The case centers around an oil sketch of The Hunt of Meleager and Atalanta by Rubens. The picture was the star lot in Christie’s old master sale in London in December of 2005, going for £3,144,000. The Art Newspaper reports that name of the buyer has not emerged, but he is understood to be a private collector from the New York area.

Now at that point facts get a little vague.

Our inquiries suggest that the junior employee knew that the Rubens already had an export licence for New York, to enable it to be displayed for five days at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, a month before the auction. This was a temporary export licence, which was not valid after the sale, and a serious error was made in assuming the picture could be re-exported. Last month, Christie’s told The Art Newspaper: “Our policy is to adhere strictly to all applicable laws and standard processes for the international transport of works of art. In the exceptional case of The Hunt of Meleager and Atalanta, a human error led to the accidental shipping of the picture to a client without completion of the appropriate export licensing process. Christie’s regrets the error and are co-operating fully on this matter with all relevant authorities to rectify this situation.”

What’s so silly about the excuse is that Christie’s knew from the moment the NY area buyer bought it, that they would have to present the object to the cultural authorities for an export permit. If they had already sent it to NY to show it off before the auction, they knew there would be US interest. And they also knew that it was a picture that would be one routinely checked up on by the UK cultural protection authorities. Since, in fact, that’s exactly how its export was detected. Still, the just-do-it-apologize-later tactic may actually work. The work’s been put out for purchase at £3,300,000. But it’s not certain whether any UK collector or public collection is going to be able to find the funds by Nov. 11 to buy it.

No folks, what is really big news here is that now the THE DECIDER can decide about the provenance of a painter’s oeuvre. This may sound like a minor development, but if Schoenberg’s strategy works it could place certain anointed art historians (basically those who write the catalogue raisonne for a given painter) in position to pass judgments worth millions of dollars. Alfred Weidinger has tred into this uncharted territory with his compendium of Klimt’s entire oeuvre.

Just look at this case, for example. Klimt painted Blooming Meadows around 1904-5

Now according to the claimant, Georges Jorisch of Montreal, the painting

was acquired by his grandmother’s brother Viktor Zuckerkandl, a Viennese steel magnate, collector and a friend of Klimt. After he died in 1928 the painting passed to Viktor’s sister Amalie [Redlich] and hung in her villa at the sanatorium in Purkersdorf outside Vienna of which she was part owner.

By the way, that’s the Josef Hoffmann Wiener Werkstätte masterpiece Purkersdorf Santiorium, just to add another layer to the Secession incest. Anyway, during the war, Jorisch claims:

Redlich placed her paintings in storage in 1939, two years before she was deported to Lodz. Her son sought to recover her property in 1947 but discovered it had been looted. The Weidinger catalogue reports that after the war the painting was sold by Galerie Schebesta in Vienna to Rudolf Leopold who in turn sold it to Sabarsky in New York, from whom it was purchased in 1983 by Leonard Lauder.

By the way, that’s Rudolf Leopold as in Leopold Museum. And it’s not the first time Rudolf’s collection was embroiled in the a restitution case. That time as well, the problematic painting came by way of Galerie Schebesta. Hmmm. It’s looking like Theodor Schebesta may have had himself a stash of war plunder, which, to cut him some slack, is not that surprising, given that Jews had owned all the great art Fin de Siecle Vienna produced. They were the patrons of the Wiener Werkstatte, and the only ones who bought Klimt’s paintings.

But let’s return our attention to the real issue here, which is the new book by Professor Weidinger, who is also an assistant director at the Albertina.

In his entry on Blooming Meadow he corroborates the provenance as described by Jorisch, namely that Redlich had inherited the painting from Zuckerkandl and owned it until 1939, when she put it in storage.

Schoenberg has been using the traditionally legally unassailable position of the catalogue raisonne author, who would usually have final word on the authenticity of a painter’s works. Witness the current Pollack locker painting dispute. And Schoenberg is rightly anticipating Weidinger’s opinion on provenance will equally hold up in court.

