No price exceeds me I want these miniatures

That collects an Armenian born in Turkey, educated dans Victorian England, living in Paris dans interwar and later installed in the Portugal Everything. Because its cosmopolitan nature gives it a universal curiosity. But if, in addition, he is very wealthy and educated, will find no limits in its acquisitions. This is the unique case of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), a businessman of a remarkable vision. Which will be subsequently dubbed "Mr 5 " had understood, from 1891, while he was just twenty-two years, that oil extraction would be a major issue of the 20th century. After studies at King's College London, the young Armenian, who has also learned much from his travels in the Middle East, will become a coordinator outstanding for a global vision of the exploitation of oil. Despite the torment of the history of the first part of the 20th century, he managed to put the oil industries of the various Western powers to streamline the production of black gold. And manages finally to an agreement. In Exchange, he gets a barely imaginable participation: 5 of the income of the top global oil companies. In the 1950s, this single activity reported annually 10 million pounds.

Thirst for exception

Calouste Gulbenkian was born into a wealthy family of merchants and he was always fascinated by the collection, by the desire to possess valuable things. As often in this kind of obsessive personalities, this trend began as a child. Little boy, he spends all his money, despite paternal reprimands, on ancient coins. At the end of his life, he has 6,000. But not just any where. Calouste is a man haunted by the idea of exception, absolute. He declared: "my goal is to be a very nice collection of Greek coins from a purely artistic point of view." To this end, I want stick me to specimens that are in a State of perfect conservation and of exceptional beauty. "Indeed, citations that are given him in his different biographies or those found in the Museum that bears his name today in Lisbon are still on this subject of a bombast, a lyricism, a bit indigestible. He said for example: "There is only the best for me", or miniatures that he wished fervently and proposed auction: "what then". No price exceeds me! I want these miniatures. Therefore I will make them take this evening.

"Women in my harem".

That said, the visit of its collections in Lisbon, it must be accepted that superlatives him suitable. They are composed of about 6,000 works of art ranging from antiquity at the beginning of the 20th century. In the early 1920s, its acquisitions are so massive that it purchases an avenue mansion of Jena for them (1). Some are also arranged in the mansion of his property in Normandy, the enclosure, in Deauville (2), a 24-hectare park where he cultivates his love of nature. What will be said to the poet Saint - John Persia, friend of the billionaire, the enclosures are "the centerpiece of his works, because the more alive, more intimate and the most sensitive. When an unknown person asked Gulbenkian visit its collections, most of the time, he refuses said in an oriental type: "dévoilerais I women in my harem to a foreigner."But the collection continues to grow, and in 1936 as a security measure, it negotiates with the British Museum the home of the set of Egyptian art and the National Gallery one of his best paintings. In 1948 and 1950, these same parts are transferred, still on deposit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. For the collector, the objective is to reach a sustainability and negotiate a tax exemption for the raised set.

An impressive picture gallery

The steps are unsuccessful with Britain and the United States. Gulbenkian wrote to one of his English relations: "my works of art are the friends of my life and my concern for their future home is, I think, a very natural feeling.It is ultimately the Portugal of the dictator Salazar who can allow its "friends of a lifetime".

Gulbenkian died in July 1955, and the foundation that bears his name was inaugurated only fourteen years later. Half of the settlement is dedicated to oriental arts, other Western expressions. Treasures of Islamic carpets of the 16th century, Arab glass and Ottoman ceramics out of the ordinary... The amateur has not reneged his origins. But it also brought a set of the Japan inrô, these delicate boxes placed on the belt in the Japanese traditional dress. The European watershed includes a rare set of furniture of the 18th century French, often of Royal origin, presented in classrooms as works of art. For tables, they range from the middle ages to the 20th century. There are many masterpieces as the portrait of Saint Catherine and saint Joseph by the Flemish painter of the 15th century Rogier Van der Weyden or two Rembrandt and Rubens from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Gulbenkian had negotiated with the Communist regime in the 1920s. It is however difficult to distinguish a steering wire aesthetic in the choice of the collector. Himself said with assurance that characterized: "for me, an array must be something nice, happy, beautiful, Yes, pretty!" There are enough tangible things in life that we did in made yet others. "But the credits of his Gallery gives more than an impression of joliesse: Rembrandt, La Tour, Turner, Manet, Degas and Burne-Jones... A search for "pleasure" that has enshrined him in posterity.