Britain catches up on colonial past with tribal art specialisation
Last year the UK’s regional salerooms were treated to a generous handful of five- and six-figure bids for unappreciated masterworks of Aboriginal and Oceanian art – a Maori putorino or bugle flute sold to a French dealer for £140,000 at John Nicholson’s of Haslemere among them.
There’s no doubt that auctioneers and vendors are discovering that the UK’s country houses, furnis…