Are you the 'South Ken Scrubber'?
August 14 2014
Picture: Christie's
There's an art dealer out there somewhere whose modus operandi seems to be this: buy a cheap but vageuly enticing-looking old picture in a far flung auction house; give it a fairly brutal 'clean' with acetone and a brillo pad (by the look of it); and then consign it to Christie's South Kensington. I don't knwo who it is, but I call them 'the South Ken Scrubber'.
The above portrait of Charles I sold at Christie's South Kensington in July for £5,000 inc. premium looking like this. It had previously sold at Chorleys auction (as below) in Gloucestershire for £2,200 (exc. premium). After commissions, Vat and travel 'the Scrubber' might have made a few hundred quid. But the picture is damaged forever.