But he may not have to go that far. One sub point to the whole imbroglio is that the Austrian government never gave it an export permit. In other words, it was smuggled out of Austria. Yeah right, big whoop, even Christies’ smuggles these days. But here’s the thing. Ronald Lauder in theory bought the painting for his brother from Sabarsky in 1983, but we don’t know where it was during those years. And in 1986 Reagan appointed him US Ambassador to Austria. So the real shakedown that Schoenberg is putting on Lauder is a closer investigation of his potential Ambassadorial abuse of Diplomatic Pouch to illegally export important Austrian art. That should probably get the Lauders to cough up the $4-8 million that Jorisch is asking to let the issue go away.

Leonard Lauder’s Klimt landscape belongs to me, says heir of Nazi victim [The Art Newspaper]

A Dispute Over a Klimt Purchased in New York [NYT] see bizarro correction appended. What?! There’s some serious hissy fit going on here.

Time again to strap on that paddle and plug in the black lamps, because it’s high auction season in Budapest. Three major auction houses, Kieselbach, Virag Judit, and Nagyhazi are all having their big Spring Auctions in the next 2 weeks. Though it hasn’t shown up on the web catalogue, local radio is reporting that Virag Judit has got a Klimt drawing. Only question will be then whether Ronald Lauder is buying or selling it.

As usual if you have any works that interest you, contact us about previewing and bidding.

Below are my picks.

BEST SLEEPER

Virag Judit, lot 27, MISKOLCZY FERENC (1899-1994)
VIEW OF TOLEDO, 1925 Oil, canvas, 70,5×100,5 cm
Signed lower left: Toledo 1925 Miskolczy
Starting price: 180 000 Ft (€750)
Despite the painter’s little-known name, everything is right with this one: the location, the date 1925 (think The Sun Also Rises), and the fauvist colors with the El Greco expressionism…and good size.

BEST CUBISM

Nagyhazi, lot 504 – Scheiber Hugó (Budapest, 1873 – Budapest, 1950)
Girlfriends
tempera, karton
670*480 mm
j.k.l.: Scheiber H.
MNG 1706/981
Kikiáltási ár: 750 000 Ft (€ 3 152)
The best Scheiber up this time. To see his skill, look at the glass on the table. The work shows his peculiar technique of tempera and pastel. The tempera builds up the architecture and creates the cubism, and pastel gives the dynamism or futurism to the work.

For more cubism/avantgarde see:

at Kieselbach

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17492

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17513

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17501

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17527

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17531

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17535

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17540

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17556 this one may seem a little odd, but I think this painter is fantastic, and absolutely unique.
http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17586

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17629

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17635

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17680

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17697

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17705

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17706

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17739

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17649

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17688

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17701

at Nagyhazi there are a few:

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27280&tp=20&page=3

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27302&tp=20&page=5

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27331&tp=20&pa

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27404&tp=20&page=10

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27435&tp=20&p

At Virag Judit they don’t allow for direct links to their lots, but I’ve noted that these lot numbers are exciting: 27, 58, 69, 76, 79, 81, 90, 91, 108, 110, ,113, 165, 170, 178, 189, 216, 240

BEST IMPRESSIONISM

376 – Nádler Róbert (Pest, 1858 – Budapest, 1938)
Balatoni mólón
olaj, vászon
54,5*72,5 cm
j.b.l.: Nádler Róbert; ho.: berlini kiállítási címke 1925
Kikiáltási ár: 220 000 Ft (€ 925)
It’s a relatively late date, 1925, for impressionism. But the look and theme are outstanding, and you can’t beat it for harmless bucolic.

For those with Impressionism inclinations, have a look at these links:

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17490

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17500

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17583

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17565

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17560

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17558

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17599

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17603

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17602

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17615

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17618 very nice

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17617

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17649

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17650

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17690

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17701

http://www.kieselbach.hu/m-17707

at Nagyhazi:

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27201&tp=20&page=

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27353&tp=20&page=7

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27353&tp=20&page=7

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27308&tp=20&page=5

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27290&tp=20&page=4

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27280&tp=20&page=3

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27276&tp=20&page=3

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27237&tp=20&page=1

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27238&tp=20&page=1

http://www.nagyhazi.hu/tetelek_tobb.php?id=96&tid=27209&tp=20&page=0

Muterem (we can’t make direct links to their lots which is very frustrating, but here are the lots we recommend you look at:

3 Egry Jozsef
5 Fenyes Adolf
27 Miscolczy Ferenc
30 Kosztolányi Kann Gyula
72 Jandi David
74. Maticska Jenõ
75. Balla Béla
79. Szobotka Imre
93. Neogrády László
101. Fülöp Antal Andor
107. Börtsök Samu
108. Kádár Béla
111. Kádár Géza
117. Mednyánszky László
161. K. Spányi Béla
182 Ivanyi Grunwald Béla
224 Aba Novak

Now the Foundation’s role in the affair reminds us that in the very pluralistic world of modern connoiseurship, finding out who is The Decider is as much an act of authentification as the attribution of the paintings themselves. The Pollock/Krassner Foundation’s activities in recent years had much more be devoted to giving grants to contemporary artists, and less known as the guardian of the oeuvre’s of Jackson and his wife Lee Krassner. The most controversial character in the dispute is surely Ellen Landau, the Case Western Reserve art history professor, who, as a former board member of the Foundation and the author of Krassner’s catalogue raisonné, as well as a major work on Pollock, brought what should seem like unassailable credentials to the project. Both of these books were published by top flight art book publisher Harry N. Abrams, and in many ways, it’s publishers like Abrams who, in deciding to print books by certain art historians, make the first steps towards anointing The Decider. What Landau, despite all her art historical expertise, cannot seem to fight, though, is the gathering evidence from scientists who have been undermining the works with computers and chemical analysis. It’s a fascinating replay of the two diverging trends in attribution technique that was first highlighted in the struggles of the Rembrandt Research Project (here’s a tedious paper I wrote in grad school on the subject rembrandt-project.doc) where traditional connoisseurship with its emphasis on an expert’s intangible ability to sense if a painting is correct, is pitted against new fangled methods like canvas thread counting, dye analysis, and carbon and atomic dating.

This collection of 32 works has already been subjected to a bewildering array of testing, most prominently when researchers at Harvard concluded that the 3 works they studied included paints not patented at the time of Pollock’s death. But Landau and Matter have countered with press releases that dispute the Harvard study, by providing a plausible explanation for the un-patented paints:

We still don’t know exactly what Herbert Matter meant when he identified the works as having been done with “Robi paints.” Presumably this refers to his brother-in-law Robi Rebetez who owned a famous art supply store in Basel and supplied materials to the Matters. (Although his daughters told Harvard that Robi didn’t ship to the US, they were too young to know. I have interviewed an older family member–also an artist– who has confirmed that the Matters did regularly obtain art supplies from Robi.) We are planning to do further research in Switzerland on patent dates for pigments there. Just because a pigment wasn’t patented in the USA, doesn’t mean that it was not available in Switzerland or Germany. We don’t know the answer to that yet.

They then follow up with a counter argument based in old school art history UNDENIABLE influence theory.

Stylistically, these works relate very closely to techniques Pollock learned from working at Atelier 17 with Stanley William Hayter and, more importantly, they reflect as well the impact of Herbert Matter’s technical experimentation which no one else could have experienced.
Based on Alex Matter’s finding this package, I have done extensive research in Herbert Matter’s Archives at Stanford which has clearly uncovered the fact that Matter’s action photography influenced Pollock’s development of the concept of action painting. This is the topic of the exhibition I am curating for the McMullen Museum. This is the first new information on Pollock’s sources in two generations of scholarship.

Furthermore Harvard hasn’t been the only institution looking at the collection. In fact, these pictures seem to be undergoing more testing than a NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND 5th grader. The IHT story tells us:

Recently the foundation learned that Matter had commissioned a forensic scientist, James Martin, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to conduct an extensive chemical analysis of many more of the paintings. But Martin has yet to release the results of the study, completed last fall.

Apparently, Martin had been threatened with legal action by Matter’s lawyer if he released his results. He wrote a long email to the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Martin wrote in his e-mails that he performed more than 350 analyses on 23 of the works. His analysis was far more extensive than the Harvard study, which examined only three paintings.

Martin’s e-mail said that the Harvard analysis, launched by mutual agreement between Harvard, Matter and Borghi, focused on three of the same paintings he also studied and was concurrent with his. He also said it seemed “reasonable and prudent” to wait for its completion before releasing his results.

“Now that their results are in, one has to question why all the results are not being released,” he said by phone Thursday.

