Georgina Adam has the details on the buyers in the Emirates:
Bonhams went first with a sale of photography and Orientalist art – with varying results, the photography doing better than the 19th-century paintings; its top lot, Rudolf Ernst’s “After Prayers” made $456,000, just within estimate, but a punishing 60 per cent was left on the block. Christie’s on the other hand celebrated raising almost $8m (the target, before commissions, was $5m-$6m) on Tuesday for its sale of modern and contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish art, with some strong prices set for Egyptian and Saudi Arabian artists. The Egyptian Abdul Al-Gazzar scored well with $746,500 for “Fishing” (1957; est. $250,000-$350,000), which was probably bought by the Mathaf museum in Doha; the same paddle number bought another five works. But the lion’s share of the sale seems to have gone to the Dubai-based collector Dr Farhad Farjam, whose adviser dropped a cool $2m, scooping up 18 items, including the top lot, “The Message/Messenger” (2010), a huge wood and copper dome symbolising the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem by the Saudi painter Abdulnasser Gharam, which went for $842,500.
The Art Market: Bad Apples and Big Bucks (Financial Times)
