Collect calling
What started as a penchant for bargain hunting has turned into a series of love affairs with specific types of art. It is an addiction that Romnesh Lamba finds hard to shake
The e-mail lurks in my inbox, a large pdf file attached. It’s from Rossi & Rossi in London, seemingly addressed only to me.
There are several paintings showcased, including some new works by Konstantin Bessmertny, an artist I already own. Scrolling down the file, I pause, then quickly skim through the remaining images before returning to absorb the one that caught my eye, knowing already that this is a painting I am fated to possess.
For months I have been good; now all that abstinence is under threat. I am pulled back to my journey from antiques to ancient textiles to Asian contemporary art, straddling cultures and cities thousands of miles apart. Even as I pick up the phone to ensure the work will be mine, I am already considering where to hang the Bessmertny, and the frame I will select, as I bask in the languorous sense of anticipation that will last for days until the painting arrives.
I can clearly recall my first brush with collecting. Fresh out of college, in the mid-1980s, my fiancée and I would go antiquing to shops and markets in Philadelphia and the Main Line area of the American city.
Soon it was day trips to New Hope and Lambertville, then weekends to Amish country, occasionally farther afield to the Poconos and even New England.
We had no mission. We sought small items of furniture and accessories for our rented apartment in downtown Philly, and it seemed cheaper to buy old things than new. On these outings, a particular style of Japanese porcelain – Satsuma – caught my eye. Burnished in gold, the vases and plates depicted scowling warriors and geishas with their hair pulled up, wars more than romance, epics sometimes miniaturised to the size of buttons that once were stitched on to an emperor’s robes.