Edward Gibbs is the chairman for Sotheby’s Middle East and India division, joining the auction house in 2003. The Briton has had a few incarnations in his career, most of which have been associated with art and the Islamic world. After studying western art, he had an epiphany following a visit to the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain and left his graduate trainee job at an auction house to learn more about the Muslim world. He went on to lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and participated in the mapping of the coastline of Abu Dhabi in the early to late 1990s. Based at Sotheby’s head office on New Bond Street, the 52-year-old currently visits the UAE three or four times a year, but that will increase with the opening of a permanent Sotheby’s base in Dubai International Financial Centre this year. The decision was made on the strength of metrics: clients from the Mena region have doubled over the past five years, with the value of what they spend tripling.
6.30am
My morning ritual is the most regular part of the day. If I’m at home in Highgate, I open the door on to our balcony, step outside and fill up my bird feeder. I have breakfast with my wife and two daughters, who are 17 and 14; they go off to school and I head off to the office.
9am
In the office, I turn on my computer and check my paper post.
9.30am
I might have breakfast with a client. Sotheby’s has a celebrated cafe restaurant which serves a wonderful truffled scrambled egg breakfast and very fine coffee. I often meet clients there for breakfast. If we have property in the department, objects or paintings to show, I then bring the client up to the department and show them what’s coming up for sale to whet their appetite. Some days I am out on a valuation, so I might be out of the office all day. I am not at my desk much actually. Much of my time is spent with clients.
1pm
Two or three times a week I meet a client for lunch and we will eat either in the Sotheby’s cafe or in one of the restaurants nearby. If I don’t have a lunch appointment, I will skip lunch. I sort of forget to eat. I am just so busy. There is a constant flurry of emails and telephone calls.
3pm
It’s more of the same: calls from clients, messages. “So and so called, can you call them back?” “There is a meeting at 3pm, can you come to it?” Objects come in and I have to look at them and research them. If someone comes to the counter (the public can receive valuations for their pieces from Sotheby’s specialists) one of my colleagues goes down, brings it up and shows me and I give them my opinion. One occasion that stands out came just after I joined Sotheby’s. A gentleman brought something into the counter. He said “I have a small knife I would like to show you.” It was a little pocket-sized knife, like a letter opener. I could see immediately it was very special. It had a handle made of lapis lazuli, that very intense ultramarine blue colour and flecked with silver and a little ruby at the end in a gold setting. The blade was also precious and decorated. He said: “It has been in my family. I took it to one of the dealers in the West End and they had offered me a few thousand pounds for it. I was tempted to accept that but I thought maybe I should bring it to Sotheby’s first”. I said: “I am so glad that you did because I think this is a very important early Ottoman dagger.” I think we had the estimate at about £80,000 (Dh358,100) to £120,000. It sold for £1 million.
7pm
One of the team will order pizza or Middle Eastern food. We work late, until 9pm or 10pm, and sometimes have dinner in the office if we are cataloguing. If for whatever reason I leave early, say I have a parent’s evening and I leave at 5pm or 6pm, I feel terribly guilty.
10pm
I arrive home. I get to see my teenage daughters who are doing their homework. We have an ongoing struggle to get them to bed. I typically go and stand on my balcony again. My wife and I have adopted a fox and her cubs who come regularly to our garden and they will join us for dinner. They get free range chicken. They have separate plates now because they were squabbling when they had one plate.
11.30pm
I try and be in bed. I might catch the news or watch Newsnight. But I normally regret watching television before I go to bed. I don’t sleep as well if I do.
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