On acquiring art

One of the pleasures when Ann and I ran our modest antiques stall in Clare was visiting the auctions and bidding for a miscellany of items. Books always seemed to do best, but art too generally sold well if not overpriced. Books were easiest to value, as they could usually be identified and dated online, and other copies might be for sale to suggest a retail price. Art, however, was much more tricky. Occasionally we got lucky; one picture, for instance, didn't strike immediately as impressive, and attracted little attention, then the auctioneer said, "Does no one want this fine example of Kiro?" My hand shot up and I secured a good picture for a few pounds which now hangs on our wall, though I admit I'd never heard of him. I think I was more sold on the auctioneer's speel.

Persian Market

On another occasion, we bought a large bundle of animal pictures in oil-on-canvas, again for a couple of pounds to save them from the auctioneer's bin. These were by a local artist, and I phoned her to say we'd just bought some of her pictures, and how much we liked them, though not mentioning I only bought them to resell. She said she had donated them to a charity shop to raise some money; the shop must have put them into the auction, where they didn't fetch much, but we priced them at £15 each; they were hugely popular and sold out within a few weeks. 

Another batch we bought as an assorted box; most were poor quality, but two caught my eye. The loupe clearly showed they were originals rather than prints, being opaque watercolour, ink and gold on silk; they looked like ancient Persian Art, so I had hopes that they were truly old and valuable. Edwin has a friend who is just starting to work in the British Museum art section. She wrote back with the incredible detail of a true professional, "Your artworks depict scenes in the manner of Persian/Safavid manuscript paintings, but the figures look noticeably different, particularly in their clothing and facial features.  It struck me though that in one of the artworks, three of the figures in the image are wearing the ‘taj’ - a cap with a tall, thin shaft that is seen in early Safavid paintings, during Shah Ismail’s reign (1501-1524), as the characteristic headdress of so many figures.  This continued during Shah Tahmāsp’s reign (1524-1576) with the addition of feathers.  But by the reign of Shah Abbas the Great (1587-1629), the headdresses lost the shaft, and the turbans became more elaborate.  So my guess is — the artist was trying to depict a Persian/Safavid scene and appropriated the Safavid 16th-century headdress."

Persian Camping Scene

She continues: "Tent and canopies, ornamented on the interior and exterior can be seen in 16th-century Safavid paintings.  A ravishingly idealised portrayal of a desert camp in a painting from a Haft Aurang by Jami demonstrates this point.  The complex pictorial structure is anchored by a half-dozen brilliantly decorated tents and canopies.   Reciting poetry during feasts, between hunts, was a favoured courtly entertainment." 

Alas, she concluded: "It is noteworthy that in 1555 the members of Shah Tahmasp’s court and his great amirs took an oath to renounce all acts forbidden in Islamic law.  The puritanical turn of the Shah’s mind also resulted in his releasing artists, musicians and poets from the court service.  Many of these artists, scribes and poets emigrated to India and served in the Mughal court. It is possible that the images in your artworks were produced by an artist in India who took inspiration from Persian manuscript paintings which were prized in India, particularly the Mughal emperors and members of their court in the 16th- and 17th- centuries." 

We have since discovered copies of prints on Google showing similar themes and compositions at modest prices, that probably were created in India. Our pictures seem to be low quality copies of copies, produced for the tourist market. Therefore our two, though still attractive and interesting, are unlikely to swell the inheritance sufficiently to add to the death duties.