Thursday, May 10, 2012
Jane's physiog.
It has been a dull month for me in the TLS. Far too much poetry and far too many far reaches of bardolatry. But there has been a splendid diversion in the form of many column inches devoted to whether or not a rather nondescript portrait of a rather nondescript middle aged lady was or was not a likeness taken from life of Jane Austen. We are treated to an article by the current owner followed by an article by the advisor to the previous owner followed by a letter from the previous owner himself. Serious austenophiles all. It seems that were it to be proved that it was a likeness taken from life, its value would move up from maybe £1,000 to maybe £100,000, without their needing to be any corroboration that the likeness was anything like the lady herself.
One then thinks of how the value of a nondescript painting might move from £1,000 to maybe £1,000,000 when today's expert pronounces that it is, without any doubt whatsoever, a long lost work of this or that league première master. At one time I thought this was just silly: a good painting was worth a lot of money, a bad painting was not. But I now allow that a bad painting by a good painter can sensibly be worth a lot of money, in part at least because the bad painting might plug a hole in what we know about this very important person. Might be of great significance in the History of Art. And then there is the collectors' valuation of rarity.
Although thinking about it, there is more to that than just rarity. If I empty my dustbin onto my bed, the configuration of rubbish is rare, probably unique, in that there is no other collection of quite that rubbish in quite that configuration. If I was a celebrity this rubbish might be valuable. But what, given that I am not? If I were a collector, I would want the objects collected to be of a sensible size. To be robust, stable and long lived. I want to be able to keep my collection in a fairly small space where I can gloat over it. It should also be a collection of something. Porcelain fishes, bronze lady ballet dancers, coins, stamps. The somethings need not be man made but they should be complex, with some intrinsic interest. So a fancy conglomeration of crystal is better than a pebble off a beach. It helps it they are pretty. I also suspect that one does not really want one's porcelain fish to be unique, just rare. Then I can have long conversations with other collectors about our chances of getting our paws on such a thing. Cumulatively, I think considerations of this sort exclude rubbish on beds, even unmade beds.
And then there was the advertisement for a head of ICT at some school or other in the Guardian. I was interested to read that this person would supervise a staff of six, this in a school with around 1,000 pupils. If we suppose that the overall staff ration is 1:20, we get a figure of 50 staff. So, by the standards of the Treasury anyway, the ICT department is large if we look at the numbers of staff, small if we look at the number of pupils. Is there some organ of central government which monitors ratios of this sort? Where does the bulk of the effort go? On maintaining the 100 or so PCs available to pupils who tend to be rather rough with them? On providing support to members of staff who are far too old to know which way up to hold a mouse? On driving complicated software which spits out a shiny new timetable every now and then?
One then thinks of how the value of a nondescript painting might move from £1,000 to maybe £1,000,000 when today's expert pronounces that it is, without any doubt whatsoever, a long lost work of this or that league première master. At one time I thought this was just silly: a good painting was worth a lot of money, a bad painting was not. But I now allow that a bad painting by a good painter can sensibly be worth a lot of money, in part at least because the bad painting might plug a hole in what we know about this very important person. Might be of great significance in the History of Art. And then there is the collectors' valuation of rarity.
Although thinking about it, there is more to that than just rarity. If I empty my dustbin onto my bed, the configuration of rubbish is rare, probably unique, in that there is no other collection of quite that rubbish in quite that configuration. If I was a celebrity this rubbish might be valuable. But what, given that I am not? If I were a collector, I would want the objects collected to be of a sensible size. To be robust, stable and long lived. I want to be able to keep my collection in a fairly small space where I can gloat over it. It should also be a collection of something. Porcelain fishes, bronze lady ballet dancers, coins, stamps. The somethings need not be man made but they should be complex, with some intrinsic interest. So a fancy conglomeration of crystal is better than a pebble off a beach. It helps it they are pretty. I also suspect that one does not really want one's porcelain fish to be unique, just rare. Then I can have long conversations with other collectors about our chances of getting our paws on such a thing. Cumulatively, I think considerations of this sort exclude rubbish on beds, even unmade beds.
And then there was the advertisement for a head of ICT at some school or other in the Guardian. I was interested to read that this person would supervise a staff of six, this in a school with around 1,000 pupils. If we suppose that the overall staff ration is 1:20, we get a figure of 50 staff. So, by the standards of the Treasury anyway, the ICT department is large if we look at the numbers of staff, small if we look at the number of pupils. Is there some organ of central government which monitors ratios of this sort? Where does the bulk of the effort go? On maintaining the 100 or so PCs available to pupils who tend to be rather rough with them? On providing support to members of staff who are far too old to know which way up to hold a mouse? On driving complicated software which spits out a shiny new timetable every now and then?
# posted by Jim @ 1:55 AM 
