Auctioneers across the country are increasingly tuned in to the possibilities of tribal art – aware that despite all the challenges of dating and attribution, this is one field that can really add to the bottom line.
This was writ large by thesaleroom.com’s top price of the year that was also among the biggest ‘sleepers’ of 2017. Later in the year John Nicholson’s followed the £140,000 sale of a Maori flute to a leading Paris dealer with a consignment of Maori artefacts with a mid-19th century, primary provenance. They too enjoyed plenty of bidding from the global tribal art collecting centres.
“Tribal art is one field that can really add to the bottom line of a regional auctioneer