Re: The art world's biggest spender is 'placed under house arrest'

[ari...@mac.hush.com]

Alfred Kleine Beverborch wrote:
> The art world's biggest spender is 'placed under house arrest'
>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/13/wsaud13.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/13/ixnewstop.html
> (Filed: 13/03/2005)
>
> Sheikh Saud Al Thani spent a decade outbidding all-comers in the
> auction rooms. Now he has been sacked by his own cousin, the ruler of
> Qatar, writes Chris Hastings
>
> The world's biggest art collector, Sheikh Saud Al Thani of Qatar, who
> has spent hundreds of millions of pounds during the last decade
buying
> some of the most important works, has been placed under house arrest
> after being abruptly removed as head of his country's national
council
> for culture.
>
> According to a report today on the internet site of The Art
Newspaper,
> Sheikh Saud, whose collections include millions of pounds' worth of
> British art, has been held incommunicado since the end of February on
> the orders of his cousin, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa
> Al Thani, who has asked Qatari authorities to investigate his
cousin's
> acquisitions.
>
> News of his arrest has astonished the international art scene, where
> Sheikh Saud had a reputation for paying as much as 113 times the
> estimated price for items he particularly wanted. Apart from being a
> substantial private collector, Sheikh Saud had been given
> responsibility for using state funds to buy work for five new museums
> in Qatar, which has been trying to transform itself into the cultural
> capital of the Middle East.
>
> British friends and London-based dealers who have worked with Sheikh
> Saud insisted that he was the victim of a palace coup. One British
> dealer who has worked with him extensively and asked not to be named
> told The Telegraph last night: "There are a lot of people in
positions
> of power who don't like what he is trying to do."
>
> In recent years Sheikh Saud, who has homes in London, Paris and Doha,
> the Qatari capital, has spent millions of pounds of his own money
> realising his passion for Fabergé objects, photography, Art Deco
> furniture, specimens of natural history and penny-farthings. In his
> capacity as head of Qatar's national council for culture, he has also
> travelled the world buying Islamic art for public buildings,
including
> the five museums under construction in Doha.
>
> Qatar, which is now one of the wealthiest states in the Arab world
> following the recent discovery of vast offshore oil and gas reserves,
> is determined to transform its cultural role in the Arab world.
Sheikh
> Saud, who would sometimes spend tens of millions of pounds on a
single
> item, was fêted by galleries and auction houses and given
unrestricted
> access to the storerooms of the world's great collections. His
success
> was founded on his ability to outbid rivals.
>
> But his determination to buy the very best occasionally set him on
> collision course with authorities in Britain. Last year he bought the
> Clive of India treasure, a Mogul jade flask studded with rubies and
> emeralds, for £3 million at Christie's. The sale of the flask, which
> had been on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum since 1963,
shocked
> the art scene in Britain.
>
> The Government responded by deferring an export licence so that the
> V&A might launch a campaign to raise matching funds. The museum
> secured a £400,000 grant from the National Art Collections Fund and
> was preparing to submit an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund
> when Sheikh Saud informed the reviewing committee on the export of
> works of art that he was withdrawing his request for an export
> licence. The flask is understood still to be in Britain.
>
> It was not the first time that the Government had been forced to
> respond to one of Sheikh Saud's purchases. In 2002 it tried
> unsuccessfully to prevent the export of The Jenkins Venus, a Roman
> marble statue from Newby Hall near Ripon, North Yorks. Sheikh Saud
> bought it for £7,926,650 - the highest price paid at auction for any
> antiquity. The statue was eventually shipped to Qatar.
>
> At Christie's last April, agents for Sheikh Saud astonished the art
> world when he bought a Mogul agate-and-garnet fly whisk for
£901,250,
> 113 times its £8,000 estimate.
>
> A number of British dealers who have worked with the sheikh have been
> asked by the Qatari authorities to send records of any transaction.
It
> is not clear, however, whether the request was directly related to an
> investigation cited by theartnewspaper.com or whether it was part of
> routine accounting.
>
> Married with three children, Sheikh Saud is passionate about wildlife
> and has turned his home at Al Wabra, outside Doha, into a
conservation
> centre.
>
> One acquaintance described the sheikh as "something out of a Ronald
> Firbank novel".
>
> "He is effete, decadent and a compulsive collector," the friend said.
> "He once said to me, 'I feel ill when I am in a museum'. When I asked
> why, he said, 'I want to buy it all. That's why I feel ill' ."
>
> Last month dealers in London and Paris who have sold work to the
> sheikh received a fax from the authorities in Qatar. It stated,
> without explanation: "Sheikh Saud Al Thani is no longer the chairman
> of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage of the state
of
> Qatar. Accordingly, he no longer has the authority to engage or make
> commitments on [its behalf]." The statement was signed by the
> organisation's new chairman, Dr Mohammed Abdulraheem Kafoud.
>
> Sheikh Saud could not be contacted at his London office last week and
> did not respond to an email sent to his family estate at Al Wabra.
> Qatar's National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage did not
> respond to a series of faxes sent by The Sunday Telegraph and no one
> at the Qatari Embassy in London was available for comment.

Interesting. I hadn't heard of him but Qatar does seem to
be in some kind of upheaval. A friend of mine worked there
for some years and enjoyed it. Since Qatar created al-Jazeera
it has perhaps gone rather wrong.

I don't share the British wish to keep mementoes of
Clive.