auction house has told me what it’s worth so £6,000 will do fine”. The young buyer nearly fell over. He’d been all ready to part with £60,000 and the table sold some weeks later, for £120,000. The lad who’d been sent to buy it, apparently still loses sleep over the incident to this day. So what caused the colossal difference in estimate and sale price? Or to put it as the editor did, “what went wrong?”. I must admit the idea that something had “gone wrong” made me chuckle, being an auctioneer, these are the occasions we dream of. Though like with everything, it is all about perspective. The hopeful purchaser always wants to pick up an item for a song, yet the auctioneer and owner will inevitably want everything to sail well beyond expectation. In any case, for an auctioneer whether selling at or above estimate, it is often a win-win; you are either proved correct, or shown to be an excellent salesman. So, what can cause such a difference, is it a valuer outside of their comfort zone naively walking into the dark? I am not going to say this is not sometimes the case, no matter where you go the valuer is only ever human and simply cannot know everything. But with the resources we have at our fingertips, it is amazing what we can do and most auction houses, mine included, have great depth in experts who work behind the scenes aiding us in our endeavours. Though a specialist in arms & militaria, I am in the main a general valuer. Every day I am placed into houses across the country where there’s always the chance of a surprise. The true skill is knowing something is “special” through its unspoken quality, you then collect data, take necessary measurements and delve into your resources. But even with all the resources in the world, sometimes an item has no comparable, no expert and the valuer must pluck a figure from their gut, place it up for sale and hold on for dear life. Like police officers have a nose for crime, valuers must have a nose for the valuable. Let’s also not forget that a valuer can even get it right, but it only takes two people to want something enough, for a price to rocket and leave would-be competitors to comfort each other with the familiar “they’ve more money than sense”. Frankly, arts and antiques needs such people.  Back in March my colleague Gerard and I spotted an intriguing brass lamp dripping in arts & crafts style, though our initial hunch that it was by W.A.S. Benson was unfounded, we still felt it deserved a higher marketing push. With a “come-get-me” £150 – 250 estimate, we were thrilled when the gavel came to rest at £3,600. Not only did it find its way into the “dick of the day” column of the Antiques Trade Gazette, but they ran an article outing the designer as Arthur Dixon. But the true brilliance of this situation came when they ran a correction one month later, showing an opinion will only hold water until the next piece of evidence appears; in this case the discovery of a historic interiors catalogue for Jesson, Birkett & Co. But ultimately, we had performed our job in spotting the quality and doing the marketing necessary to do right by our vendor. Within the same sale we also had a Chinese censer and cover, estimated at £2000 – 3000 that reached a thrilling £30,000. But when it comes to Chinese pieces, there is little judgement within the market, such results are commonplace as Chinese antiquities have boomed. Often with market movement, there is a lag as experts clamber to readjust and find their feet; after all valuing is often a game of quantitative market analysis. So, when markets shift, previous data can be misleading and with Chinese items the market never seems to adjust enough.  A Chinese cloisonné enamel tripod censer and cover. Sold by Hartleys Auctions for £30,000 after an estimate of £2,000-3,000 A great example of this was seen at Bainbridges of Ruislip in 2010. Clearing a deceased estate their valuer discovered a fantastic Chinese Qianlong-era vase. Far from being a “sleeper”, the valuers saw star quality and much to the amazement of the family, placed it up sale at £800,000 - 1.2million. Yet 30 minutes after the opening bid, Peter Bainbridge brought his gavel crashing down to the sum of £43million! But this rostrum fairy tale was far from complete as over a year later the vase remained unpaid, with everything from simply a bad buyer to talk of Chinese government conspiracy being cited as reasons by the media, suggesting it to be a protest against the sale of historical treasures looted from China – this was of course never proved and the debt was eventually settled.  So, is a high price always a good thing? The sister who placed the vase with Bainbridges should have been over the moon, but soon found herself with a revised inheritance tax bill of over £17million, requested by HMRC before she saw a single penny from the vase. I dread to think the stress this must have caused her and I bet at times she wished it had never happened. Sadly, bad debtors and late payers, particularly when it comes to Chinese antiquities, have been commonplace in the trade. It is now normal to request large deposits on big ticket Chinese items prior to sale and you never count your chickens until they’ve hatched. I will admit that rather than being elated by our recent £30,000 censer, I was left feeling rather anxious. An item always has its best chance in the first sale and if a bad buyer leaves you high and dry, the rest of the market will wonder “what’s wrong with it?”; if unpaid, it will unlikely do as well again and rather than be happy with a price at or above the original estimate, the owner and I will only find ourselves counting the difference between the first and second result. Happily, I can confirm the sale was completed and the censer is currently on a boat back to China. Though I pride myself on a strong sale record and rarely see an auction total not land between the cumulative estimates, there is always the chance of a record ahead. An auction is a wonderfully organic thing where so much of human nature can move a result and even in a time where technology has narrowed the chance of a shock, with a whole planet watching, a more common phenomenon in the ever more virtual post-covid age - there is still the possibility of a life changing moment. 

Some works by renowned artists can be acquired for surprisingly low prices. Francesca Peacock Francesca Peacock is an art, books, and culture writer. The Fall of Icarus by Henri Matisse. Lithograph, 1943, Signed in plate. 26.5 x 35.5 cm Available from Goldmark Gallery for £2,250 What would you think if I told you I have a Matisse on my kitchen wall? Would you think I’d stolen it from some unsuspecting art museum in a yet unreported (but very glamorous) heist? Or that I have greater reserves of art-collecting cash than my somewhat precarious employment as a writer might suggest?  But what if I told you the answer was neither international art-thievery, nor some shady oligarch lover who buys me paintings whenever I so demand. The Matisse in question — which sits above the endless piles of books, half-read magazines, and the general detritus of a kitchen which is rather messier than the delightful interior Matisse himself painted — was acquired in a disappointingly above-board fashion from Goldmark Gallery.  As a lithograph page from Matisse’s 1950 hand-autographed and illustrated book, Poemes de Charles d’Orléans — a fifteenth century French poet, who was captured during the Hundred Years War, and wrote in both Middle French and Middle English — it is hardly one of the artist’s most famous works. But, with its colourful drawings of fleurs-de-lis, and its stanzas of poetry about being utterly indifferent to Valentine’s Day, it is one of my most prized possessions. And, at just under £400, I like to think it was something of a steal. It is, after all, a mere fraction of the auction record for Matisse. His 1923 painting, Odalisque couchée aux magnolias, fetched $80.8 million in 2018. Nor was my bargain a one-off:  Goldmark Gallery currently has authentic works by the artist ranging from £250 to £7,450.  As Mike Goldmark of Goldmark Gallery notes, this proliferation of cheap works is not an accident of history. Matisse, and many other artists, had distinct “social consciousnesses” and “loved the idea that ordinary folk could afford their work”. And, accordingly, they made work expressly for this purpose: unsigned prints, or prints signed in the etching plate or supplied with a justification page — all would, and still do, sell for much less than signed works or paintings.  Poèmes - Charles D'Orléans by Henri Matisse. Lithograph, 1950. 26.5 x 41 cm Available from Goldmark Gallery for £250 And indeed it is just not Matisse that the thrifty art collector can find on the cheap. The auction record for Picasso is a cool $179 million (for his 1955 work Les femmes d'Alger, Version 'O'). But, at Sotheby’s, you can currently find works ranging from 1000 to 10,000 US dollars. In an auction just at the end of June, many drawings, lithographs, and ceramics sold for under $10,000.  Whilst Picasso may now be predominantly revered for his paintings and works on paper, his ceramics — anthropomorphic jugs and vases, and gorgeously colourful plates and platters — are rather better value for any aspiring collector. Still not cheap (a plate sold for over $200,000 at Christie’s in May), they represent a chance for an individual collector to own a work by the artist — even if I can see the potential for tears if some clumsy oaf drops your much-loved artwork when using it as a vessel for their bacon sandwich.  But it is not just the big European names that are able to be bought on a budget. Renowned painter (and sometime-suspected Jack the Ripper) Walter Sickert is currently the subject of a major exhibition at The Tate. Rooms and rooms of famous paintings, on loan from prestigious galleries throughout the world — it is easy to think his works would be off-limits to anyone who did not have a few hundred thousand pounds to throw around.  But, just a few miles north of Tate Britain lies the art collector’s paradise of Abbott and Holder, a gallery on Museum Street. Twice a month, they send out “Lists” of their new stock to avid (and sometimes rabid) subscribers. The foaming-at-the-mouth enthusiasm makes sense when you see the quality of the works: more than once, works by Sickert have appeared on the list for under a thousand pounds. At the moment, four etchings of his are for sale, ranging from £1500 to £1800 — including a particularly brilliant etching of a recumbent figure on an iron bedstead. And, back in March, a rare Gwen John watercolour made an appearance, although at the slightly less wallet-friendly price of £12,000.  ‘The New Tie’ by Walter Sickert (1840-1942). Etching. Second (final) state. Signed. 1922. Signed, titled and dated in the plate. 10.5x6.75 inches. Available from Abbott and Holder for £1,500. 'The Iron Bedstead' by Walter Sickert (1840-1942). Etching. 2nd (final) state. Signed. The first state of this print dates to c.1915 but this, the second state, is probably later. 7x10.5 inches. Available from Abbott and Holder for £1,500. There is, of course, a caveat to be made about these budget-loving works by famous artists. Whilst they will cost you a fraction of the prices paid by international galleries and billionaire collectors, they are, it must be said, not quite the same as the works you might pay to see in an exhibition. It is Sickert etchings, not oil paintings which come up for sale at such appealing prices. And it is Matisse lithographs, linocuts, and posters which are available to purchase for the same price as return flights to somewhere exotic, rather than his more famous paintings and collages.  But, there’s a delight in the off-beat, the unusual, and the otherwise unappreciated: everyone knows of Matisse’s brightly coloured collage works, but how many people have ever had the chance to ponder his love for a fifteenth century poet? And everyone has heard of Picasso’s Guernica, but how many people are able to say “pass the water” and have an original pitcher by the artist handed to them? These cheaper works are not just great value for a keen collector: they are also an opportunity to see — and love — another side of artists we all think we know too well. And, if that’s not enough to persuade you, just imagine the delight of dropping the phrase “my Matisse…” into conversation. C’est parfait, non?   

