Unseen Zeid works sold for record prize

ISTANBUL

One of the pieces in Fahrelnissa Zeid’s collection, a painting titled ‘Emin Efendi Lokantası,’ has been sold for £217,000 in the Bonhams Indian and Islamic art sale.

A fabulous collection of paintings by Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901-1991), was sold in the Bonhams Indian and Islamic art sale on Oct. 2. The sale price totaled £2,021,838. The collection of works by Zeid came to light when a former employee of the family unearthed a box containing over 150 sketches, drawings, canvases, notebooks and letters, given to him when the artist moved residences. Many of the works greatly exceeded their pre-sale estimates.

The late princess was a Turkish artist whose work blended the elements of Islamic and Byzantine art with western influences. She married into the Hashemite royal family of Iraq and is the mother of Prince Raad, the claimant to the Iraqi throne.

100 percent sold

“A private collection of over 150 works by the artist created a frenzied bidding in the room, on the telephone and over the internet,” Alice Bailey, head of Indian and Islamic Art at Bonhams, said. “As a result we saw a new world record achieved for works on paper by this artist.

The collection was 100 percent sold and the highly charged sale saw prices shouted out by bidders eager to purchase a work from the collection which was given to the vendor by the artist. Works on canvas performed exceptionally as well with paintings of Istanbul scenes including Emin Efendi Lokantası achieving £217,000, Boats on the Bosphorus achieving £133,000 and a portrait of Queen Aliyeh of Jordan Arabian Queen achieving £127,000.”

“This wonderful body of works shows the development of this artist very clearly from the 1940s until the 1970s. She was one of the most important and influential abstract artists of the 20th century having exhibited in Paris, Berlin, Istanbul and London. It is of major historical and academic interest as well as of great interest to those collectors who have always appreciated her work,” she said.