Sotheby’s Doha to sell ‘Pearl Carpet of Baroda’ 19, March 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Qatar, The Emirates.Tags: Auction, Bonhams, Christie's, Doha, Pearl carpet, Qatar, Sotheby's
trackback
Sotheby’s auction house in Doha has announced that it will be auctioning a carpet commissioned to cover the Tomb of Mohammed in Medina. The ‘Pearl Carpet of Baroda’ is some 150 years old and lavishly decorated with hundreds of “precious stones, including diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds” not to mention an estimated two million natural sea pearls.
It is somewhat fitting that the Pearl Carpet of Baroda is being sold in Qatar, which for so long was wholly dependent on the pearling trade, with up to 50% of its population working directly in the industry. The carpet is expected to fetch anywhere between$5-$20 million.
The auction on March 19, is the first at Sotheby’s Doha. They were attracted to Qatar like so many blue-chip western countries thanks to the foretasted growth rates and concurrently affluent – if tiny – population. It is also only a short hop to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Bahrain. Sotheby’s are not the first auction house to enter the region. Christies were the first, moving to Dubai and opening in April 2005 and Bonhams first sale was in November 2007, also in Dubai.
The Gulf blog 
Comments»
No comments yet — be the first.