Dickinson wins £9.1m Chardin case
December 13 2022
Picture: Mail
The London dealer Simon Dickinson (inset, above) has won a court case in which he was sued by the owner of a Chardin - Le Benedicite - he had sold on their behalf. The owner, the Countess of Wemyss & March (right, above), maintained that the painting sold by her privately through Dickinson to another dealer, Verner Amell, as 'Chardin & Studio' for £1.4m, should have fetched a higher sum, closer to the £9.1m it made when Amell then sold it to his client, as a fully attributed 'Chardin', just over six months later. The picture (one of four versions of this famous composition) had been listed in Pierre Rosenberg's catalogue raisonne as a "copie retouchée", which I take to mean as a version made in the workshop, retouched by Chardin himself.
The judge found in favour of Dickinson on all counts. I think, from what I've seen of the case, that this was always the likely outcome. There was a curious passage in the judgement which seemed to imply that Lady Wemyss' lawyer wanted to argue the case on the basis of the painting being either simply "autograph" or "non-autograph" - in other words, as Judge Simon Gleeson said in his judgement - 'that the art market as a whole would divide Chardin paintings as falling into only two classes – autograph and third party copies', and that "copie retouchée" meant the picture was still all by Chardin himself. Whereas Simon Dickinson's lawyers argued that it was better to think in terms of "wholly autograph" or "partially autograph". The latter is of course (as the judge agreed) correct, especially when we're dealing with so many artists who relied on studio assistants, and I'm surprissed the Wemyss' legal team tried to argue the case on this apparently flawed basis.
We might also say that the final £9.1m figure for the painting could be said to reflect Verner Amell's skills as an art dealer as much as the merits of the painting itself. Amell's decision to purchase the painting involved a deal of risk, as he is quoted as saying in the judgement:
"When I bought the painting by Chardin and Studio, I took an enormous risk. Every single monongraph, Pierre Rosenberg, Phillip Conisbee at the National Gallery, Marianne Roland Michell, the Wildenstein Institute, and others all said the painting was an old copy or wrong. Not by the Artist…..But, I liked the painting and I thought it had a chance of being right….please remember, if we had not found the signature, we would have spent the rest of our lives arguing about the attribution and would probably have lost half our money…As you know, I have always been a gambler on paintings, and presumably that is why you offered me the Chardin, as it was a gamble"
The £9.1m figure was even described by Judge Gleeson as 'grossly inflated'. Much of the decision came down to the question of value, about which Judge Gleeson said; 'this is an exercise of the most unscientific and speculative nature imaginable'. Which I think is worth remembering, next time somebody confidently tells you what a picture is or is not worth.
Anyway, the main takeaway in all these cases is; think very, very hard about going to law about a painting. The second takeaway is, if you consign a painting to a dealer for private sale, make sure - if you don't want the shock of seeing it again for a different price - they sell it not to a dealer, but to a private collector, or, better yet, a museum.
You can read a summary of the case by barrister Michael Bowner at the Institute of Art and Law here, and the full judgement (which I have to say is really quite impressive in its grasp of all the art market issues) here.
Update - I noticed this snippet in the judgement, and identify strongly with the last line:
Simon Dickinson is the key witness in this case. He is clearly, as he presents himself, a man whose life has been devoted to art. His track-record suggests that he has a formidable eye, and he has an extremely high level of confidence in his own ability to discern quality in a painting. He is not a keeper of notes, and, as he admits, his memory for anything other than paintings is questionable.
Update II - thinking further about this case, and associated cases like the Thwaytes Caravaggio case against Sotheby's, it seems to me unfortunate, to say the least, that questions over attribution and art market practice which on the surface seem quite straightforward to those operating within the art world, can take months and millions of pounds to resolve in a court of law. Moreover, some of these cases seem to be launched on the basis of one set of lawyers beginning from a weak position built on a failure to understand some pretty basic art and art market matters. Perhaps there is a need for a kind of art market tribunal, where these questions can be referred without costing so much money. But then, as they say in the legal world, 'all good things end in litigation'.