Martin’s e-mails didn’t say specifically whether his results agreed with the Harvard analysis, but they suggested that both the Harvard study and an upcoming analysis of four paintings, to be conducted by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, would support his conclusions.

“I am delighted that colleagues at Harvard and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston are confirming Orion’s findings,” he wrote.

Oh yeah, and to plop more confusion on to this canvas, you may notice the CPD refers to Matter’s art dealer as Mark Borghi (not Ronald Feldman???).

Finally, in what must be one of the more entertaining examples of scientific over-reaching, the study of fractals has now latched on to Pollock’s oeuvre, and now the geeks have trained their computers on these suspect works in order to determine their authenticity. Oregon physicist, Richard Taylor, who’s made a career out this obtuse field claimed that he could de-authenticate these works because of their faulty fractals. Case Western Reserve physicists (remember its mostly known as an engineering college) came to the rescue of their beleaguered art historian, and published a counter attack on Taylor in the journal Nature. One of the scientists:

quickly and crudely sketched a field of stars in the manner of a 3-year-old’s scribble. She subjected the drawing, which she called “Untitled 5,” to the kind of analysis Taylor used. The screening indicated that “Untitled 5″ contained a complex fractal, one that Taylor contends only the highly skilled Pollock was consistently able to produce.

Which can only lead us to conclude that the scientist must have been as drunk as Jack usually was.

Possible Pollocks are quietly being sold [IHT]

Here’s a fascinating sitting room ensemble with it’s original 1920′s era upholstery.

The set includes two armchairs

and settee.

The dealer who has it says he bought it in Vienna. He wouldn’t dare to give a positive ID on the maker, but design provides another sterling example of a Deco/Baroque hybrid that occurred in Central Europe during the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 20th Century. That stylistic cocktail was simultaneously concocted in Vienna by Dagobert Peche, who would become the chief designer of the Wiener Werkstätte until his untimely death in 1923.

Peche’s design for a commode, c.1919. Notice the legs.

And, at the same time, working in Budapest, Lajos Kozma, would produce the same blend of stylization and abstraction, but he would arrive at it from completely different origins (namely inspiration from Hungarian folk motifs).

Kozma’s mirror here so much resembled Peche, that it was displayed on the facing page to a work by Peche in a recent compendium of International Art Deco

I have identified 4 major trends in this Central European Deco/Baroque:
1. Foliage characterized by regular curves and squared angles.
2. Vines of regular breadth drawn with monochrome shading.
2. The cabriole leg, like the Chippendale, Louis XV, or highly stylized format.
3. The architectonic outline of spikes and arches.
4. Stylized baroque grill-work in a regularized form.

We find all of those characteristics with this set. Notice the upholstery…

And also the tulip form in the chairs themselves. The legs are a stylized cabriole variety.

The dealer is asking 3,800 Euros. Contact us if you want to be put in touch with him.

Here’s a Camille Gauthier (protégé of Majorelle) dining room set.

The firm’s stamp shows the name of his financial backer, Poinsignon, with the name Atelier Nancy. See close up of company stamp.

The primary wood is Macasari Ebony, with framing and construction in blond oak. The most fabulous aspect of the piece is its wonderful soft patina, which at the same time needs no real restoration.

It has one buffet, table, and 6 chairs.

The dealer is asking 18,000 Euros. Contact us if you want to be put in touch with him.

Auction records for three Central European expressionists have all been set by restituted art works:

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Street Scene-Berlin ($38 million); Egon Schiele’s View of Krumau ($24 million); Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II ($87 million)

Furthermore, the world’s (briefly) most expensive painting was sold for $135 million to Ronald Lauder and that also came off the walls of Vienna’s Upper Belvedere.

Gustav Klimt. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I c.1907. Briefly the world’s most valuable canvas until a bunch of drippy paint surpassed it.

Now all of these works, except for the Schiele, were sold through Christies. And to make the scenario even more incestuous, we should point out that Lauder also bought the Kirchner for his Neue Galerie, but that the $135 mil that he supposedly paid for the Adele I is a bit teleological. It turns out that that price was chosen as the value of artworks that Lauder would put up for sale in compensation, and well… he actually put up a bunch of not very pretty Schieles and they haven’t been selling so well.

Not gonna be able to pay for Adele up there with these ladies here. Schiele’s Prozession c.1911 failed to sell.

