The Art Market - October 2011

Editor note: Dealers and auction houses are spinning but the world economy slowdown has impacted even the very wealthy who have less cash to buy art. In China there are funds that still see art as an investment; however, many gallery owners are being cautious in their plans to cater to this market. In short after reading all of this it's clear that nobody really knows where art is going for the next few years. There are certainly forces that see the upcoming months as an opportunity and not a disaster.

1. London. Once again, Frieze Art Fair opens its tent amid global economic uncertainty. The contemporary art fair faces the now familiar pressure of being the market’s first test of health following a summer of discontent. While it isn’t quite the dramatic downturn of 2008, the risk of recession in Europe and a serious slump in the US are unappealing realities. And now there’s a new
problem: a slowdown in China, the country that has been powering the global economy—and propping up confidence in the art market—for the past few years. “Evidence is building [that] the art market could pause… [Wall] Street is discussing a China hard landing,” says David Schick, a market analyst with the US investment bank Stifel Nicolaus.

Cooling the craze
So, what now? The dealers congregating in the tent this week are keeping their chins up. Those with plans in Asia say that these are still on track (although little has progressed). “It’s a new economy that we’re all trying to understand,” says David Maupin of Lehmann Maupin gallery, which is planning a pop-up space in Singapore. Those in China say that, while confidence is still high, a cooling of the contemporary craze may not be such a bad thing. “People don’t want to slow it down, but it’s arguably moving too fast,” says Lu Jie of Beijing’s Long March Space (E20). “There are too many people who think of art just as an investment,” he says (there are believed to be nearly 40 art investment funds in China).Others accept that times are tough, but say China should be approached with a long-term game-plan. “The reality is more exciting than the hype. There is huge potential but it is going to take time and effort to build relationships,” says Magnus Renfrew, the director of Art HK. David Roberts, the property developer and ­contemporary art collector, says: “While China may take a dip in the short term, it will potentially be a huge market in the future. [The galleries opening in Hong Kong] are shrewd operators.”The art economist Clare McAndrew can also see advantages of a slowdown in
China. “The government will be looking to get people to spend more to help sustain growth. There is only a very small handful of rich Chinese buying art —but bring on the new middle class,” she says.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world remains the immediate cause for concern. “We have a global outlook but our footprint is in the US, so we’re more worried about that economy,” says Courtney Plummer of Lehmann Maupin. ArtTactic’s latest market confidence report, released on Monday, showed a
55% fall in confidence since June and a negative outlook for the US and European contemporary art markets for the first time since autumn 2009. But, says Plummer, “the great thing is that Frieze kick-starts the season”.Amanda Sharp, co-director of Frieze, said yesterday: “We have been blessed
with good weather and there are great shows in the museums, so it feels like the right ingredients are in place.” With art worth an estimated £225m on sale at the fair and a potential total of £110m coming to auction in London this week, many others are hoping the same.
2. Art market jitters over financial turmoil
Nervous investors have rushed to safety in gold and the Swiss franc but art looks more volatile
By Melanie Gerlis | From issue 227, September 2011 Published online 12 Sep 11 (News)
• Is art still a safe bet for investors?
