Dubai art market rebounds with Dh51m sale

A Dubai sale for auction house Christie’s set a new record for a Middle Eastern artwork, while fetching $14,043,00 or about Dh51.5 million on Tuesday, more than double presale estimates of $6.7m – a clear indication that the Middle East’s appetite for art has recovered.

In total, the auctioneer’s art sales for the year have crossed $29 million, about 117 per cent over 2009 numbers.

Christie’s will hold another sale of jewellery and watches on Wednesday. It said earlier it expected revenues from its October sales to cross $20m.

Sixty per cent of buyers at Tuesday’s sale came from the Middle East, with 28 per cent from Europe and 10 per cent from the Americas, the house said in a statement. A healthy 84 per cent of lots on auction were sold, or about 94 per cent when measured in value terms.

Michael Jeha, Managing Director of Christie’s in the Middle East, said the results showed how the market has changed in the four years the house has been operating in the region. “Pictures for this sale were consigned from 15 different countries and, as a measure of the international interest in Middle Eastern art, they have been dispersed among buyers from 18 different countries. It is this diversity of consigning and buying that has helped to develop this market so quickly, transforming from a local to a regional and global force in just four years. ”

Whirling Dervishes, a 1929 work by Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said, set a world record for Middle Eastern art. Selling for $2,546,500, it is most expensive Middle Eastern painting ever sold.

The painting was one of 30 pieces from the Dr Mohammed Said Farsi collection, all of which were sold. The work surpassed the April world auction record for the artist, also set in Dubai, by $100,000. The final part of the Farsi collection to come to auction, a group of 40 works by Egyptian artists, will be offered at Christie’s in Paris on November 9.

Among the other highlights was Banquet, an oil triptych by Iranian artist Mohammed Ehsai, which sold for nearly double its estimate at $662,500, while 36-year-old Afshin Pirhashemi’s Seduction, exploring the complexities of life in contemporary Iran, reached $518,500, four times its top estimate and marking the artist out as someone to watch and perhaps invest in.

Art from the Levant also did well, with eight works by the Syrian artist Fateh Moudarres setting a new world record for the artist and going for $374,500, while Claire Obscure, a piece by Lebanon’s Paul Guiragossian, also broke auction records for the artist. One Turkish art record was also set, for a panoramic view of Istanbul by Devrim Erbil, which fetched $116,500.

“The sale achieved $7.3 million over our pre-sale expectations and saw record numbers of clients registering to bid, with nearly 200 registrants from 23 countries,” said Jussi Pylkkänen, President of Christie’s Middle East and Europe. A packed saleroom, a team of 20 Christie’s staff manning the telephones and internet bidding from around the world, helped to make tonight’s auction both successful and hugely memorable.”

Christie’s Dubai October season concludes Wednesday evening, with a sale of jewellery and watches.

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