Update III - looking further at the judgement, I do think there is one area where the judge has erred (paras 163-167), and that is in his estimation of the likely value of the painting had it 1) been accepted as a fully attributed Chardin at the time of the Wemyss sale, and 2) been subjected to an export licence stop. He calculates the former to have been £5m, but subject to the latter, reduced £4m. But the benefit of the UK export licence system is that it has very little if any impact on the value of a painting. The judge seems to have calculated his £1m export licence-related discount on the basis of someone - in this case an overseas buyer - taking a risk and buying and paying for the painting before they knew if an export licence would be granted. Whereas the UK system allows someone to apply for an export licence without first paying for an object. So there is no chance of, say, a US collector, ending up with their picture stuck with it in the UK. He also accepted the erroneous evidence of one of the expert witnesses that the fact that a painting might be subject to an export licence would affect a dealer's ability to market the painting, which is simply not true. In any case, this part of the judge's reasoning was moot, since he did not find Dickinson has been negligent at all.
Acceptance in Lieu report
December 12 2022
Picture: ACE
Regular readers will know what an admirer I am of the UK's acceptance-in-lieu scheme, which allows museums to acquire important works of art if the government agrees to forgo an amount of tax equivalent to their value. This year's report is out, here, and details some major new acquisitions, including a Wright of Derby self-portrait for Derby Museum (which I've reported on before, here); a Hogarth portrait for Strawberry Hill; a Veronese portrait for the National Gallery; a Canaletto for the V&A; and the above Lo Spagna of Christ Carrying the Cross (above), which was previously in the Sutherland Collection, but has now been allocated to the National Gallery, which has its pendant, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemene. The total amount of tax foregone was over £27m.
The Parthenon Marbles (ctd.)
December 12 2022
Picture: BG
Liam Kelly in The Times reports that George Osborne, chair of the British Museum, has been having secret talks with the Greek Prime Minister, over the possible return of the Parthenon Marbles. This feels like a significant moment. I don't think such high levels talks would happen if there hadn't been progress further down the chain of command, so to speak.
I note also that 10 Downing Street, under Rishi Sunak, has stopped short of declaring outright opposition to any repatriation, as Liz Truss did in her brief, inglorious premiership. Instead, they've gone back to the 'it's up to the British Museum' formula.
So, my best guess is we could see a development soon, probably to coincide with the announcement on a major refurbishment of the British Museum. Where better to move the Marbles while the Duveen Galleries are rebuilt than the Parthenon? And after the move has been seen to be a success and the British Museum isn't emptied of everything (as opponents of returning the Marbles like to claim), then who will object to most of them staying in Athens on long-term loan? Not many, I suspect.
Incidentally, I see also that Lord Parkinson, who was arts minister under Boris Johnson, has been reappointed to the post under Rishi Sunak. He was replaced as arts minister under Liz Truss. A good reappointment, I think, he has always been interested in the arts and culture brief.
Fitzwilliam Museum funding cuts
December 12 2022
Picture: Apollo
When the Arts Council announced its funding settlement last month all the hoo-ha focused around cuts to institutions like the English National Opera. But there were some savage and needless cuts in the museum sector too, especially for the Fitzwilliam Museum, which lost half its funding; £637k from £1.2m. No reason was given. By contrast, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford didn't lose any funding.
The Arts Council says it was responding to the government's directions on 'levelling up', that is, redistributing funding from London to the regions. But this appears to be mainly cover for overall cuts. The Arts Council is supposed to be an 'arms length body', and retain some independence from the government. However, its actions lately suggest it is doing too much of the government's bidding. For example, previously its two main funding streams - the National Lottery and grant-in-aid - were supposed to be clearly demarcated as separate sets of accounts. But now the two sums are lumped in together, which masks the fall in grant-in-aid from the government. But the main problem is the Arts Council was never set up to deal with museums - this used to be a different body, the MLA (Museums Libraries and Archives) - and is inherently more focused on performing arts.
There's an interview here in Apollo with the Fitzwilliam's director Luke Syson (above), responding to the cuts:
For the past three years, the University of Cambridge Museums group has received £1.2m. This year, in one of the most reviled funding rounds in the history of the ACE, it was announced that the group would receive just over £600,000. According to the most recent annual report publicly available (2019– 20), ACE contributed 12 per cent of the museum’s income. For an institution of the Fitzwilliam’s size, this reduction in income is crippling. Reading between the lines, there are hints in the same report that ACE was concerned that the Fitzwilliam hadn’t fulfilled its targets of diversifying the audience. Cutting its money won’t help it achieve this.
