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.