 Fears are growing about the potential impact of this summer’s renewed global economic turmoil on the art market. The 2008 financial crisis sharply hit art sales across all sectors, but the market bounced back quicker than many others, particularly for blue-chip works. At issue now are two ­diverging
premises: that art is a luxury brand, as sensitive to stock markets as high-end fashion and first-class flights (this is the view of those looking at the art market from the outside); or that it represents a safe investment, sought after in troubled times much like gold and the Swiss franc (the view of those with more vested interests). Dark clouds Since art market professionals went on their summer break, the widening European sovereign debt crises and Standard & Poor’s downgraded opinion of the US debt triggered fears of a “double dip” recession, which saw stock  markets fall worldwide.The wealthy, especially in cities such as London and New York which rely heavily on their ­financial centres, all now have less to spend. The hedge fund SAC Capital, run by the art collector Steve Cohen, was down 4% for the first week of August alone. In the luxury goods sector in Europe, share prices are down ­between 15% and 30%. “We see significant potential downside if the crisis mimics 2008,” said
Julian Easthope, a research analyst at Barclays Capital in London. He looks closely at stocks, including France’s PPR, founded by Christie’s owner François Pinault.
Sotheby’s stock has certainly felt the pinch: since 7 July, it has lost 37% of its value (falling from $47.8 to under $30, as we went to press), wiping over $1.2 billion off the value of the company. This reduces the money available to it at a time when competition with Christie’s is already eating into its profits. In the fight for the best works, both auction houses need to offer increasingly attractive terms to consignors, which is reducing Sotheby’s profit ­margins (see p59).Safe as houses?
Others say that some of the lessons learned since the 2008 ­financial crisis are reasons to be more confident in the art market. “There was much more of a shock when the banks started collapsing. Then the [art] market reconfigured as the rain washed out some of the speculators and short-term engagers,” said art advisor Allan Schwartzman. “What has been validated in the last few rounds of uncertainty is that art is a genuine form of capital,” he added, comparing it to traditionally safer investments such as gold. This, he said, is reinforced by the near-zero interest rates in the US.In a reaction to the financial crises, gold has hit a new record price, nearing $1,830 an ounce as we went to press, with silver and other precious metals up in concert. The Swiss franc, seen as one of the most reliable currencies,
reached an exchange rate high of $1.28 and nearly equalled the ­euro for the first time. All agree, however, that one key factor underpinning the ­potential health of the art market is whether or not the emerging economies, such as China, could pick up any slack should the more traditional markets falter.
Bets on China. The major commercial players are certainly banking on the potential: Sotheby’s chief executive Bill Ruprecht said on the auction house’s most recent conference call to Wall Street analysts that it was cutting back investment in Europe in favour of initiatives in China (see p59). White Cube has become the latest big-name western gallery to open in Hong Kong, its first overseas venture.
But on 9 August, the day after stock markets in Europe and the US collapsed, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell nearly 6% with other Asian stocks (most notably in South Korea). Many economic commentators are also concerned about China’s unsustainable trade surplus. “If there is a market dislocation as in 2008, even sectors of the art economy driven by relatively healthy economies such as China and Brazil could be impacted. But the emphasis is on the severity of a downturn,” said Artvest’s Michael Plummer.

