Was there a defining moment when you realised you wanted to work with Orientalist art?
My first encounter with Orientalist art was as a graduate student at New York University during one of Linda Nochlin’s seminars on the ‘Imaginary Orient’. I was fascinated by the incredible paintings that she showed by Jean Léon-Gérôme: The Snake Charmer, The Turkish Bath, The Slave Market, The Clothes merchants of Cairo… At the time, Orientalist paintings were very often relegated to Museum storehouses as a secondary genre so this was an important revelation for me as I realised it was an area where there was much to be discovered. What would you say is the best discovery you have made in your time as a specialist at Christie’s? In 2006 I came across a pastel work depicting a lion that had been neglected and attributed to Antoine Louis Barye. After doing some research I discovered that it was actually by Eugène Delacroix. It was sold in London and fetched £1,744,000, a world record price for a work on paper by the artist at auction. What is your proudest professional achievement? In
