Page 67 - Studio International - January 1968

separate a painting done by a particular artist from
a copy or a forgery in his style.
In future years some paintings of this kind may
perhaps be dated from the occurrence of novel pig-
ments, such as polyurethane paints, but in many
cases it will hardly be possible to go further and
attribute them with certainty, or even near-
certainty, to a particular hand. Whether such
paintings will ever be valued in the same way as
the earlier paintings of the twentieth century are
valued today is a point difficult to determine. The
probability is that there never will be a market for
them which will be anything but evanescent. There
are, however, quite a number of artists working
today whose style is as personal to them as any-
thing to be found in the past. Francis Bacon is an
example, and while forgeries of his work may be a
feature of the market in ten or twenty years time,
it will present difficulties as formidable as any the
forger has faced hitherto.
The law, lamentably weak in England, has now
been strengthened, but by how much will depend
on the development of case-law which will grow
from further decisions and interpretations in the
Courts. Hitherto the legal position has been so
obscure that the police, who have a certain amount
of discretion in the aspects of the law they choose
Absinthe drinker Picasso
to enforce, have left this type of case severely alone,
Forgery, signed 'Picasso' Absinthe drinker 1904
principally because of the difficulty of attaining the
Brooklyn Museum, New York
standard of proof required by law. Even now they
are, perhaps, unlikely to pursue the subject,
because they have neither the men nor the expert everyone else, they make mistakes, and the fact certainly no more than they would normally run in
knowledge necessary to investigate it. In the past, that they are compelled to limit their liability to a buying shares or real-property. Those who seek
however, English trade associations have demand- relatively short period of time after the sale suggests bargains in dubious places will always be in danger.
ed a high standard of conduct from their members, that the private buyer would do well to leave The higher the potential profit the greater the risk
and this has, questions of honesty apart, proved to auction-room buying to dealers. The combined is an axiom it is wise to remember.
be so advantageous that their attitude is hardly expertise of the sale-room and the dealer can usually No more fitting conclusion to these articles could
likely to change. The result has been that the be relied on to sort the sheep from the goats at the be found than a remark once made by Giovanni
English market has been fairly free from the kind of time of sale. Morelli, a pioneer of modern methods of attri-
wholesale influx of forged works sometimes to be There is no reason to think that buyers exercising buting paintings: 'Enthusiasm is not a method of
seen in other countries, notably France and the a reasonable amount of wisdom and judgement in judgement'.
United States. English dealers of the more reput- making purchases are running any undue risk;
able kind have long realized the force of Gresham's
Law, that bad currency drives out good. Two
instances of its working may be seen today in the
low prices realized for the pottery of Bernard
Art at Auction
Palissy and mediaeval ivory-carvings, both of
which were especial targets of nineteenth-century It can be argued—and often is—that the 'news- passed through Sotheby's and Parke-Bernet in
forgers, and from which neither have ever worthiness' of highly-priced works of art has 1966-7 are in many instances scholarly pieces. If
recovered. helped to stimulate general interest in painting one has to single out examples, then Adrian Eeles
Dealers in the United States are showing an in- and sculpture, and that the public relations outfits on `Lautrec and Lithography', Gerald Reitlinger
creasing anxiety to stem the flow of forgeries from of big auction houses and the complicity of daily on 'Sales of Oriental Porcelain and Pottery since
Continental Europe, and they have recently been papers and TV services combine to increase the 1930s', and Robert Koch on 'Tiffany Glass'.
very active in exposing cases of fraud. It is interest- popular awareness. In a recent radio discussion The combination of good text, major prices and
ing to note that in one case suspicions were aroused Mr Leslie Waddington, the London dealer, com- handsome illustrations makes this something more
by a preliminary inspection of photographs, which plained at the way in which these newsworthy tid- than a book for collectors, dealers, etc. It should
led to an investigation of the paintings themselves. bits conspire to reduce the amount of space given interest sociologists and those interested in the
On one the paint was scarcely dry, and since paint to more serious coverage of the arts even in the taste of the wealthy. (Who can they be, these
takes many years to harden, the point of a common `quality' papers; but there is, in fact, a melan- people who end up owning three-inch bits of
domestic needle could have elicited this fact in a choly half-truth in the argument, and Sotheby's nonsense by Faberge?) Surprisingly, however,
few seconds. Most of the paintings in question are one culprit: bigger, higher-price sales; there are inconsistencies in the captions. Why are
were accompanied by a certificate of genuineness. more colourful public relations products—of which the heights given to Renaissance bronzes, and
For the buyer of modern paintings who is not an Art at Auction* is an impressive example. The indi- denied to massive-looking T'ang figures? The
expert in his own right the safest way of acquiring vidual essays on works (and prices) that have diameter of a Doccia dish is recorded, but not that
works is to go to an expert dealer with a reputation of a Capo-Di-Monte one. And surely Edward
to lose. The sale-rooms do their best in a limited Dayes' Hawes Water, Westmorland, should be de-
time to examine and check the large number of *Art at Auction—The Year at Sotheby's and Parke-Bernet scribed as a watercolour when a Corsican view
works which pass through their hands, but, like 1966-7 published by Macdonald, London, 75s. by Edward Lear gets all the honours?