First editions may seem like a safe bet but does that follow for more recent, 21st century titles. Alexander Larman Alexander Larman is the author of several historical and biographical titles including The Crown in Crisis & Byron’s Women. He is books editor of The Spectator world edition and writes regularly about literature and the arts for publications including The Observer, Prospect, The Chap and the Daily Telegraph.   JK Rowling has seldom been out of the news over the past few years, but she is most notable from a bibliophile perspective for being that rarest of things: a living author, still relatively young at 56, whose first editions and signed books command dizzyingly high prices. A recent Chiswick Auctions sale saw a set of galley sheets from her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, sell for £37,500, which a spokesperson for the auction house commented caused ‘quite a stir’, and Peter Harrington are currently offering a signed deluxe edition of 1999’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for £5000. These are sums far in excess of those realised by any other living writer, which contribute to a sense in the book collecting trade that Rowling remains an untouchable figure from a commercial perspective, whatever social or political controversies she finds herself in. Yet it also begs the question as to whether there is an emerging market for millennial novels and authors to be sought after by both established collectors and institutions and younger, more socially engaged types, who feel an empathy with their creators that they may not instinctively possess for, say, Graham Greene or William Golding.  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling. Galley Proof. Sold by Chiswick Auctions in April 2022 for £37,500 including buyer’s premium. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling. First Edition, first impression. The first and scarcest of the Harry Potter books. Available from Peter Harrington, £17,500. According to Henry Gott, modern first editions specialist at Blackwell’s Rare Books in Oxford, this emerging market is one that lacks the historical context which many booksellers cherish. ‘Other dealers are much happier to promote younger writers, whereas our attitude is often “We’ll give them a bit of time”. On the other hand, living novelists and their work can still be big business. Gott singles out a signed first edition of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, complete with rare wraparound band (£400), as an example of a much-loved modern novel that is also a highly collectable artefact. (‘If the film had been a bigger hit, it would be worth even more.’) Other examples of currently sought-after millennial novels include Zadie Smith’s White Teeth – Maggs Bros. Ltd. are currently offering a signed first edition for £250, which seems almost cheap – and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series; Gott estimates that a fine signed first edition of the first novel alone would retail at around £1000, and a signed trilogy is currently being sold by Peter Harrington for £2750. White Teeth, Zadie Smith. First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, dust jacket. London, Hamish Hamilton. Images from Maggs Bros. Ltd. Available, £250. And there are individual oddities, too. Tom McCarthy’s (daring entitled) debut novel Remainder was rejected by English-language publishers, appeared with the independent Parisian press Metronome in 2005, and subsequently became a bestseller. A first edition of the Metronome edition of 750 copies is currently being offered by the dealer Peter Gidal for £1250.   Yet there is also an element of guesswork about which contemporary writers will become collectable, and which ones will fail to appreciate. Signed books are now much more common than they were, with many authors regularly inscribing thousands of copies pre-publication, and well-known writers have enormous print runs for their new books. Even a signed first edition copy of Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light would only be worth slightly more than its original publication price of £25. Likewise, modishness plays a role in collectability. The author Sally Rooney may be totemic for a certain kind of millennial reader, but Gott is still unconvinced by her longevity, or that of her peers. ‘It feels a bit like the Grand National; many start, but not all of them finish. And it’s a bit of a fool’s game to collect signed first editions almost at random in the hope that their values will appreciate, as many don’t.’ Instead, his advice is for collectors both to acquire the books that they want to read, and to use their own judgement. ‘Even with books that become a phenomenon, they tend to take some time to become represented at our level. Although there are certainly people in their twenties who we’re selling to, there aren’t many living writers who are collected at the highest level – Rowling and Philip Pullman, perhaps.’ And even the big-ticket limited editions may be a waste of money. A signed limited edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird sequel Go Set A Watchman is being offered by Lucius Books for £3750. It sounds impressive, but it originally retailed at £2000; at least one other dealer is now offering the book for under that price.  Contemporary collectability may still be fanciful because it lacks the ability to transport buyers that ‘traditional’ bibliophilia possesses. It is wonderful to own a book as it might have appeared in 1925; less so if it first came out in 2015. As Gott says, ‘In my view, the sense in collecting first editions is the idea of obtaining the version of the book as it first entered the marketplace. There is an element of time-travel, or recovery of the past, about it; unless one can have a clear sense that the marketplace or cultural context in which a book has appeared has changed a little, it doesn’t seem to me very compelling to wish to reconstruct it.’  Millennial novels may yet be the future of book collecting. But there may be no need to stockpile the signed Sally Rooneys just yet. Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee. First edition. Signed Limited Edition. Complete with the original mailing carton and paper wrapping with issue number sticker. Images by Lucius Books, available, £3750.  

How and why collectors live with art installations at home. Matthew Turner Matthew Turner is a writer, editor, and Senior Lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts. His work has appeared in Frieze, Art Review, gorse and others. “The House of the Farmer”, a site-specific installation conceived by British artist Mike Nelson and curated by Didi Bozzini, at the Palazzo dell’Agricoltore until June 2022. Image courtesy of Palazzo dell’Agricoltore, credit: Lucio Rossi. It was dark in the basement of the German castle. Some dusty light came in through the floorboards and in front of me there was an open bank vault door. The place was empty and I felt I shouldn't be there even though I had been sent by my boss. I looked around to check nobody was around and I went in.  Inside I could just make out the faint glint of metallic objects and a smell of wet earth surrounded me. Newly graduated from university I was working as an architect’s assistant, visiting the home of a collector to measure some of its outbuildings so more of the estate could be turned into gallery spaces. The client was a hedge fund manager with a vast private collection and wanted the extra room to house complex installations by Anselm Kiefer and Anthony Gormley. It was going to be a tricky project with both artists requiring reinforced floors to carry tonnes of sculpture and walls to be absolutely straight within fractions of a millimetre. However, that day I had mostly been distracted leafing through paintings worth millions that were just stacked against the walls.    Edmund de Waal, Cupboard Cargo, 1999 installation at High Cross House, Devon. Image courtesy of Edmund de Waal, credit: Sara Morris. Within the vault, after a slightly panicked search, I found a switch and the strip lights buzzed on one by one. I was surrounded by glass vials containing strange, autumnal pigments, clerical clothing spread out like pieces of meat and surgical instruments. It gave me the feeling of fear and intrigue I remembered from hearing ghost stories as a child. The next day I found the client’s groundskeeper and he told me it was an art installation by the Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch. He called it the nightmare room and I was relieved I hadn't stumbled on something else.  The room stayed with me, it was like finding a new band I didn't want anyone else to know about, and this highly personal feeling is not uncommon when people talk about their encounters with installation art. The typical boundary between viewer and object is broken and leads to an immediacy and intimacy that is rare in wall-based artworks. Rather than looking at an object from a distance, you are living within the work. Instead of moving from one individual sculpture or painting to the next, you are free to explore an environment that is a complete unified experience.  A permanent display of Edmund de Waal’s work is installed in the Artists’ house at the New Art Centre, Wiltshire. The Artists’ House opened in 2001 and was designed by the architect Stephen Marshall. New Art Centre is open daily 11am – 4pm. Image courtesy of New Art Centre, Wiltshire. I searched for more installations in domestic settings that combined art and architecture. The Californian artist James Turrell has been extending American homes with bunker-like spaces for his meditative sensory installations. In 2008 he created a light coloured pool for a private residence in Greenwich, Connecticut—an artwork the owners can swim through as well as look at. The John Lautner–designed Sheats-Goldstein house, which features in The Big Lebowski, now includes a Skyspace that compresses the sky into a picture and transforms picturesque sunsets into psychedelic dreamscapes. And in Las Vegas the CEO of MGM commissioned the artist to design him a pyramidal installation, which looks like the modern equivalent of a Neolithic monument. Turrell has been so prolific in people’s homes that some get forgotten. A resident in Malibu found one of his installations in her guest house, hidden behind children’s toys, surfboards and exercise equipment.  These spaces are largely detached from the complexities of the domestic, more standalone structures than being integrated into the home. On a less invasive scale, this is where artist and writer Edmund de Waal composes his cargo works, subtle groupings of ceramic vessels that are placed to absorb existing interiors into an all encompassing artwork. At the modernist High Cross House in Devon his pots are half hidden in cupboards, obscured behind furniture or placed high up where people don't usually look. His objects are where you might expect them, but don't look quite like what you would expect. They have a ghostly presence, projecting a feeling of unease, which then throws disquiet across the rest of the space—even those areas the artist hasn't touched. De Waal cleverly negotiates the boundary between installation and interior design to explore feelings of the homely and unhomely, a distinction which is often a problem when artists bring their installations into the home.  Edmund de Waal, Lidded vessel, c. 2005, Tall Lidded Jar, 2006, Tall Lidded Jar, 2006. A permanent display of Edmund de Waal’s work is installed in the Artists’ house at the New Art Centre, Wiltshire. The Artists’ House opened in 2001 and was designed by the architect Stephen Marshall. New Art Centre is open daily 11am – 4pm. Image courtesy of New Art Centre, Wiltshire. “The House of the Farmer”, a site-specific installation conceived by British artist Mike Nelson and curated by Didi Bozzini, at the Palazzo dell’Agricoltore until June 2022. Image courtesy of Palazzo dell’Agricoltore, credit: Lucio Rossi. Their work is site specific, made for a particular location or environment. This could be a white cube gallery space, where Do Ho Suh’s minimal and colourful passageways work so well, without the distractions that come with the interiors of older and more elaborately decorated galleries. Or it could mean they work with historical settings, where you would not expect to see artwork. Mike Nelson, known for winning the Turner Prize and his installation Coral Reef, currently has an expansive work of gnarled tree fragments in the Palazzo dell’Agricoltore, the ex-headquarters of an agricultural consortium in Parma. The nuances of context and how this contributes to meaning, makes it difficult to just place these works into different settings—it disrupts the intentions of the artist. Instead, most are broken down and sold in smaller parts, reducing their impact as a total environment. Or the artists reject selling larger works, relying on the sale of smaller editions, books and drawings to fund their more substantial projects.  A few years ago I visited Sammung Hoffmann in Berlin. The collection is housed over two floors in a private apartment within a former factory and the owner, Erika Hoffmann, welcomes people into her home every Saturday. I was there to see Joëlle Tuerlinckx’s Atlas of wall 81 Extraits, a 1:1 mapping of a space for Manifesta 10 in Saint Petersburg transplanted onto the walls of the collector’s home. The paper, or map, had been hung from floor to ceiling in rectangles and squares of different sizes. There were cut marks where sockets had been traced and rough lines of fluorescent orange paint. It matched the fabric on the dining room chairs and the flowers in vases placed around the room. Associations which drew it into a lexicon of complementary colours, wallpaper and fabric selections, rather than standing out as an artwork. Joëlle Tuerlinckx, "Atlas of wall 81 extraits ‘Manifesta’ #10, Musée Hermitage, Saint Petersburg’", 2014-2017, paper, pencil, casein acrylic, nails, magnets; Warren Platner, Table and chairs, designed 1964/66; Foto studioschuurman. Copyright: Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin.

