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If youíre currently looking for a new job or even a change of career, itís nice to be able to have a little distraction from the hard yards of the employment search every now and then. So why not really take a break from it all? A quick flick through the Sothebyís catalogue of the LÈon Levy Collection of furniture and works of art is eye-opening, to say the least. A successful textile merchant and collector of fine works of art and furniture specialising in mounted Chinese and Meissen porcelain and French decorative arts of the grand siËcle, only in death has Levyís tenacious hold on his beloved ìprivate museumî been released. However, although the glossy pages of the catalogue may contain a certain appeal, with the anticipated price tags for the vases, mirrors, chairs and porcelain figures reaching up to 1,000,000Ä, itís not very realistic, to say the least! For the rest of us struggling to make ends meet with a mortgage, default notices and receiving debt advice, itís off to the public museum if we ever aspire to keeping on top of debt management and being able to look at such luxury items up close! It makes you wonder if a home improvement loan would cover 400,000Ä for a rare set of six Louis XVI giltwood chairs that were originally made in 1774 for the winter dining room of the Prince de CondÈís private Paris apartments. Itís more than likely that this would be a declined loan! Yet we can all keep on dreaming, right? Tides turn and fortunes are made as easily as they are lost. These magnificent works of decorative art are as much a testament to the change of fortunes as are any accounts of historyÖ and they provide a convenient form of escapism from the daily grind and job search! |