About four decades ago, when economic stagnation was setting in across the West, the Middle East began its financial ascent, fuelled by the discovery of oil. Many in the region set about spending their new-found wealth and, according to David Bennett, the worldwide chairman of international jewellery at Sotheby’s – which opened its first UAE gallery and office space at the Dubai International Financial Centre on Monday – the region was home to the biggest collectors worldwide for a time. And they are still big spenders. Sotheby’s noted a 46 per cent increase in spending from its Middle East clients on jewellery from 2015 to 2016. The launch of Sotheby’s Dubai follows significant year-on-year growth in the number of Middle East clients generally, with a 30 per cent increase in buyers from the region over the past five years. Jewellery, contemporary art, impressionist and modern and Old Master paintings have driven the growth.
You are based in Geneva but this is your second visit to Dubai in as many months. What brings you here?
I am here to see clients and people who contacted us. What I am finding increasingly in the region, stretching from Saudi Arabia through the Emirates, is that we are being asked more and more often to look at collections or to give advice to people who are thinking of selling. And it is interesting because my first experiences in the region, let’s say 40 years ago when I started, were principally the new buyers. Between about 1972-73, and the middle of the ‘90s, this region was by far the most important in the world in terms of buying jewellery. Of course, Saudi Arabia was responsible for a large part of it as well. Everywhere else was in recession because of the oil price.

Source: The National