A look at two family-run art businesses in which second and fourth generations are taking over. Colin Gleadell Colin Gleadell writes on the art market for The Daily Telegraph, Artnet and Art Market Monitor. Not long ago, an eminent dealer in Old Masters told me he had advised his son not to follow in his footsteps. Good pictures were harder to find, and the pendulum of taste was not swinging his way. However, the issue of succession has not gone away; it is more omnipresent than ever. And, if you are successful in an expanding business, who better to hand it onto than your children. It’s a moot point though, whether art dealing is in the DNA or whether it’s the allure of easy money in a job for which you don’t have to interview that determines things. So, when the art market is on the up, so are the kids.  Over the past decade we have seen several high profile art dealers handing a rein to the next in line – from Pace’s Arne Glimcher, Lisson’s Nicholas Logsdail and David Zwirner, to smaller dealers like Piano Nobile’s Robert Travers and The Open Art Fair 2020 exhibitor Harry Moore Gwyn (both a dealer and an auctioneer like his father). What is clear in all these art dealing dynasties, and going back to Wildenstein, Gimpel and before, is that a lifetime spent in the pursuit of knowledge, wealth and beauty, not be forgotten at the end. That would be such a waste.     In the first of a series on art dealing dynasties, Colin Gleadell talks to two London based families in which second and fourth generations are taking over in the quite distinct areas of historic Chinese and Japanese paintings and works of art, and the latest international contemporary art.   Paul and Oliver Moss Paul Moss. Courtesy Sydney L. Moss Ltd. For dynastic longitude, Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London dealers in Chinese and Japanese works of art, is hard to beat. This year is their 111th as the fourth generation of the family settles into its stride. Now aged 70, current clan leader, Paul Moss’ early memories of the family business were rows of dusty shelves full of ceramics. “I hated it,” he says, but he was interested in China, and after a little encouragement from a history teacher who told him going to university was the best way to meet girls, he went to Durham University where he studied Chinese and wrote his dissertation on Tibetan thangkas. After an extended Indian temple hopping tour and some translation work for his uncle, Hugh Moss, in Hong Kong, Paul took over the family business in 1979, aged 28, after his father, Geoffrey  died prematurely. Both Paul’s father and grandfather (Sydney), were pre-eminent in the fields and were presidents of the British Art & Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA). Sydney was a founder of the industry’s flagship event, The Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair in 1934.  Although the business had had its ups and downs – “sell the Bentley, travel by bus”, Sydney told Geoffrey after an impulsive purchase at auction – there was a certain amount of family pride at stake when Paul moved into the driving seat. The market for Chinese antiques was beginning to heat up (though nothing like today), and Paul applied his own academic and aesthetic interests to refocus the business away from predictable Chinese ceramics to the literati arts and, significantly, the less expensive arts of Japan, on which he has published numerous books, notably a three-volume tome on the eccentric stag antler carver, Kokusai, in 2016.  That publication coincided with the growing likelihood that the government would ban the trade in antique ivory works of art, a trade which included the Japanese netsuke in which Paul excelled.  In a 2017 interview with the Antiques Trade Gazette, he  addressed the dynastic issue with characteristic aplomb saying: “I bestride my indulgences like a colossus; art dealers are a one-man show.” But he knew he would have to make room for the next generation before long. Two years later, as the anti-ivory legislation date began to close in, he announced that he would take a back seat and that his son, Oliver, then 34, would take control of the business.  Oliver Moss. Courtesy Sydney L. Moss Ltd. In one sense, the transfer was timely because Paul’s aversion to Instagram might not have helped him cope with the pandemic lockdown situation. Oliver, on the other hand, had been good at maths at school, understood technology and had been thinking in terms of business management – which, as luck would have it, is just what Paul, more focussed on scholarly research, was going to need.  Oli’s training was, as he puts it, ‘unusual’, building on his father’s old fashioned card index system which recorded ‘painters, collectors and hangers on’. But with the advance in technology, which his father had not mastered, he developed a new outreach system, bombarding clients with regular e-blasts detailing 10 objects at a time.   In spite of Paul’s colossus complex, the pair work well together. The only area of disagreement in our conversation came when discussing art fairs. Having distanced himself from the fair circuit early on, Paul agreed to apply for TEFAF, Maastricht in 2015, and he and Oli quickly became part of the  furniture there. Then “what about doing Masterpiece, or TEFAF New York?” chimes Oli. “Be careful,” says dad, questioning the timing and emphasising how many good American clients they already have...but then backs down. “I’m only a shareholder, a consultant,” he says. “Oli makes all the decisions...” Nicholas and Alex Logsdail Nicholas Logsdail the founder of Lisson, London’s leading gallery for international contemporary art over 50 years ago, was the first member of his family to become an art dealer but will not be the last. He had a Victorian forebear who was a painter (William), and he was taught to paint at a young age by the English fauvist, Sir Matthew Smith. He was also inspired to look at art by his uncle, author and collector Roald Dahl....but no one taught him how to sell art. “I don’t think it’s necessarily in the DNA”, says Logsdail, 76.  Nicholas and Alex Logsdail. Courtesy Lisson Gallery, photo by Roberto Chamorro. His father, a stockbroker, discouraged him because ‘the art world was full of shady characters’, he says. Perhaps that is why he may prefer the term ‘gallerist’ to ‘dealer’ as he does not buy and sell but promotes new work by living artists. Logsdail never really set out to be a dealer; he was an artist. He kind of fell into it as a student at the Slade after he found lodgings in a disused house in Marylebone where he could show his own art and that of his friends. By the mid to late 80s Lisson was home to the most talked about artists in Britain – Richard Long, Bill Woodrow, Tony Cragg and Richard Deacon, winning one Turner prize after another. In addition, it introduced the latest American minimalist art by Donald Judd and Sol Lewitt to British collectors like Charles Saatchi.  Now it has grown  into a $100 million a year powerhouse representing such major international artists as Anish Kapoor and Ai Weiwei with branches in New York and Shanghai as well as London. Whilst building this empire, it was only natural that Logsdail should want his children to be part of it. Of his four children, his daughter, Kitty, is a chef, and eldest son, Rory, a painter who does his own thing, entirely separate from the gallery. The next son, Alex, studied music developing a penchant  for German electronic bands and punk. Jobs in the gallery kept him going while he  pursued his music career,  until he realised how minimal the chances of success were.  Joining his father’s business was not a foregone conclusion, he says. The first shift came in c. 2005 when he met the editor of Art Forum magazine who offered him an internship in New York. Leaving home for the Big Apple, there followed four years of doing various art world gigs and having the time of his life. “It was wild, crazy and energetic” he recalls “often staying up til 4am...”.  At one point his father took him to an exhibition in Los Angeles with Anish Kapoor. Succession talk was not on the menu. But Kapoor brought the subject up  and told Alex that if he was going to run a gallery, he ‘would have to be better than your dad.’ “That was scary,” says Alex.  “But the real turning point was in 2009 when I got ill in New York and was faced with a $25,000 medical bill. I had to come home to London and work it off at the gallery.” Before he knew where he was, he had become completely immersed in the business and was appointed associate director. Wanting to make his own way, he returned to New York and searched for a gallery space. By 2012, Lisson New York was born under Alex’s directorship. “We did not agree on everything” he says, “but I introduced a number of new artists to the Lisson programme”, like the now hugely successful African American, Stanley Whitney. Nicholas was not prescriptive but told his son the most important thing was to be original.  “I used to think I was always up to date with the contemporary art world”, says Logsdail, “but not anymore. Now I have to ask Alex things  and he tells me things I don’t know about.” At least as Nicholas Logsdail embarks on his third quarter of a century, he’s got the issue of succession sorted, with yet another son waiting in the wings. “I’m a lucky ducky”, he muses contentedly.  To be continued....

Design, age, and provenance can all have a part to play in the value of antique silver. Charles Hartley Charles Hartley is the Director of Hartleys Auctions Ltd. and specialises in arms, militaria, fieldsports and taxidermy. A Queen Anne silver punch strainer, Henry Tolcher of Plymouth, Exeter, c.1710-5, 16.5cm long. Image courtesy of Michael Baggott. As an auctioneer, many summers have passed cruising around the sunny countryside bouncing from valuation to valuation. You never know what you might find and this truly is the best part of my job, from dusty houses filled with ancient oak to sleek modernist interiors accented with Danish teak and impressionist art. Though this presents a patchwork quilt of variety, there is always one constant, my late father’s leather gladstone valuation bag and its contents. Other than the pens and paper, possibly the three most highly used pieces of equipment in this bag of tricks would be my eyeglass, silver scales and my pocket book of hallmarks barely holding onto its cover. But what is the true value to those silvery items hidden amid the bric-a-brac, that have me rifling through sideboards and flipping over salvers?  Easy, you may cry, a quick google and you will see a multitude of websites listing bullion prices changing on a daily basis. Silver is of course often valued by weight and though this is an oversimplification, it does bode true, though typically only with damaged or very dull items. One afternoon working at my desk one of our trusted house clearers appeared at my door with a glint in his eye. He’d been sent to a house that I had not visited, this is not typical as usually I would value the property first, but in this case the items were in such a poor state, that the solicitor had deemed it unfit for sale and in need of a heavy hand. He was 99% right: upholstery was moth eaten, furniture wormed and mold ravaged the paintings. Though what was that brick supporting the rotting settee? It was a 999.9 grade 5000g solid bar of silver from the Argor-Haraeus Mint - which went to auction selling by weight for £3,388. But please don't think this means it’s time to take grandma’s silver tea set to the nearest “cash for gold” store. Bullion price is only one part of the equation which is used to value an item, as so much more in the nature of the piece could add to this.  The design credentials of silver will always impact the value, be it a Mappin & Webb classic or a Georg Jensen statement of arts & crafts design, such as a 20th century tazza I auctioned in March. Its “melt price” would only add up to £540, but on the day it raised over eight times that, seeing £4,598. This same category could also cover “novelty” silver, where small quirky pieces demand a high value with avid collectors desperate to fill a certain gap in their cabinet - like a rabbit pepperette by Sampson Mordan of London 1899, which I sold in 2019 for almost 23 times the melt price at £700.  Paul Storr (1771 - 1844), a pair of silver-gilt wine coolers & stands, silver-gilt , George III, London, 1809, Maker’s mark of Paul Storr, H: 35.5 cm. Image courtesy of Koopman Rare Art. Another major factor is age. “Flog It” star Michael Baggott became enamored with the world of hallmarks. He points out that “hallmarking was brought in to assure that no one sold substandard wares to an unsuspecting medieval public and is possibly the oldest bit of consumer protection. Although only introduced to assure purity, happily these marks can allow anyone to know who submitted an object for assay, where in the country it was marked and most importantly when. This immediately gives so much historical information, making silver collectors amongst the luckiest in the field of collecting”. Proving the point, amongst Michael’s collection is this small West Country orange strainer. Weighing only 2oz 9dwt, the value of the silver would be around £35. However, as a very rare provincial Queen Anne example, by Henry Tolcher of Plymouth (c.1710-15), it is worth roughly a hundred times more at £3,750.  But if you truly want to stretch the value of silver you have to not only look at the age and design of a piece, but its provenance. No better place to represent this is Koopman Rare Art, which is one of the world’s leading dealers specialising in antique silver, gold boxes and objets de vertu. Director Lewis Smith explains that “one of the great points with important silver is that it was often made for important families and individuals. Secondly, it often was designed by the great names to fit into houses that were being built at the height of fashion of the day”. Asking them for examples, Lewis spoiled me for choice, but my favourite amongst their offerings was a pair of Paul Storr wine coolers. The identical model is displayed in the royal collection, the V&A and by strange coincidence The White House, Washington. These were made around the time that the British burnt the building down during the War of 1812 and since their creation have held a long list of aristocratic owners and are valued in the hundreds of thousands.  

