Sale-rooms
The age of the stone
Alistair McAlpine
On 31 October Sotheby's in New York will have an unusually good sale of Tribal Art. These days sales of tribal art tend to be sales of tribal rubbish. Not so this one, which will offer several lots that can be regarded as masterpieces of the genre. Lot 135, a 'fine Easter Island Male Figure' about 17 inches high, is an emaciated fig- ure which comes with a good provenance and has been exhibited at the Carnegie Institute, which is just as well, for the esti- mate is $80,000 and the world of Primitive Art is no place for the unwary to speculate.
These days you can travel to the darkest regions of Africa and find a Sotheby's cata- logue in a mud hut. 'The locals' take a con- siderable interest in how the market for African art is moving. Primitive Art is mostly traditional — originality is not often found in the sweat of jungles and the dust of deserts. Wood ages with surprising rapidity and the art of carving is still very much in evidence.
Lot 149, 'an important aboriginal stone churinga from Mereenie Bluff Ranges Central Australia' is estimated to fetch $20,000 and is amongst the best of its kind. Churingas are sacred stones — the most sacred objects the aboriginal people have — which are kept in treasure houses and used only in the most secret of ceremonies. Some are immensely old, others quite new. This example is oval, extremely large, mea- suring 27 inches long, and is decorated with ree equally spaced parallel lines that run around it, and the whole of the rest of its surface is covered in Emu footprints. It is amazingly beautiful and simple and is accompanied by a letter from the Reverend F.W. Albrecht.
The only way these objects could come to the market is through theft because an Aboriginal would never have sold such a thing. And stealing of these objects has in the past 50 years become widespread due to the high prices they now fetch. When, as this one has, they become detached from their tribal owners, both the stone and the tribe lose their power. Their origins are so secret that it is almost impossible to reunite them with the people who own them, and whatever sum this stone fetches at Sothe- by's it will only be a fraction of its true value to the original owners. There is, how- ever, no explanation where this churinga comes from or how it comes to be in the sale. One word of warning: if you come across such an object in a junk shop and hope to make a pretty penny, these stones were often copied for display in museums. The copies are made of fibre glass mixed with ground stone and look and feel like the originals. To tell if they are original pierce them with a hot pin. If the pin pene- trates the churinga leave it alone, if it does not it is genuine. However take my advice, leave it alone for these stones carry curses and no good can come of owning them.
On 25 October, Christie's at South Kens- ington are selling fashion from the latter part of the 20th century. Included in the sale are clothes designed by Mary Quant, Jean Muir and Ossie Clark, together with the styles from Biba's Boutique and the shops started by Vivien Westwood and Katherine Hamnett. The estimates range from £40 – £400. Pucci evening dresses are estimated at £100, a very smart maxi dress by Jean Muir the same price — and what must surely be a very great bargain, Lot 28 a lady's suit in caramel mohair tweed by Chanel, at £400. I suspect that the lots in this sale will sell like the proverbial hot cakes.
On 4 November, Sotheby's are selling furnishings from Vienna. The Vienna of the turn of the century was a high point of design. Lot 54 is a chair by Koloman Moser. It is one of ten chairs made to this design and only the second one to be offered. Sotheby's suggest that this may be the last one to come on the market. I have heard that one before — rest assured there is always another one lurking somewhere just waiting for someone to spot it. Never- theless, this is a prince amongst chairs and will fetch a princely price — considerably more, I believe, than its estimated £70,000.
Sotheby's are also selling applied arts from 1880. Lot 339, a wrought iron fire grate by Diego Giacometti is expected to fetch £30,000. Diego Giacometti's work once fetched high prices but has fallen back of late due to a scandal in France that suggests that a number of the pieces on the market may not have been the work of his hands. This fire grate comes from the collection of the late Cecil Beaton so we `In the sixties I burned my bra. Of course, then I didn't need it.' can assume that it is genuine.
I have perhaps laboured the dangers of buying objects which are not quite what they seem. in the days of boom it didn't matter too much if the provenance of a piece was not impeccable. Goods changed hands very fast and the paper work fell into arrears. Today the market has slowed to a walk, provenance is all. Do not buy goods without proper authentication, for what is easy to buy on an assurance from a sale catalogue or a dealer, is hard, if not impos- sible, to sell with such an assurance on its own. The phrase 'I can always take it back' are these days only words and worth very little from a dealer strapped for cash.
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