Auction house targets Islamic revival: Expert in Middle Eastern works heads new department in growth area

WHILE some auction houses have been closing or merging departments and sacking experts, Bonhams announced last week that it is opening a department devoted to Islamic art.

It will be headed by Diddi Malek, who believes that being half-Persian and half- English, 'and probably the only Muslim main board director of a British auction house', is invaluable in dealing in Islamic art. So, too, is the ability to speak, read and write Persian and Arabic.

'It makes them trust you,' she said. Just as Japanese collectors prefer to deal with the Japanese trade, she maintains that Middle Eastern collectors prefer to deal with their own kind.

'It's networking, sticking together,' she added, explaining that many of the most important collectors are from that part of the world. 'When I've been on house inspections that other auctioneers have visited, if the client is Middle Eastern, the fact that I'm Middle Eastern has meant that I've got the job every time.'

It was through networking that she coaxed the ABAS Foundation, a major private Islamic collection in Britain, to sell a rare 17th-century Mughal textile tent-hanging. It is estimated to fetch between pounds 40,000 and pounds 50,000 at her first sale, on 20 October.

The launch of the department is well timed in that sales last April at rival auction-houses saw buoyant bidding - for the first time since the Gulf war.

Ms Malek established herself in the auction world as head of valuations for Bonhams, to which she was appointed in 1987, although it was her knowledge of Persia that helped her to identify a Portrait of a Boy in Persian Dress by Jan Lievens, one of Rembrandt's pupils. It was sold in 1990 for pounds 530,000, double the world record, marking the first time that Bonhams had auctioned a picture of that value and importance.

(Photograph omitted)