Portraits are having a moment - but why do people buy pictures of strangers? Joe Lloyd Joe Lloyd is a journalist who writes about architecture and visual art for The Culture Trip, Elephant, and The Economist's 1843 magazine, among others. John Vanderbank (1694-1739), Portrait of a Young Gentleman and his Greyhound, signed by the artist ‘John Vanderbank 1726’, 127 x 102cm. Image courtesy of Period Portraits. Last month, a work by a little-known old master defied all expectations. German baroque painter Johann Heinrich Schönfeld’s A bearded man in armour was auctioned for $150,000 at Christie’s, almost double its $80,000 estimate. It is a striking painting, warm-toned and subtly articulated. But Schönfeld, for all his talent, is hardly the sort of name that usually sets the art market alight. What could have caused this uptick? Portraits are enjoying a moment. The past few years have witnessed numerous acclaimed exhibitions dedicated specifically to the genre, from Goya at the National Gallery to Lucian Freud at the Royal Academy. But their popularity reaches beyond the hallowed halls of the art world. “You see portraits now on television adverts,” says art dealer Nick Cox, “you see them everywhere. Now even young couples putting their first home together might potentially buy a Victorian portrait to put in their dining room. It’s a trend across all eras and price points.” Cox runs Period Portraits, a web-based dealership specialising in 17th to 20th century portraits. He believes recent years have seen a shift among collectors. “Though there are still people who are just into, for example, Civil War portraits or military uniform,” he explains, “the new type of collector often buys across a whole range of genres and periods.” Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569 – 1622), An unknown noblewoman of the Bourbon court, oil on canvas, 75 x 58 cm, circa 1615. Image courtesy of The Weiss Gallery, London. Portraiture is itself an enormous field, and an immensely varied one. For many artists, it was a route to success. Portraits are generally smaller-scale and less time-intensive than history paintings. They also fed a near-constant demand. Rulers and courtiers needed them to project their might and majesty. The ever-growing middle classes followed, commissioning portraits as status symbols and decorations. Nicolaes Maes, among the most in-demand of Dutch Golden Age portraitists, left five houses and 11,000 guilders at his death (his tutor Rembrandt only earned around 340 guilders in a good year). Formal painted portraiture began to wane in the 19th century as photography engulfed some of its functions, though numerous artists continued to paint portraits. But portraiture in its loosest sense is arguably more prominent than ever: in profile pictures, avatars, social media posts. “At the moment,” explains Cox, “we live in a selfie-obsessed society, full of disposable images. Portraits do a similar thing, but with more permanence.” Their current popularity combines our mania for depictions of people with a desire for less ephemeral, more material images. While the prosperous and powerful used portraits to immortalise themselves and their families, however, today’s collectors seldom have such connections. To collect historic portraits is to be surrounded by long-dead strangers. Wherein lies the appeal? Sometimes, it comes down to the aesthetic. “As with any other work of art,” says Mark Weiss of Weiss Gallery, which has specialised in old master portraits since 1985, “there is the intrinsic beauty of the portrait itself. Portraits of a beautiful or handsome sitter will always have great decorative appeal.”  An image of an attractive person can light up a room. As can one of a strikingly unattractive person: cognitive scientists have found that beautiful and ugly artworks light up the same area of the brain. This might explain the enduring popularity of works like Quentin Matsys’ The Ugly Duchess, or the enormous  $137.5 million auction price achieved by Willem de Kooning’s Woman III in 2006. But there are reasons beyond the purely visual. One is provenance. “It could have come from a famous royal or noble collection,” says Weiss, “or one now dispersed.” To own a painting once held by the Duke of Mantua links you to an esteemed past collector. “It could be,” says Cox, “the history that they're interested in, it could be the decorative aspect of the costume. And then there's the human, fundamental thing of the gaze, wanting to lock eyes with people.” British School, Studio of Sir Allan Ramsay (1713-1784), Portrait of a Lady and Her Child, circa 1760, 76 x 104 cm. Image courtesy of Period Portraits. Studio of Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641), Charles I (1600 – 1649) in coronation robes, oil on canvas, 223 x 149 cm, circa 1636 – 1640s. Image courtesy of The Weiss Gallery, London. It was the costumes that initially attracted Cox, who previously worked as fashion editor for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. But his interests soon broadened. “What I love about dealing in portraits is that every time you acquire one and research it, it opens up a window into a specific area of history.” Portraits serve as authentic gateways to a different era. Those attracted to Tudor age, for instance, might be drawn to portraits that embody that milieu. This March, Sothebys sold a cache of Tudor portraits estimated at £80,000 for a staggering £650,000. It is likely that the recent abundance of books, film and television set in the period, from Wolf Hall to The Other Boleyn Girl, influenced this upsurge. Portraits are never just of a person, but also about them. Clothing, facial expressions, posture, scenario: all tell us something about the subject, or the image they wanted to present. “A portrait,” says Weiss, “is by its nature a unique creation capturing a specific moment in the life and times of a person — and which more than often is the only surviving memento of that life. That in itself can be a very compelling motivation.” Owning a portrait gives you the exclusive ability to commune with an individual across time. What more could a budding collector want from a painting?

The world of women’s vintage watches. Avril Groom Avril Groom writes on jewellery, watches and fashion for Telegraph Time, Times Luxx, FT How to Spend It magazine, Centurion magazine and Country and Town House magazine, among others.  18-carat gold Omega Constellation watch, mesh bracelet, automatic movement, circa 1980, sold for £3000 at xupes.com Image courtesy of Xupes. Staggering auction prices for watches make regular headlines. Out in front is 2020’s £24.2 million for a Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime with twenty complications, donated by the brand to a charity auction. Before, the $17.8 million Rolex Daytona exotic dial “Paul Newman” that belonged to the Hollywood icon himself held the crown. These two brands compose all top ten prices, all men’s watches, as are most of the hundred-plus timepieces sold for over $1.5 million.   Buying vintage watches is traditionally a game for the boys - they’re one accessory where men can express individuality and status. But times change. Today’s high-earning women are interested in buying watches and in the art and craft of their movements and dials. With good reason, for women’s vintage watches are great value.  Styles such as Art Deco diamond bracelet watches from establishment brands like Cartier or Van Cleef and Arpels always carry a premium though nothing like the record-breakers. Many women’s vintage models are too small for modern tastes unless you want a delicately worked jewelled evening watch, often a bargain even when sparkling with tiny diamonds right round the case. “Watch sizes today have increased for both sexes”, says Megan Young, head of service at online luxury vintage retailer Xupes and a trained watchmaker. “Women are going for mid-century pieces, for their design and craft and because some were a little bigger than previously. Also the classic men’s watches of that time are relatively small, so they suit women and may not attract the same competition that larger men’s models would.” 18-carat textured gold, manual wind, 1970s bracelet watch by Bueche Girod, sold for just over £2800 at Fellows Auctioneers. Image courtesy of Fellows Auctioneers. Millennials love mid-century design, watches included. “The 1960s and 1970s were adventurous, with coloured hardstones and engraved or woven yellow gold and design that seems more individual than much today’”, says Penelope Morris, senior watch specialist at Bonhams. “There is great interest in pieces from Piaget (from about £4000), Chopard (from about £2000) and Cartier.” Designers experimented with brilliant colour, mixing hardstones like turquoise, lapis lazuli, coral, tiger eye or opal, with diamonds for sparkle, set against yellow gold which was the favoured precious metal of the day and worked with imaginative finishes - engraved, woven or mesh - that were inherited from the great Italian goldsmiths and adopted enthusiastically by houses like Piaget, one of the first watch marques to have its own goldsmiths’ atelier. All these elements were housed in cases of unconventional, sometimes abstract shape, the whole item including the bracelet designed as a piece of fine jewellery. The uniqueness and sustainability of vintage resonates with today’s mindful customer, says Natasha Davis, Fellows Auctioneers’ watch specialist. “Many 1960s and 1970s watches are boldly designed and beautifully handcrafted, with outstanding goldsmithing that would be very costly now. They are fine jewellery as much as timepieces yet many are modestly priced”.” Morris agrees that women are now more knowledgeable about techniques and movements and “know the right questions to ask of any retailer to ensure they get value”. Young says some are now competing with men as collectors, buying as much to invest as to enjoy. “Specific brands and models are collectable, and some appeal equally to women”, she says.  18-carat white gold, diamond and lapis lazuli, manual wind bracelet watch, circa 1976, by Patek Philippe. Sold for £36,875 inc. premium at Bonhams in December 2018. Image courtesy of Bonhams. 18-carat gold plait-effect bracelet watch with Jaeger Lecoultre 101 movement and ruby cabochons, Jaeger for Hermès, sold for £10,000 at xupes.com. Image courtesy of Xupes. One is that Rolex Daytona Paul Newman with its bold, monochrome, panda-style dial - or the reverse - which was, says Young, “not a success when it launched because the colours limited its appeal and not many were made but it became a cult once Newman wore it, and its design and moderate size make it attractive to women wanting that cool, sporty, mid-century style with such cultural symbolism”. A female client bought one over twenty years ago for what seemed a fortune but was several times less than the almost £240,000 that it is currently on sale for.  Equally unisex is the Cartier Crash, especially those made in London where the design originated in 1967, and would cost from £60,000 to £110,000 depending on condition. Women’s 1940s models with Jaeger Lecoultre’s 101 movement - the world’s smallest mechanical - have been rising rapidly since the brand revived it three years ago. Other examples are more modest. Elegant, timeless classics like the Cartier Tank (up to £10,000) and the Patek Philippe Calatrava (from £5000) are, says Morris, “good buys, always stylish and well made with stable mechanical movements, reliable if properly maintained.” Some are variable - a 1970s, gold Omega Constellation would be about £3000 while one of the unique, innovative, special project models designed for Omega by jeweller Andrew Grima would be nearer £30,000.  18-carat gold and onyx 1980s Structura skeleton watch with sapphire cabochon, at Vacheron Constantin Les Collectionneurs. Image courtesy of Vacheron Constantin. In addition to auction houses and specialist retailers, some brands are taking back ownership. Cartier’s Tradition is a selection of interesting bought-back items renovated and resold by the house through their flagships and private exhibitions. Similarly Vacheron Constantin has Les Collectionneurs - watches from the 1910s to about 1970, aimed at collectors through special events in their stores. Both houses select and authenticate pieces with great care, and restore them using period components where possible. These are top-level, guaranteed-origin items and reliable investments. But if you have modest means, a good eye and a trusted if less exalted source, you could take a chance on a quirky piece that you love. You may not make a fortune but given the story of the Paul Newman Daytona you just might. 

