Insurance company "Phoenix" has decided to auction its rich collection of 1,300 works by more than two hundred artists of Jewish origin. The owner of personal property assessed at 23 million dollars, while the auction house estimated collection of humble: Matsart - 18 million, and Sotheby's - 12 million.

collection of "Phoenix" is one of the largest collections of Jewish art, she originally belonged to one of the owners of the company Hahami Joseph (Yosef Hachami). In the early 1970's he began to collect works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Manet and other outstanding artists. When prices on the art market began to grow, he turned to Jewish authors. With many artists Hahami knew personally, and some even painted his portraits: Jericho (Arikha), Michael Gross (Michael Gross), Uri Lipschitz (Uri Lipschitz) and Ofer Lalush (Ofer Lalush).

first time a collection of" Phoenix "presented at the exhibition in Tel Aviv in 1999. And in 2002, Hahami and his sister sold their controlling stake in the company inherited from his father, as well as all rights to the art collection of 312 million dollars.

in 2006 - m collection of Jewish art and 22 per cent stake in Phoenix bought a businessman Yitzhak Tshuva (Yitzhak Tshuva). Part of the paintings he has sold just over 30 million shekels, and in 2008, still left with some products, earning 7.5 million shekels.

In the remaining collection includes a large number of Reuven Rubin (Reuven Rubin), Mordechai Ardon (Mordecai Ardon), Yehezkel Shtrayhmana (Yehezkel Streichman) and Joseph Zaritsky (Joseph Zaritsky) . In addition, it has a product Lea Nikel (Lea Nikel) , Yitzhak Danziger (Yitzhak Danziger), Yair Garbuz (Yair Garbuz), Gershon, Moshe (Moshe Gershoni), Rafi Lavie (Rafi Lavie), Pinchas Cohen Gan (Pinchas Cohen-Gan), Micah Ullmann (Micha Ullman), Nahum Tevet (Nahum Tevet) and Kadishmana Menashe (Menashe Kadishman) .

Collection Hahami often correlate with other major collection of Jewish Art - Collection of Gaby and Amy Brown (Gaby and Ami Brown). In recent work from the collection of Brown appear at auction Tirosh. Owner of auction house Dov Hazan (Dov Hazan) pays tribute to both collections, but sees a difference in the approach of their creators. According to him, Hahami a sense of duty to the nation to collect as much as possible a complete collection of Jewish art from the end of XIX century to the present, while the Browns were guided in creating a collection rather their own taste. One of the reasons that now want a full collection Hahami to be auctioned off, the president Tirosh considers sale of the building on the street Rakevet in Tel Aviv, where it was stored.

Owner Matsart Lucien Creef finds that the collection "Phoenix" is more important than meeting the Browns, thanks to a unique collection of authors and the total number of works. Pictures will be enough for a separate solo exhibition of almost every artist represented in it.

negotiations, the General Director of the Phoenix "Eyalya Lapidot (Eyal Lapidot) the owner of the CRIF Matsart Lucien (Lucien Krief) lasted for several months. While neither side is prepared to reconsider its initial price offer.

material prepared by Mary Onuchina, AI

Sources: haaretz.com , artinvestment.ru