Syson is clearly in shock when we discuss this. At the time of our interview, he still hadn’t had an explanation. It ‘was announced on Friday [4 November] and we didn’t have any warning that we were going to be cut to that degree. Obviously, we’re extremely disappointed,’ he says. It is a decision that seems particularly odd in light of the fact that the work the outreach and education teams did during lockdown resulted in the Fitzwilliam being ‘consulted by legislators to find out what best practice in this in this area looked like.’
Apologies (ctd.)
December 8 2022
Sorry for the lack of posts - I was in London looking at the Old Master sales. And I'm on a deadline for Scottish Field, who I started writing a regular column for lately. (The most recent article, if you're interested, is on Esther Inglis, the first British female professional artist, preview here.)
l'll post a review of the Old Master sales and some more news stories in a couple of days.
National Gallery Sainsbury Wing extension (ctd.)
December 1 2022
Video: The Shanghai Museum
Westminster Council has granted planning permission to the National Gallery for its rebuilding of the Sainsbury Wing, as part of a plan to make it the main entrance. The move comes despite a last minute plea from Denise Scott Brown, who designed the original Wing, to leave it alone. Let's be honest, the permission was a done deal - the National Gallery would not have already shut up the Sainsbury Wing and dispersed the pictures that used to hang in it if it hadn't been very confident of being able to get its way on planning.
Was a deal done? Perhaps. The Council makes a lot of money from licensing events in Trafalgar Square, events which make it difficult for the National Gallery to use its main entrance.
Anyway, I noticed that the Shanghai Museum has been promoting a loan exhibition of some 52 masterpieces from the National Gallery. I wonder how much the National Gallery is being paid for the loans. While I'm not averse to the National Gallery lending works to institutions like the Shanghai Museum, the figure of 52 works being exhibited contrasts with the 12 being sent around the UK as part of the National's 200th anniversary celebrations.
The Shanghai show opens January 17th to May 7th 2023.
Update - I was told by The Highest Authority that there no deal was done, with regards to Westminster Council.
I also asked the NG whether it could disclose how much they were being paid for the Shanghai loans:
[...] we can’t comment on confidential contractual matters. But the Gallery is committed to generating additional income to support its ambitious strategic plan (2021-2026) which is for the nation and for the world, and to be as self-funding as possible in these difficult times.
In other words, the Shanghai loan is no ordinary loan, but is a commercial venture. Does the National Gallery really need the money though? Every now and then I like to keep an eye on its reserves, that is, the reserve ammounts in keeps in various trusts and funds, but which it doesn't include in its main annual accounts. The American Friends of the National Gallery's latest publicly available accounts report that as of December 2020 it had net assets of $283m. The National Gallery Trust, which is UK based, had as of March 2021 total funds of £110m.
'New wing' for the National Portrait Gallery
November 29 2022
Picture: The Guardian
The National Portrait Gallery in London has been given a generous and significant £10m donation by the Blavatnik Foundation. The news stories said this will mean a 'new wing', called the Blavatnik Wing, to open with the rest of the newly refurbished Gallery in 2023. But as far as I can see it means the existing first floor will be renamed 'The Blavatnik Wing'. But if renaming galleries is what we need to do to get these kinds of mega donations, so be it.
I was interested to see in The Guardian that they have what they say is a photograph (above) of the new first floor galleries - and happily it looks not too dissimilar to how it used to look. Phew! Just a little less of the 1970s brown...
The other development announced by the NPG was the acquisition of a patch of land outside the new entrance, which they will use as a ticket booth. I hope that works (will most people still expect to buy their tickets inside?), for it'll mean more space inside for art and visitor circulation.
Restoring Michelangelo's 'Epifania'
November 29 2022
Picture: The Guardian
I'm glad to see the British Museum has embarked on a programme of conservation for their large Michelangelo cartoon, 'Epifania', so that it can go back on display in 2024. The drawing is one of only two surviving Michelangelo cartoons, and should by rights be almost as famous in Britain as Leonardo's 'Burlington Cartoon' in the National Gallery. More here.