Christie’s worked very closely with the Maria Altmann (niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer) to help bring about the restitution of her 5 Klimts, with Stephen Lash, chairman of Christie’s Americas, sitting next to Mrs. Altmann at the Supreme Court hearings in 2004. Now the heirs case was far from iron-clad. For one, Adele herself had willed the paintings to the Austrian State before her death in 1925. Furthermore, the surviving Bloch-Bauers had signed over the Klimts to the Austrians in 1948, in exchange for being allowed to export a bunch of Waldmüllers and Danhausers that nobody wants these days anyhow. But lawyers for the Altmanns, particularly E. Randol Schoenberg (as in grandson of “12-Tone” Arnold) argued that Adele herself, if she’d seen the Anschluss, would never have granted her paintings to the state. But this is hardly the flimsiest of restitution arguments that have been successful these days.

The record-setting Kirchner had been sold by Alfred Hess, a bankrupt shoe manufacturer hard hit by the Depression, some time around 1936 and it eventually ended up in Die Brucke Museum in Berlin. Point is that, throughout the 30s, the Hess family had been selling their paintings as a means to support themselves. Nonetheless, lobbyists for the heirs with backing from Christie’s were able to convince the Berlin Senate that the painting had been sold because of hardship brought on by the Nazis, and to return it to the Hesses before a protest movement could effectively counter the action.

The scale of the enterprise has reached a new level now with the arrival of the Goudstikker collection of 170 old masters that have been pryed out of Dutch Museums by the relentless heirs of the dealer Jacques Goudstikker. The IHT article describes the unfortunate tale:

The story of Jacques Goudstikker — and his heirs’ eight-year legal battle to wrest some of his paintings from the Dutch government — is a complex tale of scholarship and tenacity. Goudsticker, his wife and their son fled the Netherlands on May 14, 1940, as the city was invaded by the Nazis, leaving behind his gallery business and 1,400 art works.

A second-generation art dealer, Goudstikker was unable to take any of his prized paintings with him but he did carry a small black notebook containing meticulous records of more than 1,000 works in his inventory. That notebook, which his wife retrieved after he died in a fall on the blacked-out freighter carrying them to safety, became crucial decades later when his widow and son began searching for the collection.

Many of the best works at one point were owned by Hermann Göring. After the war, nearly 300 paintings from the Goudstikker collection were returned by the Allies to the Dutch and, despite the family’s protests, placed in the national collections. But in February 2006 the Dutch government agreed to return 202 paintings it had recovered after the war.

An interesting little subtext also arises from the story:

Roelof van Holthe tot Echten, a lawyer, had asked the courts to block the release of the art until he was paid the fee he claims for helping to recover the art.

A judge ordered von Saher to put down a $10.4 million bank guarantee as a security deposit until the lawyer’s fee is settled by the court.

Asked if Christie’s was advancing her the $10.4 million, Kaye replied: “Clearly she’s getting the money from somewhere. I can’t discuss her financial arrangement with Christie’s.”

What might we deduce here?:

Christie’s strategy makes perfect sense in a buoyant art market where, in fact, very little good new stuff was otherwise being churned up, attributed to a shortage of the 3 Ds (Death, Divorce, Debt).The only way to get record-smashing pieces is to take them away from museums. 20 years ago, placement in a public collection was considered entombing for a work, meaning it would never see the light of the market again. Such conventional wisdom has rapidly come undone, with France selling renting its art to Arabs, the Toledo Art Museum unloading an unwanted Sisley, and let’s not forget all those Schieles that Lauder’s Neue Galerie is trying to dump on the market.

Here’s why trafficking in museum art is good business:

A recent article by the Telegraph estimates that 50% of the take from Christies huge November 2006 Modernist/Impressionist sale came from restituted art. The way Christie’s juggernaut is proceeding it’s only a matter of time before they dislodge four El Grecos out of Budapest’s Szepművészeti Museum. Sooner or later, though, they’ll have to turn their attention to the worlds biggest treasure trove of unrestituted art, which is in Russia, but that may be a tougher nut to crack, since Christie’s strategy only works if the defendant gives a shit about what the US Supreme Court thinks, which Putin’s Russia doesn’t.

