A few years ago, I was asked by a respected curator to lend one of my more precious pictures to the Tate Modern in London. After much deliberation about the safety of the painting and discussion with other potential lenders to the same exhibition, I was convinced to go ahead.
After all, the painting would be handled by Momart, one of the best art handlers in the world. Moreover, it was to be insured by Lloyds, which made me feel doubly secure. There seemed to be just no risk.
The loan forms arrived and I called the dealer from whom I had bought the painting. He updated me on the current value of such a work, which I noted on my insurance valuation forms.
And off my picture sailed to London where it was loved by almost everyone and reproduced as a full page in the exhibition catalogue.
After several months, I was called by the local handlers, who informed me that my painting had arrived on Indian shores -- but the entire consignment was lying outdoors for customs inspection since Friday. And it had rained continuously over the weekend.
No expertise of Momart, nor the temperature controls of the Tate could help me fight the sheer callousness of the Indian customs authorities. Could Lloyds save the day ?
I opened my insurance file immediately and thought to myself that my valuation done earlier in the year seemed a bit low. I called my dealer friend again who informed my that the price for such a work was now about three times my insurance value.
Not only had the market for this artist's works gone through the roof, but my painting now had the provenance of the Tate as well a full-page reproduction in the catalogue, and was thus much more valuable.
I was lucky. Nothing happened to my painting because, unlike the other part of the consignment, it had been adequately wrapped in layers of plastic and had been in a wooden crate inside a covered shed. But the entire experience taught me a thing or two about lending and insurance issues.
More importantly, it made me realise that even if my painting had been damaged or lost, but insured, at best I would have been compensated monetarily. But I would have lost forever a work I loved dearly.
Even so, I called on my insurance agent and asked him if I could insure my art collection. He said he could insure depreciating cars that zip around Delhi and get hit by mad, call-centre Sumo drivers.
But appreciating art that sits in the secure confines of air-conditioned rooms with private security guards outside the house, he couldn't.
Luckily, all that has changed recently, with a few insurance companies willing to cover art. With the art market booming and prices touching unsettling levels (thank God I started collecting when I was 15), what does a collector like me do? Buy more art? Wrong. Stop buying altogether? Wrong. Sit back, relax, enjoy looking at investors clamouring for bad works at auctions while I insure my collection? Yes!