3.Lacklustre mood at Sotheby’s - The Art Newspaper
Most lots sold for under or around low estimates By Melanie Gerlis | From Frieze daily edition, 14 Oct 11Published online 14 Oct 11 London. Credit must be given to Sotheby’s (and its fast-paced auctioneer  Oliver Barker) who managed to sell an uneven selection of works at last night’s
contemporary art sale.  The mood was lacklustre as most of the lots sold for under or around their low
estimates, after bidding from only one or two parties—but sometimes that is all  it takes.
One of the higher quality lots, Lucian Freud’s finely painted 1952 Boy’s Head portrait of his young neighbour Charlie Lumley, sold on its second bid for a hammer price of £2.8m, under its £3m-£4m estimate that dealers felt was “punchy”. Of the 47 lots on offer, 11 went unsold, a respectable sell through rate of 77%. The sale total was £17.8m (once premium was added), just below its £19.1m-
£26.6m pre-sale estimate.

4. LONDON (REUTERS).- Walk into the giant marquee in Regent's Park, London, venue of this year's Frieze Art Fair, and enter a parallel universe. Impeccably dressed men and women, and a healthy smattering of Bohemian types in garish trousers and expensive, thick-rimmed glasses, saunter down the aisles and between the stands of more than 170 exhibiting galleries. There the "new aristocracy" browses the cutting edge of contemporary art, from a grotesque Madonna and Child by the Chapman Brothers to a golf bag full of cement and a section of wooden fence hanging on a wall.
Elle Macpherson and designer Valentino joined commercial gallery A-listers like Jay Jopling in assessing what was hot and what was not at a VIP preview this week. The fair opened to the public on Thursday and runs until Sunday. Prices range widely, but generally works on show go for between five and seven figures, the sort of money most people spend on their house, often by way of a 25-year mortgage. Not so at Frieze, which has become a magnet for the world's biggest contemporary art collectors who think little of writing a check for a few hundred thousand dollars or more. The disconnect with the world outside, where markets are jittery and volatile, people fret over their jobs and countries are weighed down by crippling debt, is striking. Whether that disparity can last is the question on every gallery owner's lips. While there will always be ultra-wealthy buyers snapping up the rarest and finest works, supporting the million-plus market, there are concerns that
"lesser" art will fail to sell. The contemporary art market contracted sharply in late 2008 and early 2009 in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse before recovering strongly in 2010 and 2011.
Market surveys suggest confidence in all but the top lots -- viewed as an alternative investment at a time when so many markets look risky -- is evaporating fast, raising the prospect of another correction.
MIXED SIGNALS
At Frieze, David Zwirner sold a Neo Rauch painting for $1.35 million, and the overall value of art on show is estimated at around $350 million, down from $375 million in 2010. At the nearby Pavilion of Art & Design, an offshoot of Frieze featuring mainly older works, the Van de Weghe Fine Art gallery sold an Alexander Calder for $1.5 million and Sladmore Gallery raised 500,000 pounds for a cast bronze by Rodin. But not all the signs are good. While fairs do not publicize their revenues, and most dealers keep their business to themselves, auction houses also hold a series of sales during Frieze

week which give some indication as to the strength of prices. Sotheby's had its main auction on Thursday evening followed by Christie's on Friday, but Phillips de Pury held its big sale on Wednesday and the results were described by one specialist art website as "tepid." The auction tally of 8.2 million pounds fell comfortably short of the pre-sale low estimate of 10.1 million (and high estimate of 14.6 million), and a third of the works on offer failed to sell. Jeff Koons' "Seal Walrus Trashcans" fetched 2.1 million pounds, at the bottom end of expectations, and Damien Hirst and Richard Prince were among the familiar names featuring in the top 10. "The sale showed there is still an appetite for good quality works from blue-chip artists," said Peter Sumner, head of contemporary sales, London Phillips de Pury & Company. Of course, many artists dismiss talk of markets and prices. In most cases they stand to gain little even if their works sell for millions at auction, and money, they argue, is not the point.
Some, however, actively engage in the concept of art as a commodity. The artistic partnership called Claire Fontaine has a work at Frieze which reads: "This neon sign was made by Vladimir Ustinov for the remuneration of one hundred and sixty-nine thousand rubles." For those less confident in their economic future, artist Michael Landy may have the answer with his outlandish "Credit Card Destroying Machine." (Editing by Steve Addison)

What's Happening in the Museums - October 2011

 1. NEW YORK, N.Y.- artdaily.org - "Picasso's Drawings, 1890-1921:

Reinventing Tradition" traveling exhibition at The Frick Collection Pablo Picasso was one of the world’s greatest draftsmen. Drawing was his primary medium for thinking, problem solving, invention, and personal expression. It was the link that connected his work in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, theater design, and ceramics, and was a direct tie to his predecessors. Picasso’s diverse body of original work on paper broke new ground, while also consciously incorporating aspects of the tradition from which it sprang. This autumn, The Frick Collection presents an exhibition of more than sixty drawings (works in pencil, ink, watercolor, gouache, pastel, and chalk) spanning the first thirty years of Picasso’s career, from his first signed
drawing to works from the early 1920s.

2. SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The San Antonio Museum of Art presents the exhibition 5,000 Years of Chinese Jade Featuring Selections from the National Museum of History, Taiwan and the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, Smithsonian Institution. This major international exhibition organized by SAMA opened in the Museum’s Cowden Gallery on October 1, 2011...... Most of the jades from Taiwan,

including the National Treasures, will be on view in America for the first time. Another prestigious lender to 5,000 Years of Chinese Jade is the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution. Twenty-four jades from the celebrated Sackler Collection complement the jade objects from Taiwan.
Highlights of the Sackler jades include the famous Han dynasty Bear (220 BC – AD 221) and Song dynasty Hound (960-1279). Two additional lenders also provide exquisite jades: the Springfield Museums in Springfield, Massachusetts, lent a number of large 18th-century jades, including a lovely
Elephant Vase from the Qianlong period (1735-1796). An anonymous private American collector contributes a dozen superb jades, several of which were carved in Imperial workshops, including an elegant bird carving with Emperor Qianlong’s seal mark. The San Antonio Museum of Art contributes two jades to the exhibition, both acquired within the last two years.

