Egyptian art claims Islamic sale’s top spot and traders face stricter rules on ivory sales

Traders face stricter rules on ivory sales

The trade in antique ivory works of art is about to be severely curtailed, according to government proposals. Only portrait miniatures over 100 years old, items with no more than 10 per cent ivory content, pre-1975 musical instruments with less than 20 per cent ivory content, and the rarest and most important works of art of their type will escape the ban.

Trade representatives have only a matter of months to plead for less stringent restrictions before the new legislation will be enacted. This signals victory for Non Political Organisations like Tusk which have exerted pressure from the outset for a total ban, however distanced an antique ornament may appear to be from the slaughter of elephants today.

But whether the antiques trade was right to seek exemptions from a total ban, instead of focussing on better control of the trade of fake antique ivory, which is the key support stone for the ban on antiques, remains questionable.

Egyptian art hottest in Islamic week

This week is Islamic art sales week in London – always a ravishing display of art and artefacts from the Middle East.

Kicking off early, last week Bonhams staged a sale of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art, which celebrated the 110th anniversary of the founding of the Cairo Faculty of Fine Arts, where students were taught European methods of figure, landscape and still life painting using oils, pastel and watercolours, and clay for modelling sculpture by European artists.

The most expensive pieces of art ever sold

It was, says Dr Youssef Kamel, “a point of awakening” for Egyptian art. It was the Egyptian art in the sale that most awakened the interest of bidders, claiming nine of the top 10 lots, including three record prices.

Perhaps the most extraordinary of these was a 1943 painting, Surrealist Woman, by Fouad Kamel, an artist associated with the international Art and Liberty movement, which protested against Fascism.

Estimated at ￡20,000, it triggered the sale’s longest bidding battle before selling to Dubai’s Meem Gallery for ￡218,750. Overall, though, the sale felt flat with more than half the lots from Iraq, Iran and Syria going unsold. A more complete picture of this market should emerge after Sotheby’s comparable sale today.