Klimt portrait sells for a record $135 million [IHT]
How Christie’s kept top spot over Sotheby’s in 2006 sales [IHT]
An art trove, looted by the Nazis and recovered, is going on sale [IHT]
Kirchner Painting At Heart of Restitution Dispute [DW]
Nazi loot a goldmine for auction houses [Telegraph.co.uk]

attr. Giovanni Francesco Rustici St. John the Baptist, early 16th Century

The article in the NYT tells us that in addition to the piece being broken up in many places, it had been “clumsily” restored. Along with restoring the piece, an immense effort was organized to attribute the piece to a close friend of Leonardo’s, Giovanni Francesco Rustici. The core of the attribution lies in Vasari’s mention of Rustici having made a St.JB for the Baptistery in Florence, and that when he was doing so he was sharing a house with Leonardo!

Giovanni Francesca Rustici. St. John the Baptist. Early 16th Century. In the Baptistery in Florence.

Apparently, the most controversial aspect of the restoration involved an earlier “clumsy” restoration of the finger which was pointing back at the saint himself.

But under Cambareri’s restoration, the finger was extended to point over the shoulder of the saint, indicating, according to CATHOLIC ORTHODOXY that he was the one who came before Jesus (James Beck will be weighing in on this any moment now). What the curators at the Boston Fine Arts Museum failed to understand was that the finger was supposed to be pointing back at John. Because…

Art Miser has deduced using our super-human sense of semiotics that….Since we all KNOW Leonardo was gay (the internet says so), then, well…you know what “sharing a house” means in gayspeak. And the Baptist, pointing at himself, is saying: “it’s all about me!” In other words, it’s not about that fluzzy Mary Magdellan. It’s about me and Jesus. And of course, the statue is also a reference to how Rustici “baptized” Leonardo (the Messiah). This lame-ass concoction will serve as the intellectual underpinnings to the Da Vinci Code II which will involve the long lost Battle of Anghiari (which had originally been done in competition with Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina), and later Vasari painted over it in the Palazzo Vecchio. The shocking sequel will also feature the fearsome Book of Gomorrah and the prophetic St. Peter Damian. The book will be marketed under the full title: The Da Vinci Code II: The Michelangelo Code. 

A Mysterious St. John, Found in the Attic [NYT]
A Real-Life Mystery: The Hunt for the Lost Leonardo [NYT]

historical values for Any Old Shit from some guy in the 70s

Thing is that even if we know the methods for calculating an artist’s prices, those points still have to get earned. Currently values are rising steadily for contemporary art, or rather, let’s be more precise and say: the recent dead, the near dead, or, in the case of Andy Warhol, the undead. And since the best points get awarded for inclusion in a public collection, well, guess what? Big collectors are building whole wings of municipal museums to display their own personal collections. Now of course, since that involves millions of dollars, its not the kind of outlay everyone can afford. But…if you’re rich enough, it’s a clear route to insuring that you hold the biggest trophies.

At Contemporary Art sales, a mood to buy regardless of quality [IHT]

When private collectors go public [IHT]

For example a major work by Nabis painter Raoul Dufy fetched £4 mil.

Raoul Dufy La Forie aux Oignons c1907

Other highlights were that a Chaim Soutine brought in £8.75 mil.

Chaim Soutine L’Homme au Foulard Rouge c1921

And at same time Ludwig Meidner also achieved new heights with a £1.52 mil sale. On the other hand, Emil Nolde had two of his works go unwanted. Lesson we can take from this: All 3 were Expressionists, but Soutine and Meidner were Jewish, and Nolde joined the Nazi Party. Or simply:

Jewish Painters: Market Strong

Nazi Painters: Market Weak

Also speaking of moribund demand, Egon Schiele’s fallen a long way since his £12.66m for View of Krumau at a sale at Sothebys in 2003. Of course part of the misunderstanding by the market was that that incredible price happened because the painting had been in a public collection in Graz for 50 years, and then restituted to the original heirs. That kind of a setup is bound to produce a record price. Such price pumping exceptions were not present in the three items of Schiele’s that did not sell last week. Two of them were nudes, and some of his nudes…well, frankly, they ain’t the kind of thing you wanna display around nice company. It’s good to hear that folks aren’t wasting money on signatures attached to works that simply cannot be hung around your mother-in-law.

A new trend at Impressionist and Modern art auctions [IHT]