3. PHILADELPHIA, PA. (AP).- A judge has upheld his controversial decision allowing the Barnes Foundation to move its multibillion-dollar art collection to Philadelphia. Montgomery County Orphans Court Judge Stanley Ott ruled Thursday that there is no new evidence to consider. Petitioners had asked Ott to re-examine his 2004 decision allowing the Barnes to leave its suburban home. They contend the 2009 documentary "The Art of the Steal" includes new evidence that he didn't have when he originally ruled. But Ott disagrees. The Barnes is moving because leaders say the institution is not financially viable at its original home in Lower Merion, about five miles from Philadelphia. The collection includes dozens of Renoirs, Matisses and Picassos. Its new building in Philadelphia is slated to open May 19, 2012. 


4.  NEW YORK, metmuseum.org. An ambitious exhibition—sweeping in scope and challenging conventional perceptions of African art—opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bringing together more than 100 masterpieces drawn from the premier collections in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Portugal, France, and the United States, Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures considers eight landmark sculptural traditions that flourished in West and Central Africa between the 12th and the early 20th century. These works were created by some of the regions’ most gifted artists, who were charged with producing enduring visual monuments dedicated to the legacies of revered leaders.

The artistic tributes that are featured are among the only tangible surviving vestiges of generations of leaders that shaped Africa’s past before colonialism among the Akan of Ghana, ancient Ife civilization, and the Kingdom of Benin of Nigeria, Bangwa and Kom chiefdoms of the Cameroon Grassfields, the Chokwe of Angola and Zambia, and the Luluwa, Hemba, and Kuba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Harnessing materials ranging from humble clay, ubiquitous wood, precious ivory, and costly metal alloys, sculptors from these regions captured evocative, idealized likenesses of their influential patrons, whose identities were otherwise recorded in ephemeral oral traditions. While for the most part the works presented pre-date the use of photography in Africa, photographic likenesses of successive generations of leaders from these centers—ranging in date from the late 19th century to contemporary portraits by the American photographer Phyllis Galembo—are woven into the presentation.
For the first time a museum considers iconic sculptural tributes from Africa in terms of the specific celebrated figures that they were once intimately tied to. Among those subjects who were famous in their own time but whose significance in connection to their depictions has largely been lost to viewers are: Queen Mother Idia and Oba Akenzua I of Benin (Nigeria), Nana Attabra of Nkwanta (Ghana), Chief Nkwain of Kom (Cameroon),Chief Chibwabwa Ilunga of the Luluwa (Democratic Republic of the Congo), King Mbó Mbóósh of the Kuba (D.R.C), and Chief Kalala Lea of the Hemba (D.R.C.).
Heroic Africans presents an unparalleled opportunity to bring to life oral history in visual terms and put a face on the major protagonists of Africa’s pre-colonial history for the first time. The exhibition opens by posing a question: who are the individuals that the most gifted artists of their respective times and cultures depicted for the ages? Over the centuries across sub-Saharan Africa, artists memorialized for posterity eminent individuals of their societies in an astonishingly diverse repertory of regional sculptural idioms, both naturalistic and abstract, that commemorate their subjects through culturally customized aesthetic formulations. The original patrons of such depictions intended for them to act as concrete points of reference to specific elite members of a given community. Over the past century, however, isolation of those creations from the sites, oral traditions, and socio-cultural contexts in which they were conceived, has led them to be seen as timeless abstractions of generic archetypes. Since that time few have recognized that these works were produced in honor of admired individuals. While information about those figures has been touched upon in the academic literature of African studies, such a body of work has never before been assembled in an exhibition. Through providing key cultural context, this exhibition affords appreciation of the significance of such representations and the ability to relate them to their historical subjects as living, breathing men and women. “Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures” remains through Jan. 29 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

5.  PINAR DEL RIO, CUBA (AP).- A traveling exhibition of art donated by a U.S. philanthropist is giving Cubans outside the capital a rare chance to see works from masters such as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol that would normally hang in world-class galleries instead of sleepy provincial cities.

