Raden Saleh paintings to be auctioned in S'pore

Raden Saleh paintings to be auctioned in S'pore

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The boom in Indonesian art seems far from over.
At the end of the month, four works by Raden Saleh will be
auctioned in Singapore. Sotheby's will feature a painting of
Fighting Animals (ca. 1850), depicting a pair of lions fighting a
pair of tigers over a horse for an estimate of between S$420,000
and $480,000. The second one is a landscape of the Dieng Plateau
(1972) at an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000.

Christie's, on the other hand, is presenting another of the
19th century Indonesian master's paintings of lions, namely Lions
and a Snake Fighting outside a Grotto in a Tropical Landscape
(1839). Although this painting appears very caricatural and less
sophisticated compared to the other lion painting, its estimate
is much higher, between $800,000 and $1,200,000, due to its
larger size. The fourth painting is The Watermill, a pastoral
European landscape. It is estimated at a modest $100,000 to
$150,000 because its European subject matter is not so popular in
Southeast Asia.

The Sotheby's catalog, which became available at the end of
last week, showed some paintings that have appeared in previous
auctions. A double-sided drawing of a male nude by Rudolph
Bonnet, $2,500 to $3,000, was offered at the Glerum May 1995
auction in the Netherlands for NG3,500 to NG4,500. Theo Meier's
Nude by a Pond (1950), $18,000 to $22,000, was offered at
Glerum's June 1996 Singapore auction for $30,000 to $40,000. A
painting of a young woman by Basoeki Abdullah, which appeared in
last year's Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation auction in Jakarta
for a minimum price of Rp 47 million, is being offered for
$18,000 to $20,000. Judging from the lower estimates in this
sale, it is clear that the paintings failed to sell in the
previous auctions. It seems that the sellers are lowering the
price of the paintings with hopes of being more successful in the
upcoming auction.

There are also some paintings which were offered at previous
auctions for higher prices. A portrait of a European woman,
Barbara (1975), was offered for NG5,000 to $7,000 at Glerum's
October 1992 auction in the Netherlands. It is unclear whether
this painting was sold in that auction, but in this auction it is
offered for between S$10,000 and $15,000, approximately twice the
initial offering price.

The most interesting painting is a luminous landscape by
Walter Spies. The painting was first offered at the Glerum June
1994 auction in the Netherlands for an estimate of NG180,000 to
NG220,000, and sold for a hammer price of NG400,000. Now the
painting is being offered again at Sotheby's, and the estimate is
only available upon request. This will certainly be one of the
highlights at the auctions at the end of the month.

The reappearance of paintings from previous auctions indicates
that despite the fact that the art boom is still going on,
auction houses are starting to run short of supply. "It clearly
means that the supply is diminishing," exclaimed a prominent
collector from Central Java.

There is no doubt that the supply is diminishing. However, the
fact that three international auction houses are capitalizing on
the Southeast Asian market, each holding two auctions a year,
certainly makes the situation worse.

According to some sources, there is even a plan to have three
auctions all at once this month, Sotheby's on Saturday morning,
March, 29, followed by Glerum the same evening, and Christie's
the following morning.

However, the plan would obviously saturate the market.
"Imagine 500 paintings in one auction!" said a representative of
an auction house. Three auctions at one time would be too much.

Christie's has held auctions of Southeast Asian paintings in
Singapore since 1994. Starting last year, the auction house
Glerum entered the regional market by holding its first auction
in Singapore in June. In October, Sotheby's followed suit by
holding its first auction in the region, exactly the day before
Christie's second auction in Singapore that year. Glerum closed
the auction year with their second auction in December.

Last year's October auctions in Singapore, where over 300
paintings were auctioned by Sotheby's and Christie's on two
consecutive days, seemed to have exhausted collectors' stamina as
well as funds. Three auctions at one time certainly would cause
at least one auction house, or even all three, to suffer.

The competition among the three companies seemed to be
complicated by the news that R.O.B. Mulder, Sotheby's auction
master in their Singapore sale last October, left Sotheby's, and
joined Glerum Auctioneers. Meanwhile, Miety T. Heiden, previously
Glerum's expert in Southeast Asian art, joined Sotheby's.

Completely unrelated to the departure of Mulder, Sotheby's is
becoming a target of a couple of exposes. Major scandals
involving the auction house are revealed in the newly published
Sotheby's Inside Story by Peter Watson, while Robert Lacey's
Sotheby's: Bidding for Class is expected to appear next year.

It is perhaps time for young talented professionals from the
region to emerge and take on positions which have traditionally
been held exclusively by Europeans or those of European descent.

The shake-up at Sotheby's will apparently make way for Quek
Chin Yeow, a director at Sotheby's and Sotheby's expert in
Southeast Asian Art, to replace Mulder's decorated position as
auction master. This young Singaporean was auctioneer for a
number of charity events in the region, including a record-
breaking sale of Wu Guanzhong's works in Jakarta last October.

He was also instrumental in placing a painting by Hendra
Gunawan on the cover of Sotheby's October sale in Singapore.
Traditionally, auction houses have only dared to present
paintings by European masters, which have been dubbed as
"Beautiful Indies" images by the pioneer of modern Indonesian
painting, S. Sudjojono, on their catalogs of Southeast Asian
paintings. The only exception was a traditional Balinese painting
which was featured on a Christie's Amsterdam auction catalog.

Sotheby's Amsterdam auction catalog last year featured a
portrait of a European girl by Raden Saleh. Its level of
commitment to the promotion of Indonesian painting seems to be
indicated by their decision to feature the Raden Saleh and the
Hendra Gunawan on their catalog covers. They have also included
more works by Indonesian artists compared to the other auction
houses. In the upcoming auction they will feature an impressive
work by I Wayan Cahya, a little-known young Indonesian painter
who studied at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) Yogyakarta.
Hopefully, Quek will further influence Sotheby's commitment to
promoting Indonesian art by featuring more high quality
contemporary Indonesian paintings.

A close observer of the Indonesian art market disagrees.
"Promoting contemporary art should be done by the galleries.
Auction houses should avoid taking business from galleries," she
said.

However, whether the activities of auction houses are hurting
the businesses of galleries still needs to be proven. If
anything, auctions have become the best indicator of market
prices of art. Now, art dealers and buyers alike gauge Indonesian
painting prices based on auction results.

If Christie's, Sotheby's and Glerum would like to see long
term development of the regional art market, they need to make a
commitment to nurture professionalism in the region. They should
abandon the prejudiced approaches they have employed in the past
in judging the authenticity and legality of art works and learn
to respect the judgment of regional experts about art, especially
since far too many fakes and questionable paintings from various
parts of the world have appeared on the market. It is no longer
wise to think that paintings which come from Europe are less
likely to be fake, as some experts of these auction houses have
suggested. There are forgers around the world, and new booming
art markets where scholarship of the art is still in its infancy
seem to be the prime target for their products.