Art Treasures from African Runners

Rating:
Summary: Serves as a warning to the inexperienced collector
Review: I would estimate that at least 80% of this collection consists of fakes. There are some genuine pieces here and there, particularly in the West African and East African sections, but much of the rest, especially the section on Central Africa, consist of rather poor copies that wouldn't fool the collector that knows his field.

Mr Rohner disdains using expensive dealers, which is fair enough if you acquire your own expertise, but by his own admission he hasn't - he uses his aesthetic judgement and self proclaimed expertise in judging the age. He obviously doesn't realise just how good artisans are at producing convincing patina, and thus ends up with a large collection of (mostly) copies.

If you want to buy genuine African Art, as opposed to copies, then you have two options: either buy from a dealer, and in essence pay for their expertise, or build up your own expertise by visiting museums, auctions and galleries, handling as many genuine pieces as possible, and reading widely on the subject. As with any other area of art or antiques, there is no easy way - it takes either money or time.

Conversely if you only want decorative copies, for example those used on the set of Frasier, they are cheap and plentiful. A 'fake' is only a copy that has been represented as the genuine article, and a much higher price asked for it.

And please, any novice collectors out there, do not use this as a reference book to start a collection, or you will be disappointed. BTW I am not a dealer - just an avid collector.