Art professional happy with her lot
But for a chance conversation with a classmate during a summer course in Florence, Pola Antebi might never have found the path that led to her role as the Hong Kong-based head of the Chinese ceramics and works of art department at international auction house Christie's. She had gone to Italy in 1984 to study painting restoration, with a view to making that a career, but soon discovered the nature of the work was simply too solitary for someone with an outgoing personality and limited patience. So, when a fellow student, a noted dealer in Impressionist paintings, suggested applying for an internship at an auction house in New York the following year, Ms Antebi immediately liked the idea.
It would take her back to the city where she had spent many childhood weekends fascinated by everything in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, as importantly, answered the pressing problem of what to do with a soon-to-be-completed degree in French literature and art history from the University of Vermont.
'I'd had no idea what I would do with this degree,' Ms Antebi said. 'But I loved sitting in the class learning how the pieces were made and what they said about the politics, history, culture and religions of different periods. I was always surrounded by art growing up - my mother is a painter and my aunt and uncle run a gallery - and I had specialised at university in 12th-century Romanesque and medieval artefacts.' With this background, she had expected to work in the European painting department but, as luck would have it, no intern position was available there and instead she was assigned to Chinese ceramics.
'I was completely enthralled,' Ms Antebi said. 'In that office, the objects were on display all around us. There was Neolithic pottery from 5,000 BC, Tang pieces and Imperial ceramics. I fell in love with them.' Offered a full-time role as an entry-level administrator, she threw herself into learning about the contracts, receipts, marketing, shipping and accounts involved in selling any item, and began to develop a first specialist area - snuff bottles. But coming into steadily closer contact with dealers, collectors and museum curators, it was also obvious that Hong Kong was fast becoming the epicentre for sales of Chinese art.
'So, in 1989, I packed my bags and came to work in a gallery being opened off Hollywood Road,' Ms Antebi said. 'It was a difficult time to set up a high-end retail antique shop handling primarily Imperial works of art, so when Christie's called at the end of the year, I jumped at the opportunity.' Since then, her role has progressively expanded. The primary responsibility is still to put together the firm's twice-yearly auctions in Hong Kong, each of which has approximately 300 lots.
Preparation, though, involves vetting thousands of items to find those most suitable for sale. It is then necessary to authenticate the pieces, give estimates, contact potential buyers, oversee the production of auction catalogues and exhibitions, and finalise terms of sale.
'I actually enjoy the business part; it keeps one's mind very sharp,' Ms Antebi said. 'We start by looking for consignments and put together a proposal or pitch a sale to a client like any other business. Each client's concerns are different and there is a lot to juggle at the same time.' She said items for auction were sourced from all over the world. Collectors or their estates might sell for financial reasons, museums sold pieces outside their main scope and dealers saw the advantage in reaching the international client base Christie's has built up around Asia, the Middle East, Russia and South America.
'Ours is a very stable market, so if a new piece becomes available, there will be buyers out there,' said Ms Antebi, adding that sales through her department had grown from about US$20 million in 1998 to roughly US$140 million last year.
Over the years, she developed her own expertise through constant study, picking the brains of curators and collectors, and actually writing about pieces for different catalogues, which helped to put them in a historical context.
She had also found it invaluable to get real hands-on experience by touching the objects, feeling their weight and closely examining the colours, glaze, patina and design. This ultimately made it much easier to compare, say, an item from the Imperial kilns or workshops with one made elsewhere for a wealthy merchant.
'I learned from the ground up and, because I'm not Chinese but am employed in this role, people seem to realise it must make me quite special,' Ms Antebi said. 'It takes years to learn the field because it is so wide-ranging and there are thousands of years of art history to learn and appreciate. But I have dedicated my career to this and I am very happy with what I am doing.'
At a glance
Also supports the firm's international team in New York, London, Paris and Beijing
Regularly visits the Palace Museum in Beijing and places like Dunhuang
Has a small personal collection of Tibetan silver and carpets'
Stepping up
Head of department 15 years or more
Senior specialist 15 years
Specialist Nine to 10 years
Junior specialist Six to seven years
Administrator Three to four years
Trainee One to two years
Salaries at each level depend on performance and relative experience
