Economic turmoil, however, can produce some extraordinary opportunities for purchasing art. One of the greatest art deals of all time resulted in a truly majestic addition to Australia’s cultural heritage during the big one, the Great Depression.
That was the purchase by the National Gallery of Victoria of The Banquet of Cleopatra by the great Italian rococo painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, which was made at the height of the Great Depression in 1934 for £25,000 sterling or £31,375 Australian pounds. It involved an Australian embassy civil servant carrying one great pile of cash in small currency in a suitcase across Trafalgar Square to the offices of the Bolshevik Revolution in London.
Russia was running out of funds to finance its communist revolution and was selling off some of the art treasure of the Hermitage in St Petersburg. When the news broke. Russian emigres protested vigorously but the ugly side of Russian communism was not yet widely apparent in the West. Many Western intellectuals embraced it. The sumptuous work was also an antidote to the hard times – akin to Busby Berkeley’s extravaganza in film.
Institutions might be well advised to martial their funds as similar opportunities are not inconceivable if, as a few economists say the world economy lurches in the direction of its big debt bubble bursting.
But there doubtless will be some sales which will have the big auctioneers licking their lips. Debt, death and divorce are three big drivers to the art and antiques market. Circumstances now are very different with the present pandemic running in tandem with the downturn, instead of running years ahead of the financial downturn.
Think of the great years we have enjoyed as BC - that is Before Covid-19 as we now enter the years of decline or downturn… AD or After the Downturn. The history of the Australiana market was once divided into BC and AD after the initials of the punter who made those years interesting by way of his ambitious purchases and sales. Those years were before dealer Donald Cornes, and the years after.
In several big ways the market will be very different – possibly a little quieter than it was in the last serious burst of turmoil in current memory - in the 1990s when we had “the recession we had to have”. Almost all the corporate collections were dispersed with many pieces finding a permanent home in art museums and therefore never to come on to the market again.
Just before the Great Depression in the 1930s Australian institutional funds were exhausted by purchases of the artist George Washington Lambert's estate. Lambert was a much-loved figure and for nearly 10 years was the successor to Arthur Streeton as the star of the Australian art market. Lambert coincidentally died in 1934 which was the same year as the Bolshevik deal. Lambert, who had nothing to do with the deal of course, was born in St Petersburg.
The prime consideration weighing down on the purchase of any art during the Depression was that it was a SIN do so.
This was expressed perfectly by a writer to a newspaper in the days when the most effective use of social media was through letters to newspaper editors.
An artist who called herself "Cobalt Blue" wrote in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald (Plight of the Painter, July 30 1934), of “. . . an error, an insidious evil, which was causing grave distress to all artists.” She added that "the error was the growing popular belief that the buying of pictures was a wild extravagance, something absolutely inexcusable; that there is righteousness in refraining from all such purchasing and no necessity to go beyond mere verbal appreciation of art if indeed to go so far.”
“Exhibitions of excellent work are being held weekly but the sales are almost nil. It is not that there is no money available for picture buying because other so called luxury caterers cannot cope with the demand for their goods The public does not understand or it has become indifferent to the fact that the painting of good pictures is an expression of a nation's soul."
In another letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald (Nov. 20 1930) a woman who signed herself “Unemployed Lady Artist” wrote: “A lot had been heard of public bodies helping the unemployed in the trade and the professions but nothing about helping the artists. A friend had advertised for an unemployed lady artist and had over 200 replies."
In yet another letter written to the editor of the Bulletin magazine (June 28, 1933) the writer wanted to know why a watercolour by J. J. Hilder, which had cost £4.5s, soared to a market value of £100 but was now worth less than the purchase price.
At the first art sales in Australia in the 1930s most of the action was in Australian art not the overseas works. Vendors held on to the Australian art because it was unpatriotic to sell.
Howeveer, on the very eve of the Depression in 1929 when in the “Sale of Pictures” for Melbourne merchant James Dyer of "Kingbull" of Toorak pointed the way, the rise in value of Australian paintings was still being noted. Bidding was “not so keen for the examples of Continental paintings …as for Australian.” (SMH Oct. 17 1929).
Offered in James Lawson's rooms, the highest price bid was for a work by 19th century Italian artist Professor R. Moretti, Wine and Song which was bid to 100 guineas but failed to sell and was passed in.
The Australian Art Sales Digest lists 52 offerings of works by Raffaele Moretti, but these have rarely been of interest to serious collectors. The most recent was Cardinal's Entertainment, coincidentally also offered at Lawson's in February this year, estimated at $1,500-2,500 and also passed in. I suspect the subject is unlikely to make a fast come-back.