The stone or the setting – where does the value of a jewel lie? Maria Doulton Maria Doulton is the co-founder and Editor in Chief of The Jewellery Editor.com. She writes about watches and jewellery for both UK and international newspapers and magazines including the Financial Times, Intelligent Life, Telegraph Luxury and Vanity Fair on Jewellery. Giardinetti brooch with rose diamond-set leaves, with flower heads of 7 emeralds, 1 chrysoberyl, 3 green beryls, 2 spinels, 2 brown diamonds and 10 rubies.⁣ The basket is set with a row of rubies and emeralds, interspersed with diamonds is set in silver and gold having French marks on the clasp. Mid-18th century. Sandra Cronan Ltd - A17 Jewellery is one of the most enduring artefacts man has ever created. Walk around the V&A in London and while the colours of the fabrics, furniture and pottery graciously fade with age, the jewellery gallery burns the brightest. In this gallery, each gem beams out its defiant light showing little regard for the ravages of time. So it is no surprise that the serene and immutable beauty of gemstones has been consistently prized in the raucous, tumultuous story of humanity. But what about the settings, the frills and trimmings that transform a loose stone into an amulet, love-token or talisman?  Settings, and by extension the design of a jewel, are the ever-changing narrative that places a gemstone in a context of time and place. Without a setting, gems are just loose stones, worth but their weight in carats. It is when the rarity of the gemstone is equalled or enhanced by the craft of the goldsmith that jewels became more than a sum of their parts.  Given the importance of settings, how does the overall state of a setting affect the value of antique jewels? Sandra Cronan, one of London’s most respected antique jewellery dealers explains: ‘The best way to understand this question is to look at jewellery from before the 19th century whose value is so totally dependent on the condition of the jewel, and that is principally the setting. Once a jewel has been damaged, it is near impossible to restore and therefore drastically reduces its value.’ Ironically, if an antique jewel has a highly valuable stone, it has to be removed from its setting to ascertain its weight and be analysed by a gemmological laboratory, a process that can affect the overall integrity of the jewel. This would explain why often stones that are removed from damaged antique jewels are recut to more contemporary tastes. Victorian amethyst and diamond set pendant. The central emerald cut amethyst surrounded by a circle of tapered amethysts interlaced with an elaborate diamond set design. Surmounted by an amethyst and diamond trefoil and culminating with a amethyst drop pendant, mounted in 18ct yellow gold and silver. English, circa 1880. Sandra Cronan Ltd - A17 Early jewels focussed on the stone with a reverence for its properties of healing, protection and as indicators of status and rank. The Ancient Egyptians exalted the talismanic properties of precious stones by putting them on the body whether directly on the skin to heal different maladies or as amulets set in gold. Gold represented the flesh of the gods and gemstones eternity, a winning combination that has stood the test of time. Since then, the mythical, cultural and religious significance of gemstones have brightened our history books.  The Aztecs prized turquoise above all else while the Mughals believed diamonds were a link to the divine powers, the mirror-like effect of the diamonds having a magical effect on whoever saw it as they in turn would have been imbued with its aura. The craft of jewellery making grew up to create frames worthy of these miracles of Nature. The most valued gemstones have been preserve of royalty. A visit to the Tower of London is a succinct lesson in the power of monarchy told through gems. Awe-inspiring and magnificent, there is no doubt that the Koh I Noor diamonds and the Black Prince’s ruby are still clearly semaphoring their message of empire and dominance. The maharajas flocked to Place Vendôme in the roaring 1920s, trailing trunks full of jewels to be recut and re-set à la mode. Lighter, new-fangled platinum settings and modern diamond shapes made their magnificent jewels shine brighter than ever under electric light as well as signalling the Indian aristocrats’ relevance in an increasingly globalised world.  Rare Leopold Gautrait Art Nouveau Enamel and Gem-set Ring, circa 1900. A Rakyan Collection - A24 This combination of impressive settings with magnificent gems, the zenith of jewels, makes a very strong statement. So strong that a people’s revolution means dismantling not just the power structure but the very jewels themselves, re-setting the agenda if you like. Case in point, after two bloody uprisings, the 1789 French and the 1917 Russian revolutions the outgoing monarchies’ jewels were broken up or auctioned off to newly minted millionaires in emerging economies such as the United States. The new regimes were keen to keep the universal currency of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies but erased the story that the elaborate settings told. And so the mounts of tiaras worn at grand balls and ornate corsages, necklaces and rings that smacked of unimaginable wealth were melted into scrap gold, erasing the chronicles of an era.  Then came the Art Nouveau era that challenged the value and significance of settings versus gemstones. Questioning perceptions entirely, master jewellers such as René Lalique presented them in a new light as an art form, their value almost solely in the skill of the jeweller than in the actual worth of the materials. Humble components such as enamel, moonstones and citrines paired with humble themes like wasps, flies or thistles were elevated to the highest levels of beauty through unparalleled craftsmanship, its value surpassing that of its parts.  Pair of early Georgian rose cut diamond stud earrings, of foliate cluster form (originally buttons). Mounted in silver, French or possibly Russian, circa 1760. Sandra Cronan Ltd - A1 This brief period left its mark with later jewellers drawing the focus to design and settings, as seen in some of the great artist jewellers of the last century from Suzanne Belperron to British ground-breaking jewellers such as Andrew Grima, and designs by Danish house Georg Jensen.  And we are still exploring the fine line between style and substance. This year’s high jewellery collections from the big names of Place Vendôme include daring use of lesser gemstones such as rutilated quartz, lapis lazuli and turquoise in adventurous designs. The most extreme example is the Boucheron’s Contemplations collection. The Goutte du Ciel necklace is made of diamond, rock crystal and Aerogel, NASA’s favourite insulation material and the most clear-cut case to date of a setting being the most valuable element in a jewel. The centuries-long dance of gemstones and settings continues in new and ever surprising choreographies.

Can Alexander Larman tempt voracious collectors to stray from plain text, and into the colourful world of illustrated books? Alexander Larman Alexander Larman is the author of several historical and biographical titles including The Crown in Crisis & Byron’s Women. He is books editor of The Spectator world edition and writes regularly about literature and the arts for publications including The Observer, Prospect, The Chap and the Daily Telegraph. WATKINS-PITCHFORD, D.J. The Whopper, 1967. available at £950 from Ashton Rare Books When you think of ‘the Golden Age of children’s illustration’, which artists come to mind? The estimable likes of Quentin Blake and Axel Scheffler are perennially popular today, and in the middle of the twentieth century, everyone from Edward Ardizzone to DJ ‘BB’ Watkins-Pitchford produced extraordinarily interesting, brilliant work. To purchase a signed copy of BB’s The Whopper in its original dustwrapper will currently cost you around £950 from Ashton Rare Books, and The Bookshop on the Heath has BB’s own copy of The Countryman’s Bedside Book on offer at the moment, for a comparatively trifling £275.  RACKHAM, Arthur Rip Van Winkle Heinemann, 1905. Jonker’s Rare Books But in order to understand the true ‘Golden Age’ of the medium, you have to go back to the beginning of the century to the Edwardian era, at a time when artists from Arthur Rackham to Kay Nielsen were renowned for their mastery of form, colour and subject. Although the subjects dealt with might seem juvenile, there is absolutely nothing childish about the books that they illustrated – nor the prices that the titles command today, especially the rare signed limited editions that are eagerly sought-after by collectors.  One man who has been dealing in Golden Age children’s books since he began his career is Christiaan Jonkers, proprietor of Jonkers Rare Books in Henley-on-Thames. For Jonkers, it’s easy to say why the books became so successful, from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards. ‘It coincided with the beginning of mainstream colour printing. The four-colour process (where the impressions of four electronically engraved printing plates each printing a single colour, red, green, blue and black are superimposed to produce a multicoloured image) meant it became commercially viable to reproduce detailed watercolour paintings. Beforehand, colour was either added by hand using a stencil process or by lithography, both of which were expensive and time consuming and generally reserved for the grandest natural history books.’  DETMOLD, Edward Illustration from The Arabian Nights, 1924 available at David Brass Rare Books This meant that artists of great genius could emerge, but for Jonkers, there is one figure who is primus inter pares. ‘Arthur Rackham is the most prolific of the golden age illustrators and therefore the best known and most widely regarded.  It was his illustrations to Rip Van Winkle in 1905 which set the template for illustrated books of this period and he continued working until his death in 1939.’ Nonetheless, Jonkers also singles out other artists with distinctive styles. ‘The most notable of these is probably Kay Nielsen, a Danish artist who moved to London and later to California.  His work is very stylised and inventive with a strong fantasy element.  In later life, he worked for Disney and contributed some of the scenes to Fantasia.’  When it comes to lesser-known figures, Jonkers considers Edward Detmold underrated- ‘he is less well known than he should be.  He trained as a zoologist so his animal studies are very precise, but he also had a sparkling use of colour, which is evident in his work for The Arabian Nights and Aesop’s Fables’ – and he has his own soft spot for a lesser-known artist. ‘I particularly enjoy Harry Rountree’s rendition of Alice in Wonderland.  It differs from most of the grand illustrated books of the period in that the book is printed on coated paper throughout so there are illustrations on virtually every page, interspersed with the text.’  These illustrators’ most famous works were sold in limited edition formats, which are now hugely desirable. As Jonkers explains, ‘Although even in their standard format, these books are very much a deluxe production, the limited editions take this a stage further: they are usually on larger, handmade paper, bound in vellum and signed by the illustrator.  There is also the exclusivity of knowing there are only a small number (usually a few hundred) of copies produced.’ The prices are therefore commensurately high, but, as Jonkers notes, condition is vital. ‘It has a significant impact on the value of these books.  They are produced as objects of beauty so being damaged or in rotten condition rather defeats their purpose.  As booksellers, one of our most important services to our customers is to ensure that they are buying the best available copies of these books.  All the books we sell have been carefully checked for any repairs and that they have all the requisite illustrations in an undamaged state.’ Jonkers is in the enviable position of being the go-to bookseller for the original watercolour artwork from these books. He explains that ‘We usually have examples by most of the major illustrators for sale. We follow similar principles in selecting artwork to buy as we do with our books, selecting only the best examples from each illustrator’s range.  The price depends on a number of factors:  illustrators, subject matter, and quality of work being the most significant.  A small Rackham drawing might be £2000, whereas a full-size watercolour would start at about £10,000 but the choicest examples might be in excess of £100,000.’ Not all the work is so bank-breaking, however; Jonkers says that ‘Some lesser known illustrators work can be had from £500 upwards.’  ROUNTREE, Harry Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Nelson, 1908. Jonker’s Rare Books Christmas is, of course, a traditional time for these books to be given as gifts; as Jonkers points out, ‘These books were originally timed to be released for the Christmas market and were sold as ‘Christmas Gift Books’.  It is easy to see why they make such good gifts and will appeal to all book lovers, not just ardent collectors.  That said, we sell a steady stream of these books throughout the year.’ And there are also times when something really unique comes in, which will be snapped up by the eager collector.  ‘Occasionally, we find books which have had an original drawing added by the illustrator, making them unique and particularly special.  Usually these are a small pen and ink doodle; however some years ago we had the limited edition of Alice in Wonderland with Rackham’s illustrations, in which he had drawn a full page in watercolour of Alice and the Queen of Hearts playing croquet.  That was very special indeed.’  So if you fancied a Christmas present to remember, get thee to Henley, forthwith. Whatever you buy is likely to be wonderful, beautiful and unique – and, if you’re willing to spend the money, might even contain its own artistic delights, too.  

