Alongside the Lebanese painter Paul Guiragossian's figurative canvases Murmures (1963) and La Famille (1979) and Saliba Douaihy's 1970s chromatic abstract Untitled, the highlight of tonight's Christie's Dubai auction promises to be Mahmoud Said's monumental portrait La Négresse aux Bracelets.
“It contains everything a great painting should have,” says Haya Khayat, the director and head of sale at Christie’s Dubai. “The portrait of the woman is monumental, but you can see the beautiful sky of Egypt and the Mediterranean in the background, there are women walking in the street and it also contains a still life. I really think it’s a masterpiece and it deserves to achieve a great price.”
Christie's Dubai has placed an estimate on the painting of between US$200,000 and $250,000 (Dh734,544 to Dh918,178 ) and, although this may sound like a lot, it is, Khayat insists, great value for a painting with the pedigree and provenance of La Négresse aux Bracelets.
“The top estimate for our top lot is $250,000 versus a normal lot on New York which might cost $20 million so in that sense we are still very affordable,” she says. “First of all, this work is super rare because it came from the family and we’re not going to find another painting like it, and Said still holds the world record for the price achieved by any Arab artist whose work has been sold at auction.”
In 2010, Said's 1929 painting The Whirling Dervishes achieved a sale price of $2,546,500 in auction at Christie's Dubai over an estimate of $400,000, setting a world record price for the artist at auction and for any Arab work sold at auction.
nleech@thenational.ae