Selections from the 120-piece collection have already toured Camaguey and Holguin in the island's far-flung east and recently went on display in the western city of Pinar del Rio, known more for tobacco farms than art museums. More than a dozen works by Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, Camille Pissarro,
Georges Rouault, Roy Lichtenstein and others went up in the glassed lobby of a local TV station, watched over by just a few police and guards and prompting curious passers-by to pop in to see what all the fuss was about. The show was nearing the end of its tour as officials prepared this week to
dismantle it and return the works to Havana. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

6. KABUL (REUTERS).- While everyone else is worrying about Afghanistan's future, a dedicated band of men and women is gathering up its past, hoping that a growing museum collection will show the world Afghan culture is more sophisticated than the tide of news reports suggest. Kabul's rebuilt National Museum, near the haunting remains the bombed-out royal palace, is running out of secure rooms to house centuries-old Buddhas, gold and silver coins from antiquity and other rare artefacts.
Many of the museum's original pieces were broken, destroyed or stolen during the Taliban era or the civil war that preceded it in the 1990s, but some have been pieced back together and a series of archaeological digs have also unearthed new treasures. Among the fresh discoveries are a wooden Buddha dating back to the fifth century and Buddha heads made of clay and plaster. They are helping a whole nation slowly rediscover a classical past as a confluence of cultures from India to China and from Iran and central Asia to the East. The United States this year committed $5 million to building a new museum with state-of-the-art security systems and climate control features next to the
old one, so that the Hidden Treasures exhibition can finally return home. "Restoring such artefacts is essential to both Afghan identity, and the identity of our collective human experience," said Rahim B.Kanani, a U.S.-based columnist who has written extensively on Afghanistan. (Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Yoko Nishikawa) © Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved. 

7. Cooperstown - Fenimore Art Museum - Inspired Traditions: Selections From The Jane Katcher Collection Of Americana  Sep 27th, 2011 Jane Katcher, a retired physician who lives in Florida, collected for nearly three decades before going public with her passion for American folk art. Her
debut coincided with the Fenimore Art Museum's 2005–2007 traveling exhibition "A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster Jr." Katcher lent to the show the 1799 painting "Comfort Starr Mygatt and Lucy Mygatt," the solemnly tender portrait of a Danbury, Conn., man and his

daughter that set an auction record for American folk art in 1988. Katcher and her husband, Gerald, who later acquired the picture privately, have since donated the work to Yale University Art Gallery.
The Brewster exhibition and "Made for Love: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana," a small exhibit at Yale in 2007, coincided with the publication of Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana (Marquand Press, 2006). Commissioned by Katcher, the catalog of her collection contained 203 entries,
plus essays by 11 scholars. Five of the original authors plus five additional contributors recently collaborated on a follow-up catalog , Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection, Volume II. To be published by Marquand in November, it contains 91 additional entries, most of them new acquisitions. In conjunction with the second volume, "Inspired Traditions: The Jane Katcher Collection of Americana" is on view at the New York State Historical
Association's (NYSHA) Fenimore Art Museum between October 1 and December 31. "Jane Katcher is drawn to pieces that speak not just to her eye, but to her keen sense of the people who made and owned them," said Dr Paul S. D'Ambrosio, NYSHA's president and chief executive officer. "Time and time again, she acquires works that make connections on many levels. These pieces are
windows into the lives of earlier Americans. That is really what inspired me to do the exhibition," he added. The Fenimore Art Museum is at 5798 State Highway 80, one mile north of the
village of Cooperstown on the west side of Otsego Lake. For information, 607-547-1400 or www.fenimoreartmuseum.org .
Antiques and the Arts Editorial Content

8. BALTIMORE, MD.-artdaily.org - The Walters Art Museum announces today a major gift from John Bourne of Santa Fe, N.M, including 70 artworks from the Ancient Americas and approximately 230 additional planned gifts. He will also provide a $4 million bequest from his estate to help endow a center for the study, conservation, interpretation and display of the arts of the Ancient Americas.

