Illegally framed

ANTIQUARY

When it comes to collecting, or collections, despite the interest in cars or statuary or carpets and the like, for most, the assumption still reflects an interest in art. And given the money that goes into building collections of paintings, it is hardly unfair.

Yet, despite the media being saturated by the page three shenanigans of contemporary artists, and critics' efforts to make modern art understandable to the masses, the true dimensions of antique painting remain largely unexplored.

Mostly, this has to do with the unusual situation of the market being governed almost totally by the cash mafia.

Antiques are part of the grey market in India, and though it may seem unlikely on the face of it, there's more trafficking in the secondary market (gallerists may deny this) than in the primary market.

This is truer still of old paintings because, like most treasures in India, these are not registered. Any sales, therefore, have to be hush-hush deals.

The spread of the market is huge "" visual art, after all, was also a form of communication till about a century ago.

Paintings then were used to suggest high office by way of portraits "" something the British dealt with superbly "" while the centuries before their reign were used to develop paintings as folios for painted manuscripts.

No matter the number of paintings that may have been ravaged by time, exported home from India by the British, smuggled out for sale by former owners, or lying in government collections, there's a much larger number that's out in the market and, unlike hauls of sculpture that are continuously reported being smuggled out of the country, almost no evidence about curbing the trade in paintings outside the country has ever come to light.

Some institutions have been criticised for selling antique, unregistered or smuggled Indian art, but no attempt has been undertaken to establish the size of what is an ample market for antique art in the country.

Now, it need hardly be said that if you're in the market for antique art, it is through the grey market that you'll probably end up looking up sources "" whether dubious or established.

And unless you're a master, chances of fakes being passed off (supported by cooked-up evidence and documents) are very, very high.

Where, for example, is information available on Oriental oils, paintings undertaken on commissions by visiting artists from the Continent, whose body of work on India was substantial?

Or, for that matter, on artists whose works were purchased in the Continent and imported to India to grace the homes of Indian and British nobles, aristocracy and senior officials?

In a country hooked to the hyped tableau of the Tagores, or Raja Ravi Verma and, later, Amrita Shergill, where is information on Knowles or Bryce or even Mueller?

As for the commissioned manuscripts of Mughal, Deccani and various Rajput kingdoms, scattered examples from their ateliers may still be found, but how do you authenticate them?

In the case of registered works, you can seek the help of authentication experts at the National Gallery of Modern Art, or the National Museum or, perhaps, even private gallerists.

But should the work be unregistered, the sanctity of the information may be suspect, or biased, leading to sales of lesser if not fake works. The risk you run is, therefore, very high since there is then no post-sale redressal mode open to you.

Also open to question in the absence of authentication is pricing. This often tends to be arbitrary, the prices often influenced by the seller based on information available from overseas, rather than its true representation in India.

Collectors like to show off their works, and therefore, in the absence of the limited fare available through what can be termed legal channels, there is a problem in being able to open display your art or "" in terms of important purchases "" being able to loan them for retrospectives, museum showings internationally, or as representative of an artist's body of work.

More seriously, as the market matures, it will lead to more serious implications: how do you insure a work of art that does not exist legally?

There are no easy solutions to this. In time, either the government will have to address the situation with regard to antiques more practically, to ensure rare treasures are not lost to greedy collectors in the West, or risk an explosion in the grey market that will continue to dupe genuine buyers of acquiring important works in their "" and the country's "" collection.