Christlers, the famous art house in London, owns several Hussains of

My query is: Does the word ‘Hussians’ reflect iconic status. I am a lay man and I can’t understand why Hussains should refer to his paintings. In the same vein can the following be acceptable expressions?

The xyz music store in NewYork has collected several Michael Jacksons, because they have attained a celebrity status. Will several Michael Jacsons mean several of his dances?

The Salar Jung museum has several Beethovens in the music section because they have earned an idolic status – Will Beethovens mean his musicl feats or his portraits?

Additionally, it is rare to see in gmat a pronoun preferring an object over a very eligible subject for reference . I would not know how clear the expression Hussians is meaning-wise, even granting that we ignore pronoun reference for the time- being.

We have to select the best choice.

"On account of" is used with nouns but is informal. B is correct because it uses a non-conjugated verb as a noun. However, "because" is used with a verb and is more concise; it is also more formal.

Best choice is C.

Can anyone give a convincing explanation of why it's not B?

'On account of their having' seems equally good as 'because they have' and has no grammatical errors. In fact, if the sentence is read aloud option B sounds somehow more right to me.

Hi Sidhu,

Here is the complete sentence for B

Christlers, the famous art house in London, owns several Hussains of various periods on account of their having achieved an iconic status in the English art circle.

The issue is the word 'their'. At the very least it is unnecessary - a classic rule of GMAT is if there are 2 answers that both look correct, the more concise will be the better one. Secondly, it's very clumsy English, using 'their' is a rather unclear way of referring back to the 'Hussains'.

Cheers,

James

IMO, C

(A) on account of having
Wrong. right idiom is: on account of something / account for doing something

(B) on account of their having
"their having achieved" sounds awkward.

(C) because they have
Correct. Several Hussains..... because they have.....

(D) because of having
Wrong idiom. Right idiom is: Because of something.

(E) because it has
Wrong. Several Hussains..... because it.....

Please someone, explain to us ESL people why does the verb need to refer to the paintings and not to Christlers? My logic was that the art house has gained some status in art circles so it makes sense it has some fancy paintings

If that were the case, then the clause would be “because the Hussains were fancy.”

Because introduces the cause of something.

Ask yourself: Why did Christlers acquire the Hussains?

“because Christlers has achieved an iconic status…?” or “because the Hussains have achieved an iconic status…?”

It is obvious that C “because the Hussains have achieved an iconic status…” is the better choice.

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