Collector of masterpieces vanishes from art world

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Independent
By Terry Kirby Chief Reporter
12 March 2005


For years, the world's art market has been at his disposal as, armed with a seemingly bottomless purse, he spent millions of oil dollars on some of the most dazzling treasures ever to go on open sale. The only items he was interested in, he said, were masterpieces.

But now the slender and bespectacled figure of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed al-Thani has suddenly disappeared from the frontline of the globe's art market and things may never be quite the same again.

As chairman of the Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage of Qatar, Sheikh Saud has spend countless millions over the past few years touring the world and acquiring mainly Islamic artefacts for a series of museums planned for his country's capital, Doha. At the same time, he has also built up an extensive and more wide-ranging private collection.

But now, European art dealers and auction houses have been told that he has been replaced as chairman of the council by Mohamed Kafoud, a professor of Arab literature. No explanation for his removal has been given, but some report suggests a difference of opinion with the Emir of Qatar, who also happens to be his cousin, over the boundaries between the sheikh's private collection and the national one.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=619209