The centuries-long struggle to capture the essence of London. Joe Lloyd Joe Lloyd is a journalist who writes about architecture and visual art for The Culture Trip, Elephant, and The Economist's 1843 magazine, among others. Auerbach, FRANK Tower Blocks, Hampstead Road, 2007 available at Marlborough New York London is a difficult city for an artist to capture. Rome has been ossified and Paris homogenised. Everyone knows what they look like. But London is a stranger beast. There are some consistencies — rows of terraces in stock brick, black-painted railings, ragged late Victorian and Edwardian high streets, tiled corner pubs, the red-and-blue roundel of the Underground. There are landmarks, such as the Palace of Westminster and St. Paul’s Cathedral, and an unavoidable natural feature in the form of the Thames.  But London’s palette and profile are ever shifting, from gleaming Portland stone to peeling stucco, stained concrete to shimmering glass. It makes the metropole both thrilling and hard to pin down into a single image, in the way a Haussmannian street corner can come to stand for the whole of Paris. Perhaps this is why London is best appreciated in literature, from Ben Jonson and Daniel Defoe to Patrick Hamilton and Iris Murdoch: it is a place that demands multiple impressions rather than a fixed image.  Nevertheless, some of the greatest names in the history of art have tried. Many of them have brushed with failure. Canaletto's imaginative renderings of Venice proved especially popular with the English. He moved to the country between 1746 and 1755, for a spell living in Soho, and set about attempting to do for London what he had done in his hometown. Though Canaletto created some fine vedute of the Thames, many found his work repetitive and mechanical when compared to his magical views of Venice. One critic even claimed that he was an imposter who had usurped the true painter’s name. This judgement has held true in the art market today: only four of Canaletto’s London paintings are included in his top 50 works sold at auction. L.S LOWRY, Piccadilly Circus, London 1960 Christie’s Over a century later, in 1870, a young Claude Monet arrived, fleeing conscription in the Franco-Prussian War. His paintings of Green Park and London’s docks have none of the freedom and luminosity that had already begun to appear in his French work. It may have been the weather, an attempt to appeal to English tastes or his own dark mood in self-exile. Or it may have been that smog-sheathed London itself failed to ignite his vision. Monet’s older contemporary, Camille Pissarro, fled the Prussians and ended up in suburban Upper Norwood. He brilliantly captured the then-rustic outskirts of the capital. But his work gives little insight into a metropolis by then double of the size of the French capital. All of these painters were, in a sense, outsiders. And many of the great London paintings were executed by those originally from elsewhere. L.S. Lowry, a lifelong resident of English’s industrial northwest, embodied the city's bustle in Piccadilly Circus, London (1960), with crowds rushing beneath the stifling buildings and billboards of the West End. It was sold for £5.6m at Christie’s in 2012, a record for the artist.  BILL BRANDT, A Night in London, 1938, First Edition available at Hyraxia Books £3,250 The American master James Abbott McNeill Whistler spent the majority of his adult career in the city. In his twilit Nocturne paintings, he turned the Thames into a strange, dreamlike place. This not did always find favour with the natives — critic John Ruskin accused Whistler of “flinging a pot of paint in the public's face” after he exhibited the masterful, near abstract Nocturne in Black and Gold (c. 1875), an imagined depiction of a Chelsea pleasure garden. Whistler successfully sued for libel, but became bankrupt in the process. A few years earlier, his Thames Set (1871) of etchings had captured a rather grittier aspect of the city.These 16 prints deftly capture life on the city’s then thriving ports. "I assure you,” Whistler wrote to a friend, “that I have never attempted such a difficult subject”.   Another fascinating outsider-insider is the photographer Bill Brandt, currently the subject of a retrospective at Tate Britain. Brandt was born in Hamburg to a German mother and a British father who had spent most of his life in Germany, and spent his childhood in a Swiss sanitarium and under psychoanalysis in Vienna. But he disavowed his German origins and claimed himself a native of South London. In his 1930s photographs he captured the raw street life of the city as it had never been seen before, capturing everything from the aristocratic town houses of St. James to the tattoo parlours of Waterloo and the porters of Billingsgate fish market.  Bill Brandt, In the Public Bar at Charley Brown's, 1942 available at Holden Luntz Gallery $10,000 Brandt's 1938 photo book A Night in London (1938) did for the British capital what Brassaï’s Paris de Nuit (1936) had done for the French one, leaving no corner unturned. He later wrote: “I photographed pubs, common lodging houses at night, theatres, Turkish baths, prisons and people in their bedrooms. London has changed so much that some of these pictures now have a period charm almost of another century.” This constant change represents perhaps the greatest challenge for those artists aiming to capture the city. Yet there are two post-war painters who arguably do this better than anyone else. Frank Auerbach and the late Leon Kossoff capture their own patches of the city again and again, constantly resisting train tracks, building sites and junctions. Often rendered in heavy impasto, their London paintings show a dirty, fragmented, always moving city. Auerbach himself has repeatedly noted the difficulty of capturing the city: “I have a strong sense that London hasn’t been properly painted… But it has always cried out to be painted, and not been.” Auerbach acknowledged that many artists had captured bits and pieces, but no-one had truly grasped the whole.  Around the turn of the 20th century, Monet made several return trips to London where he took a room at the Savoy and painted the Thames. His extraordinary depictions of a fog-shrouded Westminster only convey a fragment of the physical city. But they also capture something bigger: a combination of the monumental and the fleeting that might reveal something of the ancient, ever-changing city as a whole. Kossoff, LEON King's Cross, Spring, No. 1, 1998 Kossoff, LEON Christ Church, Spitalfields, Early Summer, 1992 Kossoff, LEON A Street in Willesden, Evening, 1982

What does religion have to offer as subject matter for contemporary art? Fergus Butler Gallie The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie is a clergyman and the author of A Field Guide to the English Clergy, a Best Book of the Year for The Times, Mail on Sunday and BBC History. Joachim van der Klugt, The Samaritan. 2015, oil on canvas, 170 x 140cm. Available at 1stDibs or Artistics. Preconceptions are strange things, aren’t they? If I say ‘I’m interested in religious art’, doubtless your mind leaps to the works of Titian, Michelangelo or Veronese.  We hive it off as a past genre, as something that, presumably, nobody really produces anymore. But, in truth, religion hasn’t gone away- in fact it’s more present than ever- and nor has art. As a result, despite our misconceptions, there is a booming market in contemporary religious art, both in terms of new commissions by places of worship and in terms of collectors seeking to buy. There is, of course, an inbuilt dichotomy in religious art itself- namely between that which is art made specifically for religious devotion and that which represents an artist addressing a religious subject. For many believers it’s a false dichotomy; devotion or meditation on religious matters can be provoked by even explicitly secular art. It would, after all, be strange to worship a God whose purposes and actions were limited by the categorisations of an auction catalogue. Perhaps the most famous example of a contemporary artist addressing a religious theme in their painting is Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross. It’s also an example of the supposed tension between contemporary art and traditional religious- and in particular Christian- subjects. Dali attracted considerable criticism for addressing what was critics thought to be a ‘kitsch’ theme in such a traditional medium. Indeed, such was its initial unpopularity that the Corporation of Glasgow managed to acquire it for about two-thirds of its original asking price of £12,000. It proved to be a sensible investment- it’s now the most visited piece in the city’s Kelvingrove museum and was voted ‘Scotland’s Favourite Painting’ in 2006. The idea that religious subjects must be addressed using traditional medium is a pervasive one. Mark Wallinger’s Ecce Homo drew on traditional sculpture as well as the influence of Rembrandt in order to make a mark on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. In the world of sales, often contemporary works inspired by traditional artistic tropes fetch some impressive sums. The influence of Michelangelo’s Pieta is evident in Joachim van der Klugt’s 2015 work The Samaritan, which has an asking price of over £7,000. Andres Serrano, Immersion (Piss Christ), 1987. Cibachrome print face-mounted on Plexiglass. Number four of the edition of ten was sold by Christie’s in 2008 for $277,000. Yet, for all the continued prevalence of traditional forms, there is a strong abstract streak in much contemporary religious art. Take, for instance, the work of Maha Rukab, a Palestinian Christian artist who often takes direct inspiration from Bible quotes- such as Matthew 5:16- to inspire her abstract acrylic work which often fetches four figure sums at auction. Of course, some of the world’s major religions prohibit depictions of the human form, necessarily lending themselves to abstract works of art. The Saleha Gallery specialises in contemporary Islamic abstract art, with paintings inspired by passages from the Qur’an. Some contemporary art that engages with religion goes beyond the abstract. There is, of course, the genre- now a little tired, it has to be said- of ‘transgressive’ religious art. Andres Serrano’s infamous Piss Christ photograph realised a sale price of $277,000 when sold at Christie’s in 2008. Despite the iconoclastic nature of the piece, it would be impossible to deny the role of religion in its inspiration. Indeed, in affirming the beliefs (one might say prejudices) of its audience and making a statement about the role and relative position of God to the artist, perhaps we might justifiably call Serrano’s work a religious one.  Even without that leap, there can be no denying that the preconceptions about what constitutes ‘religious art’ are changing all the time. Modern religious art is necessarily at the forefront of those changes in perception and buyers are still happy to back those innovations with cold hard cash. The Church is no longer the largest sponsor of artistic creativity, but religion remains a major source of inspiration for many artists and churches and other places of worship still commission and host art of all form. Take London’s oldest surviving church building, St Bartholomew the Great; the Norman nave hosts, inter alia, Exquisite Pain by Damien Hirst, Golgotha by Richard Harrison and Madonna and Child by Alfredo Roldán. Despite our preconceptions about its presence in the past, the world of contemporary religious art is a busy one. In truth, regardless of preconceived ideals of form- as long as humanity seeks to answer questions about beauty and truth, there will be religion and there will be art, of all types, as well.

