art darts

Never to old to be loved


I picked up the ancient Roman bronze and immediately felt in close contact with a beauty 2000 years old. The past was no longer a stranger; now we were friends. I've admired many old objects and art works but never had I felt such comraderie before. It happened like this.
   The viewing at Christie's South Kensington was for its October 25th Antiquities sale. I was especially interested in the glass cases displaying rings from the Jurgen Abeler collection. The jeweller and goldsmith died in 2010 and his heirs were selling his collection of more than 500 rings. I like old rings and he had lots of them. Most of the rings had already been sold in the October 9 South Ken jewellery sale but forty ancient ones had been held back for this one. I looked at the Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine ornaments but  my eyes kept going back to the hand--the only non jewel being sold from Abeler's collection. It was blackened bronze; the sculptor had paid a lot of attention to it. The fingers of this female hand were expressive; nails and finger tips, too. The catalogue entry placed it between the 1st century B.C. and the !st c
century A.D. I asked the woman behind the counter if I could have a closer look. She reached in, took out the hand and placed it on the glass cabinet. I picked it up. The fit of the Roman hand in my own was just right. Holding this hand couldn't have felt more natural. It seemed to belong there. The estimate read £1200--£1500. It was a lot of money for me to spend on an ancient fragment; something that would sit on my desk as if it were a paperweight and soon be lost under the ever replenished sheets of paper. (The paperless revolution has yet to make its presence known in my study.)
   I hated to give up the hand and with it this never before felt direct contact with the ancient past. I wanted it.  I would go for it!
    In the days before the auction I tried to talk myself out of bidding. I am not an antiquities collector. £2000 is not small change. I had an appointment I could not change. I wouldn't be able to go to the sales room. So...I registered for on-line bidding. I'll skip over the technical problem that resulted in the auctioneer's voice getting knocked out. Christie's shifted me to telephone bidding. The action was slow--it always is when there are telephone bidders who have to be told what is happening in the salesr oom and then by the time they decide whether or not to go another round someone has beat them to it and the discussion seems to start all over again. Lot 210 finally came up. My new friend's hand. Suddenly time speeded up. The numbers jumped  and leapt up. £6000 was bid in what felt like 20 seconds. With Christie's commission and other charges, that meant £7500. I never had a chance to bid and I certainly was not going to begin now.
    Goodbye my friend.