“This extraordinary gift will vault the Walters into a position of leadership among American museums in this new and exciting area of collecting and research,” said Walters Board President Douglas W. Hamilton, Jr. “It will provide the Walters with an extraordinary opportunity to expand its engagement with Maryland’s rapidly growing Hispanic community.” “More than a century ago, museum founder Henry Walters pioneered the collecting of the arts of the Ancient Americas. Now, his small collection will be greatly augmented by this generous gift from John Bourne,” said Walters Director Gary Vikan. “It has long been my dream to be able to tell the story of art and culture in the western hemisphere in a way that complements the story we tell through our extraordinary holdings of ancient and medieval art of the Mediterranean and Europe.” The Bourne gift complements a gift in 2009 from the Ziff family of New York City. With that earlier gift, the museum was able to endow the position of curator of the arts of the Ancient Americas and partially endow a conservation position and an exhibition fund. In all, the new center will include three endowed staff positions—a curator, a conservator and an educator—as well as an endowed exhibition fund, an endowed acquisition fund and a fund for the
creation of a gallery devoted to the arts of the Ancient Americas. To share these new acquisitions with the public, the Walters will present the special exhibition Exploring Art of the Ancient Americas: The John Bourne Collection Gift from February 12 through May 20, 2012. Drawn from the
collection that Bourne began in 1940, this exhibition will present approximately 129 works from the collection of ancient Mesoamerican, Central American and Andean South American art, spanning more than 2,500 years from 1200 b.c. to a.d. 1530. The exhibition will travel to the Albuquerque
Museum of Art & History in New Mexico from June 10 through August 26, 2012.
Editor note: As an appraiser this article attracted my attention. Donation of  Pre-Columbian works to museums  have become quite difficult as a result of AAM's guidelines to not accept any objects that can not be documented in the U.S. prior to 1970. Apparently Mr. Bourne began collecting in the 1940's. Collectors that can document their collection history prio to 1970 will see increased values in their Pre-Columbian art.

The Rest of The Story - A Cherokee Treasure

On the Roadshow we often just don't have the time in a three minute segment to tell the whole story, which sometimes for my money is at least as fascinating as the object itself. Last year in San Diego my good friend Dr. Gresham Bayne brought at my invitation one of his delightful patients. At this point I still won't reveal her name but she had quite a story to tell. On arrival she mentioned to me that she had an old Indian bag at home that had been acquired by her great great grandfather, Lt, Cave Johnson Couts.

"Cave Johnson Couts was born at his family's ancestral home near Springfield, Tennessee, on November 11, 1821. The third of twelve children born to William and Nancy Johnson Couts, Cave attended schools in Springfield, Tennessee and Hollowell Preparatory School in Alexandria Virginia; then received an appointment to West Point in May 1838, arranged by his uncle through James K. Polk. Young Couts was graduated from West Point in 1843, commissioned Brevet Second Lieutenant in the Regiment of Monted Rifles, and was assigned to frontier forts prior to the Mexican War. Lt. Cave Couts arrived in California in 1849 with an expedition sent out from Monterrey, Mexico to reinforce troops occupying California. Couts kept a day-by-day account of the six-month march to California.

The name of the man who built the first ferry at Yuma Crossing is a subject of controversy. Local legend has it that a raft-prairie schooner was built in Michigan and drawn across the country by oxen to a point on the Gila River in central Arizona, from where it was floated down to the Colorado and placed in service as a ferry in 1849. In October, 1849, a Lt. Couts reached the Colorado River at Yuma Crossing with Walker's Dragoons.The troop built a raft of cottonwood logs and pulled it back and forth across the river by rope. A sergeant was placed in charge of the ferry and it was made available to civilians for a reasonable fee--probably the first commercially operated ferry at this site.During the latter part of 1849, or early 1850, Lt. Couts established Fort Calhoun on the west side of the Colorado, on a hill overlooking Yuma Crossing,
to protect the hundreds of emigrants heading for the California gold fields. Even at this time, throngs of Mexicans who had struck it rich in California were returning to Mexico by way of the crossing.
It is said that a Col. Collier with the Couts party extracted a considerable fortune from the Mexicans by informing them that Congress had passed a law levying a 10 percent tax on all gold going out of the United States, and that if anyone attempted to conceal his gold) all would be forfeited. Col. Collier was
possibly the first to realize that travelers, both going to and coming from the gold fields, could be a rich source of income.Shortly after establishing Fort Calhoun, Lt. Couts left Yuma Crossing, abandoning the raft-ferry, which was then moved down the river a few miles to Algodones, on the Mexican side, and placed in operation by Yuma Indians. Their price for crossing the river was $3 per man and their trade was mostly
with Mexicans.