When the demand for samurai swords declined after the Meiji Restoration, artisans turned their skills to decorative objects, and the era was marked by exceptional workmanship. Billy Jobling Billy Jobling is Senior Writer and Researcher in the Post-War and Contemporary Art department at Christie's, London. Silvered bronze Tanuki in the guise of a priest, signed Gyoko, Meiji period. W: 33.5cm H: 18.5cm D: 24cm Image courtesy of Laura Bordignon. In 1868, the Emperor Meiji ascended to the throne of Japan. Reigning until his death in 1912, he oversaw a period of extraordinary social, political and artistic change. Prompted in part by the gunboat diplomacy of the United States, this new era brought an end to the Tokugawa shogunate that had governed since the early seventeenth century, and the transformation of Japan into a modern market economy. The policy of sakoku—which had threatened entering foreigners (as well as exiting nationals) with the death penalty—was lifted. Japan, isolated for more than two hundred years, was opening up to the world. The Meiji Restoration initially spelled disaster for the country’s metalworkers. These artisans had long relied on the patronage of the samurai, the elite military class who administered the shogunate’s provinces on behalf of powerful feudal lords. Demobilised and gradually abolished by the Meiji government, the samurai were prohibited from carrying swords in public. The demand for weapons, armour and other accoutrements of noble households went into a steep decline. As Japan developed its relationship with the wider world, however, new opportunities emerged. In 1867, the country presented its first ever pavilion at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The paintings, prints, swords, screens, and sculptures on display—entirely novel to most European viewers—sparked a frenzy of interest. Foreign diplomats and advisors invited to Japan early in the Meiji years were equally impressed by the art they saw. Turning their skills to decorative objects, the craftsmen who had lost their samurai clients now found themselves at the centre of a flourishing export market. Meiji period rotating bronze and mixed metal vases, circa 1880, H: 30in D: 16in. Image courtesy of Wick Antiques. With the combination of imperial support, an eager new audience and unfolding creative freedom, Meiji-era art reached great heights of technical and artistic sophistication. To this day, says Charles Wallrock of Wick Antiques, it’s the superior workmanship that attracts buyers of Meiji bronzes. The most exquisite examples—as seen in the world-leading Khalili Collection, and in some Japanese museums—are beyond the reach of most. Often featuring complex inlays of gold and silver, these creations, Charles explains, ‘take it to another level. They’re just breathtaking.’ Works by masters such as Shoami Katsuyoshi can reach hundreds of thousands at auction. At the more accessible end of the spectrum, however, the calibre remains appealingly high. Genryusai Seiya, Charles tells me, ‘is a very popular maker, one of the more commercial, but always a sign of quality. The attention to detail is extraordinary.’ Common subjects include animals such as tigers and bears, and human figures from all walks of life—woodcutters, scholars, young boys at play. Ranging upwards from a few thousand pounds, they are typically ‘table-top sized’, and are sought after by decorative buyers in the United States, Russia and China alike. Apart from a brief dip during the global financial crash of 2008, the market for high-quality bronzes has remained strong, with a recent increase in interest at the top of the range. ‘I’ve got a pair of bronze vases that are very good quality’, says Charles. ‘I love them because they revolve, which makes them different. Those are probably my favourite pieces I own currently, as far as the Meiji period is concerned.’ As Japan negotiated its global identity, cross-cultural currents flowed both in and out of the country. With art students newly able to study overseas, Emperor Meiji encouraged the promotion of Western artistic modes in Japan, most notably in the yoga style exemplified by painters such as Kuroda Seiki; this in turn prompted a reactionary neo-traditional Japanese style known as nihonga. At the same time, the impact of Japanese aesthetics on Western art—for which the nineteenth-century French critic Philippe Burty coined the term Japonisme—was enormous. From intricate enamelwork to the ukiyo-e prints of Hokusai and Kunisada, Japan’s influence resounds throughout the Art Nouveau movement, and in the work of Post-Impressionists including Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. A large Meiji period silk embroidery of a sea eagle, circa 1890, H: 73.75in W: 56in. Image courtesy of Wick Antiques. The Western craze for Japanese objects continued well into the twentieth century. ‘There were companies through to the 1900s and 1910s doing unbelievable silver and bronze metalware’, says Charles, ‘and even going into the Taisho period, the 1920s.’ Beyond bronzes, countless examples of wood-carving, lacquerware, ceramics and embroidery also stand testament to the era’s remarkable innovation and excellence. ‘Another beautiful thing from the Meiji period was the silk works’, Charles notes. ‘I’ve got one really fantastic one of a sea eagle. The workmanship is just breathtaking, all highlighted in gold thread: you can scarcely believe how somebody could make something so good. They just always seemed to do beautiful things well.’  

Antique wallpaper provides an insight into different layers of design history, and, with the skill of specialist restorers, it can live on. Cal Flyn Cal Flyn is a writer from the Highlands of Scotland. She writes literary nonfiction and long form journalism. Her first book, Thicker Than Water, was a Times book of the year. Her critically acclaimed second book, Islands of Abandonment—about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places—is out now. Wallpaper fragments rescued from New Lanark. Image courtesy of Allyson McDermott. Have you ever, while decorating, pulled away a fitted cupboard to find another era waiting underneath? An expanse of old wallpaper, perhaps, which has been hidden from view for many decades, or even better—the sheaved edges of every wallpaper that has graced these walls. This is the history of the house, taken corporeal form: layer upon layer of it, sometimes perfectly preserved. And invaluable insight into the tastes and mores of the past. In Britain, the first wallpapers were monochrome prints of pictorial scenes, or repeating floral patterns. They came in sheets a little smaller than today’s A2 printer paper, and were usually used inside cupboards in 16th century merchants’ houses. By the 17th century, these sheets had morphed into longer rolls of the kind we might recognise, and more complex repeating patterns and block printing techniques were in use. Vivid colours, intricate designs and flock textures soon came to the fore, and took pride of place in the grandest aristocratic houses. The introduction of machine printing in the 19th century meant that wallpaper became accessible to the masses; since then, we have cycled through many fashions, each iteration of wallpaper telling us something about the era, inspiring revivalist designs, and sometimes retaining significant resale value. In 2019, for example, Bonhams sold a set of 15 wallpaper panels reputedly removed from Moor Park, a Palladian mansion in Hertfordshire. Dating from between 1790 and 1810, these were prime examples of Chinese wallpaper of the sort that became extremely fashionable in aristocratic circles in the 18th century; at this time, every grand house in Europe would have had at least one ‘Chinese room’ decorated with these intricately hand painted sheets (or European-made ‘chinoiserie’ copies). Authentic Chinese wallpaper was so valuable that it was often removed and rehung in new rooms. The Moor Park Wallpapers featured mountainous landscapes, pagodas, and dragon boats, and were thought to have been removed from the walls when the house was sold and framed. The papers sold for £37,562. The Moor Park Wallpapers: One of a set of fifteen late 18th century Chinese wallpaper panels, sold for £37,562 inc. premium at Bonhams in November 2019. Image courtesy of Bonhams. That same year, Sotheby’s sold a similar suite of wallpaper panels dating from the same period. This suite of 24 panels, featuring watercolour birds flitting through a flowering forest of trees, were first procured for Spetchley Park near Worcester, but never used (“which explains,” the auction listing noted, “the undimmed freshness of the colours”). Initially valued at £50,000 to £100,000, they sold for £137,500. Retouching Chinese wallpaper from The Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Image courtesy of Allyson McDermott. Allyson McDermott, the historic wallpapers expert, had been asked to conduct conservation work on the Spetchley Park wallpapers ahead of the sale. McDermott specialises in complex restoration projects; previously she has undertaken wallpaper conservation at Buckingham Palace, Temple Newsam, and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, where the Chinese wallpaper of the saloon was removed with palette knives during renovation and rehung in its original position in Queen Victoria’s first floor bedroom. Antique wallpaper can be extremely difficult to conserve: the paper is often discoloured or bleached unevenly by sunlight. Adhesives can fail, or insects like silverfish might eat away at the surface. The sheets might be as thin as cigarette paper, or imbued with poisonous chemicals. (Scheele’s Green, an arsenic-based dye, was commonly used in 19th century wallpapers; in poor conditions it can produce toxic fumes.) Calling in the experts in such cases is critical.  “I do a lot of testing, and work under the microscope to understand how it’s been made and why it’s in the condition it’s in,” says McDermott. They might be affixed with water-soluble glues, and therefore loosened with moisture; others require solvents, or be removed with a backing layer and separated out later. “Historic wallpapers are very fragile. We very carefully separate it along the joins and lift each sheet off in one piece. It’s real heart-in-mouth stuff.” Every project is extraordinary, says McDermott: “everything from identifying a tiny fragment and recreating the design, to conserving an entire room of wallpaper. We’re separating layers from a house in London right now. It’s so exciting: you have a sandwich, which you slowly separate out. We’re finding paper dating back to the 1750s. One of the 1770s wallpapers is very, very bright: yellow and black—who would have guessed it?” McDermott regrets the recent fashion for muted palettes: “Grey, taupe and beige don’t work in Georgian houses. Colour was the thing: blues, greens, reds, yellows—the brighter the colour, the more expensive it was; it was a question of status.” Now her studio also produces a range of contemporary wallpapers based on historic designs, often extrapolated from fragments she has recovered. “So much craft and skill and talent went into 18th, 19th, early 20th century wallpaper,” she says. “You had to create the design, carve the blocks, know how to flock or gild… an enormous amount of knowledge and craft skill. A really good wallpaper stands alongside a work of art.” Far from ephemeral, the most skillfully designed wallpapers will live on for many centuries. Chinese wallpaper in Allyson McDermott’s studio. Image courtesy of Allyson McDermott.  

The enduring attraction of the plaster cast. Billy Jobling Billy Jobling is Senior Writer and Researcher in the Post-War and Contemporary Art department at Christie's, London. 19th century plaster bust of Nero, France, circa 1860, H: 57cm x W: 37cm x D: 22cm. Image courtesy of Vagabond Antiques. With the recent frenzy for NFTs, the art world’s long-standing authenticity obsession has arrived at a metaphysical extreme. An NFT, or non-fungible token, is effectively a contract that certifies the ownership of a digital artwork. While that artwork—be it Tweet, gif, jpeg or video—might be infinitely and identically reproduced online, the NFT is unique. It allows the collector to feel they own the original, stable and definitive work from which all others are derived, despite the fact that no such original materially exists. To own an NFT is to claim the elusive essence of the real thing. In the more tangible realm of sculpture, the line between original and copy seems clearer. An ancient Greek or Roman marble—an artwork often equated with the very word ‘antique’—is surely more valuable and important than a plaster cast of that same statue. The cast is not the real thing, and doesn’t carry the same history. Far from being soulless replicas, however, casts are often artistic creations in their own right. Not just more affordable and mobile than their marble counterparts, they also tell fascinating stories about our changing relationship with the past, and provide opportunities for playful and thought-provoking display. The plaster cast’s heyday was in the 19th century. While European society held classical and Renaissance art in high esteem, seeing its greatest glories in person—even as rail travel opened up the continent—was possible only for the privileged few who could afford a Grand Tour. Casts offered access to this cultural grandeur at home. They became coveted household ornaments, as well as tools for artistic education. In 1793, an atelier de moulage was established beneath the Louvre to supply the growing demand for casts from France’s prestigious Beaux-Arts academies. The studio still operates today in a large warehouse on the edge of Paris, and preserves its own artisanal traditions: a six-year apprenticeship is required to become a cast maker, and the creation of a large mould might take a year of work. French cast plaster architectural Ionic capital element, circa 1960. Image courtesy of Guinevere Antiques. A Victorian plaster section from the Parthenon frieze, attributed to D. Brucciani & Co, probably late 19th century, after the antique. Sold for £6,500 at Dreweatts in January 2021. Credit: Dreweatts 1759. A rare pair of busts from the studio of the Neoclassical master Antonio Canova recently sold for almost half a million dollars at Christie’s. They had been cast directly from Canova’s finished marbles during his lifetime, and their flawless surfaces indicated that they had not been used to produce further versions. More typically, a 19th-century cast after the antique might only set you back a few thousand pounds. Modern casts of those casts can create huge visual impact at relatively little cost, as demonstrated in the striking rooms of Aynhoe Park, which juxtaposed monumental plasters from a range of different eras. Casts likewise offer great freedoms in a museum context. A gallery of them can bring together sculptures from locations across the world whose side-by-side display would be otherwise impossible. The plaster Kore of Lyons in Cambridge’s Museum of Classical Archaeology reassembles a figure whose two halves are held in museums in France and Greece; its Peplos Kore, meanwhile, has been brightly painted in a speculative restoration that would be unthinkable with a true ancient artefact. Plaster cast and reconstruction of the Peplos Kore (circa 530 BC, now stands in the Akropolis Museum in Athens). In the Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology. Credit: Zde, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The Aynhoe Park auction featured a number of architectural casts, including one derived from a pilaster at Lincoln Cathedral. Such moulds, taken in-situ, harmlessly duplicate fixed elements without the need for their removal. If the 7th Earl of Elgin had used this method two centuries ago, the Parthenon might look very different today. Indeed, if casts had been made at that time, they could have recorded features of the marbles that have since been lost. The British Museum’s were overzealously cleaned in misguided attempts to restore them to ‘that state of purity and whiteness which they originally possessed’, scouring away significant surface detail; the parts of the frieze that remained in Athens have been damaged by air pollution and acid rain. This aspect of the cast—its ability to capture the state of an object prior to erosion, destruction or restoration—informs the work of the art conservation company Factum Arte, which uses pioneering 3D technologies to document at-risk monuments down to micron levels of accuracy. In 2013, they completed a facsimile of Tutankhamun’s tomb, whose fragile state of preservation is threatened by the flow of visitors. Historian Tom Holland was not impressed. ‘In our society there is a huge premium set on authenticity,’ he said at the time. ‘Clearly, were there not a difference between the original and a copy, it wouldn’t matter—you could make a replica and trash the original.’ Anyone who has seen the queue to view the Mona Lisa, or observed the heights of NFT mania, would have to agree. But reproductions have important roles to play, and we would be poorer without them. Today’s copy, after all, might be tomorrow’s real thing: many ancient Roman sculptures are replicas of much older Greek originals, long lost to the ravages of time.  

