1.
SV Sign "L'Antiquaire" PAN DOWN TO Crowd at exhibition"
0.06

2.
SV Security guard
0.11

3.
SV PAN People at exhibition (2 shots)
0.22

4.
SV People in front of Picasso's "Femme Assise"
0.26

5.
CU ZOOM IN Same painting
0.30

6.
GV PAN Paintings on wall
0.35

7.
CU Kandinsky's "Personages et Oiseaux" (2 shots)
0.42

8.
CU Picasso's "Mousquetaire"
0.46

9.
CU Rouault's "Nu a la Fleur"
1.03

10.
SV PAN TRAVEL SHOT ALONG Vlaminck's "Paysage a Valmondais" Utrilleo's "Rue a Sannois" and Picabia's "Cabine de Bains"
1.04

11.
GV Monet's "Belle Ile en Mer" Laurencin's "Jeune Fille a la Tulipe" and Braque's "Les Pavots"
1.10



Initials CL/1645 CL/1700



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: An art exhibition of the works of the "grand masters" of the twentieth century -- the first of its kind in the Middle East -- opened in Beirut on Monday (17 March).

Staged at the Galerie L'Antiquaire, the exhibition will run to the end of the month. It features 30 paintings and six drawings by, among others, Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Braque, Miro and Bonnard, with an estimated total value of GBP2.1 million sterling, (5.04 million dollars).

The Galerie L'Antiquaire imported the impressionistic works for the exhibition with the aim of interesting Middle Eastern businessmen in them as investments. It pointed out to many of its oil-rich patrons that the value of painting by Francis Picabia, as just one example, rose by 142 percent in the twelve years between 1962 and 1974 -- and that in the past 42 years the increase has soared by 2, 100 percent.