In May 1849, Lt. Couts reported to Los Angeles, then to San Luis Rey with instructions to prepare the old mission building for military quarters. After a month's duty there, Cave was ordered to San Diego to act as military escort for the American-Mexican Boundary Commission. While awaiting the survey parties in San Diego, Couts met his future father-in-law Juan Banding, distinguished social and political leader of San Diego. On September 3, 1849, Lt. Couts wrote in his Journal: "I have been living in the house of Don Juan
Bandini since we came to San Diego and can never forget the unbounded kindness of his wife Dona Refugia and Señorita Ysidora. Couts began a long careet of serving California when on August1, 1849, he was
elected a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention called by the military governor Brigadier General Bennet Riley. Early in 1850, the San Diego Ayuntamiento (Town Council) commisioned Couts to draw the first subdivision map of the Pueblo lands of San Diego, thereby opening the way for their legal sale. Couts gave the town's streets their present historic names.The young Easterner began investing in livestock with Juan Bandini and buying land in and around San Diego. In the city's first tax list in 1850, "Teniente Cave J. Couts" was assessed $11,740 for property located at La Playa, Old Town and Soledad. But it would be Cout's marriage to Bandini's daughter that would substantially enlarge his property holdings and bring him prosperity as a Southern California ranchero. Cave Johnson Couts and Ysidora Bandini were wed April
5, 1851, in Old Town San Diego amid a fiesta that lasted a week. Among the wedding gifts to the bride was the 2,219.4 acre tract of land known as Rancho Guajome presented by her sister Arcadia's husband Abel Stearns. Within two years Cave began construction of his residence at the ranch. Cave and Ysidora

resided in Old Town after their marriage in 1851 until Cave moved Ysidora and their two San Diego born children to Guajome in 1853. Eight more children were born at the ranch. For many years Cave Couts continued to serve his community in a number of official positions. He was a member of San Diego's first Grand Jury, assigned to the Board of Supervisors six times, appointed County Judge presiding over the Probate Court, one of the first chosen Judges of the Plains, and was elected to the office of Justice of the Peace, a role he held off and on for twenty years. As sub-agent for the Indians of San Diego County, Cave Couts frequently displayed a sympathetic and paternal attitude toward his wards. On the other hand, Guajome's cordial host was also a man with a violent temper who did not hesitate to take the law into his own hands if he felt himself wronged. Twice in 1855 he received indictments from the San Diego County Grand Jury on charges of whipping two Indians with a rawhide reata - one of whom died as the result of his injuries. Couts later won acquittal on grounds that one of the jurors was not an American citizen. On February 6, 1865, he shot and killed Juan Mendoza, who had threatened Couts' life on several previous occasions, came upon his ex-employer in Old Town's plaza. He apparently tried to avoid a conflict, but Couts fired twice and Mendoza fell dead in his tracks. Judge Benjamin Hayes, serving as counsel for Couts , pointed out that the murdered victim wasw known to be a robber and troublemaker and his client had merely acted in self defense. Couts secured another acquittal."

The accompanying letter indicates that this bag was a gift of the warrior Tucquo of the Tahlequah  Cherokee on April 20, 1846. Couts was on the Oklahoma border heading for Monterrey, Mexico and the beginning of the adventures described above. The fact that he kept this bag and document through all of his travels certainly indicates that he prized both .. which is our gain. I am working with the museum that acquired the bag and Gresh Bayne and his good friend to develop more oral history on Couts and maybe the bag. I will also certainly visit the San Diego History center may have the diary described above. Couts may have mentioned the bag in the diary.
I am grateful for the direct quotes and the many helpful internet resources based in California for this story.

