Hermitage: Collector’s paradise
Ishara Jayawardane
‘Arts, Antiques and Collectibles’ is their tag line. Hermitage will
be celebrating their 10th anniversary with ten days of celebrations.
This celebration will be a culmination of what they have been and stood
for all these years.
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Gargoyle. Pictures by Ruwan de Silva |
“We will launch this celebration on 10/10/10 with a kind of party
atmosphere,” said founding partner Yasmin Akbarally.
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Yasmin Akbarally |
Safiya Husain |
Hermitage is something like a time traveling machine. This
comfortable, homely, personal and spacious abode is full of objects from
a bygone era. A shop filled with collectors items, antiques, old and
rare books, memorabilia like autographs, old maps, photographs and
postcards and old furniture. It was founded by friends Yasmin Akbarally
and Safiya Husain.
Hermitage has a large and loyal clientele that has stuck with them
for ten years. This shop is full of precious and remarkable items.
“We started off ten years ago with one off sales. We took the place
called the “commons” for about a week. Then we opened an exhibition to
the public and subsequently we opened the store,” said Safiya.
The Hermitage outlet at Gower Street is the first place and the
second place is located on Stratford Avenue.
“We are planning on having special events during those 10 days. We
are concentrating on a theme of 10 different events. We will be having a
caricature
artist here for anyone who wants to come here and get a caricature
done. We will also have a henna/ tattoo artist. There will be a 10
percent discount” noted Safiya.
The ladies maintain that for someone to buy something they need a
selection of items.
“You can’t have just one old map and expect someone who is interested
in Ceylon maps to buy that map, you must have a range of old maps,”
Safiya pointed out.
Some pieces have a particular buyer. Sometimes that artifact will be
bought within a day. Sometimes it is there for five years and “someone
is just mad over it”. They want that piece and nothing else. Very often
they find that after five years they have sold the piece only to
encounter another person who vies for exactly the same piece.
“You keep on collecting and you keep getting newer things - things
you haven’t seen before. You keep on adding it to your collection. You
just have to keep on adding,” Yasmin stressed.
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Wooden horse |
Yasmin and Safiya have been friends and collectors for a long time
and they envisaged Hermitage.
“We had been collecting art and antique furniture. One day we decided
to put a collection together and have an exhibition to see how it goes.
We had a huge response. The first and second were sell outs. The third
was better than the previous two. That was how we built up a clientèle,”
stated Yasmin.
Most of the furniture comes from India and Indonesia. Mostly the
memorabilia and collectible items are brought over the Internet.
“Please come and celebrate this anniversary with us and come and have
a good look at the products we have. We are open 365 days of the year
with newer things coming in,” Safiya invited.
“We have had original pieces of furniture that have dated back 100 to
150 years. We had a Kerosene Fan which we sold recently. That too was
almost 150 years. Some of the art we have had dates back to 1800
hundreds. We have post cards from early 19th century. The Baldeus Maps
were from the 1600 hundreds,” Yasmin concluded. |
