Art & Finance Newsletter #25 - Art Arbitration Court Opens Today
Exciting things happened in Hong Kong this past week. Which require my full attention...so I will keep this brief.
On to the art market...
Painting Attribution Settled
A painting long thought to be a later imitation of Sandro Botticelli’s famous Madonna of the Pomegranate has been revealed to be a rare example by the artist’s own workshop, English Heritage has revealed today.
The discovery was made while the painting was being cleaned by the charity’s conservators. The work’s true colours – hidden under more than a century of yellow varnish – will be revealed when it goes on display at Ranger’s House in Greenwich on 1 April.
Bought by diamond magnate Julius Wernher in 1897, Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana) (c.1487) is the closest version of the famous masterpiece by the Florentine master Botticelli, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Showing the Madonna and Christ Child flanked by four angels, the title refers to the pomegranate that is held by the Madonna and Child to symbolize Christ’s future suffering.
The assumption that the painting was a later imitation arose because of its variations in detail to the original and the thick yellow varnish that concealed the quality of the work. However, x-ray testing, infrared studies and pigment analysis have revealed that the painting is from the very workshop in Florence where Botticelli created his masterpieces.
English Heritage - Painting Attribution Settled
Art Arbitration Court in the Hague Opens Today
The first tribunal devoted exclusively to art disputes, the Court of Arbitration for Art (CAfA), will open for business 1 April in the Hague. Bert Demarsin, CAfA’s chair, says that its decisions will both be more accurate and accepted by an art market sceptical of judges’ rulings that merely decide which party has the preponderance of evidence. But since it turns out that the parties involved in its cases can prevent CAfA’s decision from being published, it is an open question whether the system will fully achieve its goal of trade approval.
CAfA’s proceedings will be confidential, but a press release announcing the court last May stated that publishing its decisions was “essential to ensure market understanding and acceptance of the results”. William Charron, the art lawyer who conceived of CAfA, now elaborates that if the parties themselves do not want a decision published, it will not be.
“The market values anonymity but the objective was to have a tribunal that the market would accept. So we struck a balance in a default rule to publish but keep party names anonymous”, with the artwork itself identified, Charron says. “The idea at every point is accuracy and market legitimacy”.
The Art Newspaper - Art Arbitration Court Opens
Collector Sues Gallery Over Disclosure Issue
The London dealer Richard Green is being sued by a client who claims that information about some of the provenance of two Old Master paintings was “withheld”, leading him to pay too much.
Gary Klesch, an Anglo-American entrepreneur and investor, bought the two works of art at Tefaf Maastricht last year. He paid €3m for River Landscape with Fishers and a Cart (around 1600-1610) by Jan Brueghel the Elder, and €2m for Winter Landscape with Figures Skating and Sleigh-Riding Outside a Town, with the Utrecht Dom and Huis Groenwoude at Right, (165(8?)) by Salomon van Ruysdael.
But now Klesch has filed a claim in the London High Court, saying that the Ruysdael had been sold for $882,500 at Sotheby’s New York in June 2017, and that the Breughel was sold by Lempertz Cologne in November 2017 for €1.45m. The claim says that Richard Green Fine Paintings had not given this information and that had Klesch known of it, he would not have paid the prices he did.
Asked about the specific question of provenance, the gallery's director Jonathan Green said: “Where we bought the works is not relevant; as for any retailer we don’t have to reveal our sources.”
The Art Newspaper - Collector Sues Gallery
PCD Club In Shanghai This Month
Thursday April 25th David Bell won PCD Club will be hosting his first dinner event in Shanghai. If you remember, David and I hosted the PCD China Now event in London this past February.
If you are interested in joining in Shanghai this month be in touch and I can fill you in on the details.
Speak soon,
Blake