South African artist Irma Stern’s major work, Arab Priest, could end up shuttling backwards and forwards between South Africa and Qatar following the South African Heritage Resource Agency’s decision this week to grant a permit allowing the painting to leave the country temporarily.
In March this year the work was auctioned in London to the Qatar Museums Authority for a record £3 044 000, R39-million, £600 000 more than the previous record price for a Stern.
But the transfer of the painting to its new owner was blocked by the South African Heritage Resource Agency, which argued that it was “part of the national estate”.
The Qataris lodged an appeal, which was to have been heard on Wednesday this week.
But the agency announced this week that “instead of proceeding with the planned appeal process against the decline of the permit for the permanent exportation of Irma Stern’s Arab Priest, constructive discussions were conducted this morning which resulted in an agreement that the Qatar Museums Authority will now apply for a temporary export permit”.
Sources in the art world said that the R39-million had already changed hands and the painting is now the property of the Qatar Museums Authority, even though it cannot leave South Africa permanently.
One source speculated that the agreement might prompt the Qataris to move the painting backwards and forwards for display between the two countries.
How long the Qataris would like to hold the work in Qatar remains unclear.
A statement this week by the South African Heritage Resource Agency indicated that the agency does not yet know the Qatari museum’s intention.
It is possible that, pending the outcome of the temporary permit application, the work will be restored to the Irma Stern Museum in Rondebosch, Cape Town.
The painting hung for decades in the Irma Stern Museum, on loan from its mystery owner. But the museum decided it could not continue to house the work because of the insurance costs, prompting a decision to sell it.
After the sale on auction by Bonhams of London it was destined to move to the prestigious Qatar museum, joining one of the most significant collections of Orientalist art ever assembled.
Qatar is eager to house the work, since it is a significant, early portrait of a Muslim cleric, painted in Zanzibar in 1945 by Stern — a South African Jewish painter of German origin.
The original document circulated by the South African Heritage Resource Agency in defence of its decision not to allow the painting to leave the country permanently refers to the spirit in which the work was produced.
“Given the dark times of our current age of ethnic and religious rivalries, it is crucial for a country with a history such as South Africa’s that Irma Stern’s Arab Priest recalls the possibility of harmonious respect between diverse peoples,” the agency said in a statement.
It pointed out that “the pool of outstanding cultural treasures of such quality in South Africa is small and that such objects require protection for the benefit of future generations”.