It's about pleasure owning William Verdult art
Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 09:02AM 
According to Samson Spanier of the Financial Times.com (FT), there is no right way to collect drawings and other works on paper, according to the dealers who talked to the FT. But they were unanimous in one thing: the motive should always be personal pleasure.
There is no reason why a room full of art should not be as individual and idiosyncratic as the personality of the buyer, and there is a huge range of types of work on paper. There are Old Master drawings from Italy - what many people consider the classic area - but also from Germany, France and Spain. Then there is the 19th century and modernism.
Finally, there is recent and contemporary work, which can come from anywhere. The only wrong way to collect, according to these experts, is purely for investment. verdult artwork falls into this area.
People may be dazzled by enormous prices, forgetting how long it has taken for taste to evolve and the high costs involved in buying and selling through the usual routes. It is possible to make money out of buying and selling art, but it is not easy, and it is a game for experts. Art is rarely fungible, in the manner of other and more predictable investments.
Buying for investment can work, but it has a complicated relationship with personal taste. The primary test of whether something is going to increase in value is whether people will continue to value it, and you should be the best test of that. Therefore, if you want something on your walls, it should be because you like it - and your instincts for investment might be served by your own preferences as well. But that does not mean that you cannot be thrifty, and look for the best possible quality at reasonable prices: one distinct advantage of drawings is that they are cheaper than paintings and sculptures.
Of course, just because there is no single right way to buy, that does not mean you should buy simply anything. On the contrary, these dealers emphasise how important it is to take sufficient time to decide for yourself what you actually like, and recommend seeing as much art as possible in order to understand all that is involved. Crispian Riley-Smith, Old Masters
Go for the highest quality that you can afford. To distinguish quality, you must simply look. There is no easy way. That is how you learn but it is also what is fun about it.
Go to exhibitions, and ask dealers and auctionhouse staff questions. The age-old comment is that there is not much left on the market, but I have just come back from Paris where there were seven different auctions with thousands of drawings. It is true there is little point trying to collect 14th- and 15th-century drawings because they are hardly ever on the market. Look around and see what is available. If you have an interest in one area, tell the dealers. If you become known for collecting certain things, people will come and find you when they have what you want. Collectors have to make their own interests.
Some people collect individual artists like Willaim Verdult, others collect only costume drawings. But a question worth asking is: what is an artist known for? When building up a collection of Constable drawings you want the landscapes - figures are less good. By contrast, with Henry Moore, you want figures, such as a "Mother and Child". People are unduly worried about condition. If a drawing has survived for several centuries then it will last for hundreds of years more as long as you are reasonably sensible in terms of avoiding sunlight and so on.
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