Quick HIts Around the World - artdaily.org

Abu Dhabi Art 2011 Announces New Venue on Saadiyat IslandABU DHABI.- Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) has announced that the UAE Pavilion, originally designed by Lord Norman Foster's firm for the World Expo 2010, will host the UAE capital's acclaimed art event, Abu Dhabi Art, from Wednesday 16th to Saturday 19th of November 2011 on Saadiyat Island. Abu Dhabi Art is an international platform for modern and contemporary art. In addition to world class art, visitors to the fair can also enjoy an exciting series of exhibitions, talks, performances, workshops and VIP networking events. Abu Dhabi Art attracted over 17,000 visitors in 2010 and in 2011 will showcase around 50 international galleries again operating as a boutique-style fair. The UAE Pavilion, inspired by the desert dunes of the Emirates, showcased exhibitions about the history of the UAE in Shanghai at the World Expo 2010 and attracted almost 2 million visitors. It was designed by ... More

National Museum of African Art Launches "Smithsonian: Artists in Dialogue 2" App for iPhone and iPod Touch
WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian?s National Museum of African Art has launched the ?Smithsonian: Artists in Dialogue 2? app for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store. Designed in association with Tristan Interactives Inc. of Toronto, this is the first app available by the Smithsonian in English and Portuguese. ?This app takes the exhibition beyond the traditional, physical boundaries of the building and makes it available in South Africa, Brazil and to users around the world using iPhone and iPod touch,? said National Museum of African Art curator Karen E. Milbourne. The exhibit ?Artists in Dialogue 2: Henrique Oliveira and Sandile Zulu? will run through Jan. 5, 2012, and is the second in a series of exhibitions that connects artists by bringing them together to create site-specific works of art at the museum. In the exhibit, the artists? visual call and response includes Sandile Zulu of South Africa?s trademark control of fire to create streamlined paintings and sculptures in ... More

New York's Met to Return 10 Artifacts to Egypt: MENA
CAIRO (AP).- New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has agreed to return to Cairo 19 artifacts dating back to the time of ancient Egypt's teenage king Tutankhamen, the state news agency MENA said on Saturday. Egypt has been pushing for the repatriation of major pharaonic treasures it says were plundered by foreign powers, including the Rosetta Stone now in the British Museum and Queen Nefertiti's bust from Berlin's Neues Museum. The agreement between the New York museum and Egypt's antiquities council on the return of the artifacts was signed in November after a series of negotiations, MENA said. The objects, added to the Met's collection in the early 20th century, include a bronze dog only two centimeters in height, and part of a sphinx-shaped bracelet once owned by the niece of Howard Carter, the British archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamen's tomb, MENA said. The artifacts will arrive in Cairo on Tuesday, Mohamed Abdel ... More

A Roadshow Moment to Remember

In the past 16 years we have had a number of memorable moments that we as appraisers look back ocassionally  and re-live over a drink with poignant teasing for the "appraiser"  delivering the message. Some guests delivered some classic insults such as: "What do you know about African art, you're white. That jewel has been sent my way 3 times in 37 years and I doubt seriously if PBS would ever air that.  PBS also could salvage the segment with an elderly gentleman who had a Navajo weaving which was about 6' in width, which turned out to be just outside his hearing range - something we missed during interview when we were less than 3 feet away. Not only was hearing a problem but when the end of the segment came upon us the appraiser was supposed to take the weaving off the support and show the Roadshow viewers how the Navajo actually wore the textile. The gentleman decided to help but he dropped his end and promptly bent over to pick it up and mooned the cameras. There was not much to do to salvage this. But what made me start to reminisce was this past weekend in Tulsa when something nice happened to a really good guy. Lark Mason, Sothebys former director of Asian art worldwide and now owner  of the successful online auction house Igavel.com found 5 late 17th to early 18th century rhinoceros horn cups which he valued  from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. The coverage has been everywhere which will certainly not hurt Lark  or the show a bit.  It was a great segment that came together for two very likable guys - the guest and Lark.  So while the rest of are suffering from segment envy, we salute our colleague who will be buying drinks for at least the balance of the season. JB