Monday 18 February 2008

Worth a thought


Bonhams annual dog sale which included dog paintings, statues, fancy collars and other items fetched a total of $700,000. Top price was the $66,000 paid for a 19th-century John Emms oil painting of foxhounds and a terrier resting on a straw-covered bench. Two other paintings went for $57,000 each. Besides the paintings, the sales included a 19th-century life-size cast-iron black retriever for $10,200, a Victorian sewing cabinet decorated with hand-painted dog heads for $9,000 and a William IV silver and leather collar once worn by a champion Blenheim spaniel, for $3,900.
This must be worth looking into. According to Marion Kahan, exhibition manager for the Guggenheim Museum, “to invest wisely in art, you must have both good taste and a good business sense”. She says: “Investing in art is investing in your own aesthetic; you have to want to live with the artwork, but you also have to educate yourself on the business end. Also, be careful, because tax laws are constructed in a way where if you buy art as an investment, you cannot 'derive pleasure' from it. In other words, it can't hang in your home. Just lock it in a vault."
What else would you do with a Renoir which you have just bought for $30 million?

4 comments:

jmb said...

That is a goodly sum indeed. I would have loved to have seen the dog collar. I don't suppose there are so many antique ones around.

Flowerpot said...

Seems a shame though to spend all that money and not be able to appreciate it. Not something that is ever likely to happen to me mind you...

Whispering Walls said...

Well you probably wouldn't want to lend for display in a Swiss museum

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Exactly. I would want to look at it all the time!