LONDON.- In July 1994, on the tarmac of Vienna airport, a clandestine swap saw the government of Iran acquire the most significant part of the 16th century Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp – the greatest manuscript in the history of Persian painting – in return for Willem de Kooning’s Woman III. This was the culmination of a series of events which had taken place over many years, and which resulted in an extraordinary and ambitious exchange described at the time as the ‘cultural coup of the 1990s’. At the centre of the deal was a charismatic art dealer who dared to pursue the improbable: the late Oliver Hoare (1945-2018).

The Exchange is Hoare’s memoir and first-hand account of this remarkable transaction, told in full for the first time and published posthumously on the 30th anniversary of its conclusion. Recounting in fascinating and humorous detail the background and potential pitfalls in securing the deal, the book also tells colourful tales of travels through pre-revolutionary Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, and the evolution of the market for art of the Islamic world of which Hoare was the pioneer.


Oliver Hoare at the The Shah Nimatullah shrine in Mahan, late 1960s

From clandestine codeword conversations with the White House to headstands with Terence Stamp, via nail-biting moments the deal almost nearly fell apart, including when the crates wouldn’t fit through the airport’s security scanner, this book offers a fascinating, entertaining and riveting account of the art world in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and recounts in full for the first time how an impossible deal came to be.

Distributed by John Sandoe Books, London.

- The Shahnameh (or Book of Kings) is one of the great epics of world literature. It tells the history of Iran from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the mid-7th century AD. Monarchs across the Islamic world commissioned lavishly illustrated manuscripts to express their power and wealth.

- The Shahnameh dedicated to Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576), the second ruler of Iran’s Safavid dynasty (1501–1722), is considered the most important version ever produced. Also known as The Houghton Shahnameh, it took over twenty years and two generations of Iran’s greatest artists to complete, and consisted of 759 folios with 258 illustrations, each considered a masterpiece of Persian painting.

- In 1568, the Shah Tahmasp Shahnama was presented to the Ottoman sultan, Selim II, to mark his accession. In the 20th century, it was owned by the Rothschild family and then Arthur Houghton II (1906-1990) who acquired it in 1959. In 1970, he donated 76 folios (78 miniatures) to the Metropolitan Museum, New York; others can be found in museums and private collections worldwide, including the Aga Khan Museum Collection, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and The Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art in London. The exchange took place at the behest of Arthur Houghton III (b.1940) and involved the most significant part of the Shahnameh; 118 paintings, along with the text and binding, all of which are now in the Contemporary Art Museum, Tehran.

- In October 2022, a single page from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp was sold at Sotheby’s London for £8.1 million ($9.4 million). In 2006, Willem de Kooning’s Woman III was reportedly bought by Steven A. Cohen from David Geffen for $137.5 million.

- Oliver Hoare (1945-2018) was arguably the most influential dealer in the Islamic art world. An exotic character with legendary levels of wit, charm and knowledge, Hoare also had an insatiable thirst for fun and adventure, and a magical spirit that dared to pursue the improbable.

After graduating from the Sorbonne, he joined Christie’s in 1967, where he launched the very first Islamic Art department at a major auction house. It was during this period that he shared a flat with his great friend the writer Bruce Chatwin, whom Hoare often credited with having taught him his craft. He left Christie’s in 1975 to establish his own business and opened the Ahuan gallery in Pimlico in partnership with David Sulzberger. As a private dealer, he went on to work with most of the major Islamic art collectors and museums throughout the Middle East, as well as in Europe, the US and Japan, including the National Museum of Kuwait, the Nuhad Es-Said Collection (Beirut), and the Qatar National Museum.

In 2015, he hosted an exhibition titled Every Object Tells a Story at 33 Fitzroy Square, London. Featuring an eclectic array of objects ranging from antiquities to dodo bones and erotic scrimshaw, it was accompanied by a catalogue in which he practiced his love of storytelling with entertaining and often semi-biographical notes; it was chosen as one of the best art books of that year by the Evening Standard. In 2017, he staged a sequel at the former studio of the artist Sir John Lavery, R.A. in Cromwell Place this time featuring objects related to magic, myths, meteorites and unicorns, and to which he welcomed thousands of visitors. He died the following year and was working on The Exchange until the end.