London’s (very) Unaffordable Art Fair opens to public
The biggest arts and luxury goods fair since possibly the Great Exhibition opened to the public today.
Two days of celebrity previews and auctions had earlier drawn Mick Jagger, Giorgio Armani and Jasper Conran to the Masterpiece London event.
Today "ordinary" customers could wander around the fair's vast £5 million marquee on the Chelsea Barracks site.
The exhibition has attracted some of the world's top dealers to trade £1 billion of "the antique, the unique, the hard-to-find and the "to-die-for".
Masterpiece, which runs until Tuesday, is the idea of a professional group concerned that the recession and contemporary art's growing dominance threatens London's status as "the world's centre for decorative arts trading".
According to one of the founders, Thomas Woodham Smith, the aim is to reinvigorate the capital's luxury sector and take the fear out of shopping for fine art in the "intimidating" dealerships of Bond Street. "I think of this as a Thorpe Park of art," said Mr Woodham Smith, managing director of antique furniture dealers Malletts.
The £20 entry fee to what might be dubbed the "Unaffordable Art Fair" gives access to more world-class fine art and collectables than many museums can offer. One stand alone, representing Jermyn Street dealers Dickinsons, displays two Picassos, an entire wall of Renoirs and a £4.8 million Canaletto.
Similarly priced is a rare and flawless Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 from 1933, at £4.7 million. Next to it is the 1927 Bentley from the 1962 comedy The Fast Lady, available for a bargain £550,000.
The most jaw-droppingly decadent piece is a "rug" made of 26,649 rubies, diamonds, sapphires and emeralds and held together with 18-carat gold thread. The price runs to "several millions".
Another show-stopper is a gold-plated "chronophage" clock, at £2 million, while a first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses — of which only 750 were printed — has a tag of £95,000. The cheapest item on offer is a tiny 50ml "shot-sized" bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac, priced at a mere £250.
For Mr Woodham Smith, Masterpiece is the start of a fightback by the antiques world against modernism. "It can be cool buying old things," he said. "There are other ways to be cool than buying an Andy Warhol and a steel chair."