Why the sea is such a compelling subject. Lamorna Ash Lamorna Ash writes for The TLS and is the author of Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Town, shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2020. In my family home, we have three paintings of a particular stretch of Cornish coast – Porthkidney Beach, just across the sand dunes from where my mother grew up, in the village of Lelant. The paintings are incredibly simple: thin strips of pale sand half-swallowed by the rich blue of the sea and sky that together take up three-quarters of the canvas. The artist, John Miller, (1931-2002), spent most of his life in a cottage overlooking the estuary that divided Lelant from its neighbouring village, Hayle. Miller’s work has since become synonymous with idyllic Cornish summers, his paintings reproduced on postcards and posters thousands of times over. Thomas Whitcombe (1752-1824), ‘The Battle of Camperdown, 11th October’, 1797, oil. Rountree Tryon - A33. Why is it that some people feel they must keep images of the sea close to them? Perhaps this allegiance is related to where you grow up or choose to live out your years; perhaps it is less obvious, an ineffable part of the psyche connecting you to that mutable substance that lies between the land.  When I ask my mother what it means to have these artworks in her landlocked Wiltshire house, she tells me they are a way through to her youth: the place that matters most to her, where her grandmother, mother and now brother are buried in the small churchyard above the sea.  Bonhams is the only international auction house that retains its Marine Sale. This takes place twice a year – grand paintings of sea battles, nautical memorabilia and relics of naval history, all selling from several to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Sarah Reynolds, a maritime picture specialist at Christies, told me that, though they no longer have a separate maritime sale at Christies, the market remains stable and privately driven. In 2012, the contemporary maritime artist Jamie Medlin made a Christies’ auction record, with his photorealistic painting of J-class yachts on the Solent selling for £127,250.  And yet, in America, several gallery owners have suggested sales in maritime art are falling. Monique Foster, director of the Maritime Gallery in Connecticut, which recently folded as a result of the pandemic, suggested that, “Many of the big collectors aren’t buying more marine art, and their children don’t want it.”  It makes sense that tastes are changing. The maritime art on sale in prestigious galleries and auction houses tends to celebrate empire – Christies’ clients often have special interests in Napoleon or Nelson.  Charles Pears P.S.M.A. (1873-1958), ‘Needles by moonlight’, oil. Rountree Tryon - A33. Jamie Rountree, the director of Rountree Tryon Galleries, agreed that there has been a decline in sales of maritime art over the past thirty years. But, since 2009, he tells me, “there has actually been a small uplift in buyers.” A potential explanation for this is a number of clients moving from London flats to larger, countryside homes, “which suit a more old-fashioned look rather than contemporary art.” In the twentieth century, a new kind of maritime art emerged, its subject more explicitly personal. Rountree tells me that the “1930’s ‘look’” of graphic, poster-like paintings of the sea – produced by artists such as Norman Wilkinson and Charles Pears – is popular with his clients. As the writer Lily Le Brun, whose book Looking to Sea: Britain Through the Eyes of its Artists is to be published in 2022, explained, “Images of the sea are revealing not only of the time in which the artist lives, but of the personal, prosaic and philosophical concerns that weave an artwork into being.”  Dame Laura Knight RA (1877-1970), ‘Lamorna Cove’. Walker Galleries - A1. In the late nineteenth century, a group of painters formed an artist colony in the Cornish port town of Newlyn, attracted by the clarity of light, the potency of the sea and the simplicity of those who sailed upon it. Unlike the fishermen who became their chief subject, the painters of the Newlyn School, including Walter Langley, Stanhope Forbes and Laura Knight, were able to observe the sea from a safe distance, creating sombre portraits of fishwives praying for their husbands’ return to harbour and fishermen lamenting their lack of catch.  Alfred Wallis, (1855-1942), was first fisherman, then painter. He began his career as a mariner, sailing schooners between Penzance and Newfoundland, and later became a deep-sea fisherman, operating out of St Ives. It was only in the wake of his wife’s death in 1922, when Wallis was seventy, that his attention turned to painting. Like the ‘Ship Portrait’, one of the earliest forms of maritime art, most of Wallis’s paintings were of the ships he himself had worked upon, done on scraps of old cardboard with thick ship paint. He painted six days a week, his cottage soon filled with his artworks. Wallis’s work was championed as an example of ‘naïve art’ – art made by those without formal training, recognisable for its distorted scales and skewed perspectives. To view a Wallis painting is to feel like you are floating somewhere above the scene: the boats themselves dwarf the land, while cartoonish figures perch upon their decks. It is a world away from the remote, melancholic depictions of the sea and the men who work upon it envisioned by the Newlyn School artists. In a letter to the art collector H.S. Ede, Wallis wrote that he worked “out of my own Memery what we may never see again as Things are altered all to gether.” Painting allowed him to hold onto the past, while all around him the old boats he had known were being broken up in favour of mechanised trawlers. He painted the sea because it was all he knew, because what other subject could there possibly be for a man who had lived a life half on the water? Wallis and Miller’s devotion to their subject reminds me of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop, for whom the sea was equally a constant theme. In ‘At The Fishhouses’, she wrote “I have seen it over and over, the same sea”. The sea is an attractive subject because it both is and is not the same each time you turn again to face it. Perhaps this is what makes art pertaining to the sea so compelling; one experiences a sense of yearning while viewing them, feeling keenly that what we are seeing will never be the final word, will never be the same sea.

The magnetic nature of portrait miniatures, and the dealers fighting for their future. Billy Jobling Billy Jobling is Senior Writer and Researcher in the Post-War and Contemporary Art department at Christie's, London. Portrait miniatures are often found in eighteenth-century society paintings, but you wouldn’t know they’re there. What might be seen is a chain, on which a miniature was worn like a pocket watch. The portrait would be tucked under clothing, on the left, close to the heart; it faced inwards, so that nobody else could see it. Henry Pierce Bone, Louisa, Countess of Craven, 1836. Image courtesy of Elle Shushan ‘They’re really very different from large portraits that were meant to hang over the fireplace’, Elle Shushan explains. ‘That was your public self, and miniatures were your private self.’ A third-generation specialist – the Latter-Schlesinger Collection of portrait miniatures in the New Orleans Museum of Art belonged to her great-uncle, and later her aunt – Elle grew up with these objects. Today, based in Philadelphia, she is one of the world’s leading dealers in the field, and works with many prominent public and private collections. While the fashion for wearing miniatures may have peaked some two centuries ago, their intimacy still speaks powerfully to collectors. ‘They’re all personal,’ says Elle, ‘whether or not you even know who is pictured. Because unlike a larger portrait, you can only really view these by holding them. And if you’re holding something, it’s a personal object. They were never meant for public consumption – they were always meant for the eye of the recipient only.’ In 1785, the Prince of Wales – the future King George IV – sent his mistress, Maria Fitzherbert, a discreet love token: a picture of his right eye, painted on a tiny ivory panel. The pair wed in secret soon afterwards. George was said to wear a miniature of Maria’s eye in a locket wherever he went. An aristocratic fad ensued. Eye miniatures were later made to mourn George’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, who died in 1817. Dr David Skier and his wife, Nan, began acquiring these uncanny, jewel-like windows to the soul on a whim in the 1990s – Dr Skier is an ophthalmologist. They became hooked, and now house the world’s largest collection at their home in Birmingham, Alabama. Having already worked on a 2012 exhibition and accompanying catalogue of the Skier Collection, Elle is now deep into volume two, to be published in spring next year. John Downman, A.R.A. Portrait of a Lady, circa 1790. Image courtesy of Elle Shushan Such devoted collectors go to great lengths to obtain their miniatures, and rarely part with them. More casual buyers in America, however, have become cautious since the introduction of a draconian ivory ban in 2014. Under the new rules, no ivory of any age, under any circumstances, can be shipped in or out of the country. ‘This came out of left-field’, Elle tells me. ‘It was a presidential order – nobody knew it was coming. I got stuck with about seventy pieces in London that I can never bring home. I tried for a couple of years to keep two stocks, and to continue selling at Masterpiece, but it became just financially impossible.’ While state laws vary across America, there is an exemption for miniatures in New York, where an object can still be sold if it is more than a hundred years old and less than twenty percent ivory. ‘I made a presentation,’ says Elle, ‘and they actually used my wording: that ivory in miniatures is absolutely as thin as a piece of paper, and if it’s not translucent it doesn’t work for what you’re painting on ivory for. So in New York, although it’s a long, complicated, time-consuming process, they will give you licenses.’ In 2018, the UK introduced its own stringent Ivory Act, which has yet to come into force. Here, too, portrait miniatures from before 1918 will be exempt with the right certification. But the maximum proportion of ivory allowed in other objects – which must be pre-1947 – is just ten percent. Pre-1918 objects containing more ivory are permitted only if they meet the forbiddingly high standard of ‘museum quality’. Samuel Shelley, The Gaily children, 1804. Image courtesy of Elle Shushan ‘The de minimis rule is one thing that I really objected to’, says Alastair Gibson, who deals in Chinese ceramics and works of art. ‘I said that ten percent was far too low for worthy art objects, which could be wholly made of ivory. You won’t be able to sell, in theory, something like a beautiful Ming Dynasty figure of a Guanyin, even though it could be three or four hundred years old. The ban never made any sense, and it still doesn’t for those who are in the art business. It’s punitive.’ Alastair sees the ban as a knee jerk reaction to public sentiment, and as symptomatic of a diminished appreciation of art history. He was one of the directors of FACT – the Friends of Antique Cultural Treasures – who brought an action to fight the ban in the High Court. ‘It was interesting in the first hearing, when we took along a few objects’, Alastair says. ‘It was clear that anything that looked like a piece of ivory, the judge found it slightly abhorrent, and couldn’t really see the artistic value. But as soon as you showed him a portrait miniature, the face changed.’ The court rejected FACT’s appeal, and the Ivory Act is due to come into effect. Brexit and the pandemic, however, have pushed it low down the government’s agenda, where it may remain for some time yet. As for miniatures, Elle is hopeful that she can return to England next year for The Open Art Fair, to share these small wonders as she has for the past twenty-seven years. ‘There’s something absolutely hypnotic about opening a case, or opening the drawer of a tiny cabinet’, she says. ‘They’re new every time you look at them.’