Sleeper alert
November 29 2022
Picture: Christie's
This copy of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi made over €1m at Christie's online Old Master sale in Paris yesterday. The estimate was just €10k-15k. For a few glorious hours I was in the lead. But that was three days ago...
I was bidding because I thought it was an earlier copy than 1600, as Christie's had catalogued it. How much earlier is of course now the €1m question. I'll be writing more about the picture, and how it fits into the Salvator Mundi production line, in next month's The Art Newspaper.
Sleeper alert
November 26 2022
Pictures: via Auction Radar
The Twitter account Auction Radar points to two huge prices for the above pictures: the panel on the left was offered as School of Ambrogio Lorenzetti at €10/15k, and made €590k. The 'Moses' on the right was offered as Bolognese School at €5k, and also made €590k.
Job opportunity
November 26 2022
Picture: Codart
Three job opportunities, in fact; the Rijksmuseum is looking for new curators of 17th, 19th and 20th Century art. Deadline 4th December. More here.
Titian's Venus & Adonis at Sotheby's
November 23 2022
Video: Sotheby's
Here's a video from Sotheby's on the £8m-£12m Venus & Adonis they have in their Old Master sale. You'll be able to see which market they're focusing on from how often the word 'contemporary' crops up.
Jail for Just Stop Oil protestor
November 22 2022
Picture: Guardian
A Just Stop Oil protestor who glued himself to a Van Gogh frame at the Courtauld Gallery has been jailed for three weeks. Louis McKechnie (above left) was jailed for three weeks, while his co-defendant Emily Brocklebank was given a suspended sentence. The Courtauld Gallery said the frame sustained about £2,000 worth of damage. The court case saw a curious attempted defence, that the protest had boosted the painting's value. From The Guardian:
A lawyer for the activists, who are part of a group waging disruptive protests until the government agrees to halt all new oil and gas projects, had asked a curator for the gallery if the action may have increased the value of the painting.
“Say the institute was to sell it on in 20 to 30 years, is it possible its value would now increase?” Francesca Cociani, defending, asked Karen Serres, a curator at the gallery.
Serres, who was the sole witness in the trial, replied: “Absolutely not,” adding that a work so famous as one by Van Gogh would not increase in value as a result.
Such works, which were owned by a trust which held items displayed at the gallery, could also not be sold and were intended for public display, she added.
The verdict and sentence probably gives us an idea of what will happen when the more high profile case of the National Gallery Van Gogh protest comes to court. I was interviewed on Radio 4's Front Row about the protests, along with The Art Newspaper's Louisa Buck, available here.
New Gainsborough's House museum
November 22 2022
Picture: BBC
The new extension to Gainsborough's House Museum in Sudbury opened yesterday. It makes it the largest art gallery in Suffolk, and looks to be a really exciting addition to the area. I was hoping to be able to point you to some video or pictures of the interior on the museum's website, but it hasn't been updated yet. More here on the BBC.
Forgery suspect arrested
November 22 2022
Picture: TAN
The sometime art dealer Giuliano Ruffini, who has been suspected in involvement in a string of allegedly forged Old Master paintings, has been arrested in Italy. Vincent Noce has more in The Art Newspaper, here.
London Old Master sales
November 21 2022
Picture: Sotheby's
The London Old Master sale catalogues have gone online. Or rather, the Evening Sale catalogues have. For some reason, they only seem nowadays to put the Day Sale catalogues online just a couple of weeks before the sale. Which doesn't seem to me to be very conducive to buyers!
Anyway, at Sotheby's, they have a Venus and Adonis (above) by Titian and his workshop, estimated at £8m-£12m. It used to belong to Prince Eugene of Savoy. There are a number of fine Still Lifes, including a £1m-£1.5m Jan Davidsz. de Heem. The picture I'd most like to buy if I could is an oil sketch, Study for the White Horse, by John Constable, which once belonged to his daughter (£250k-£350k).
Christie's sale has a newly identified Portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger, and his workshop, at £1m-£1.5m. Another 'and Studio' work is Rubens' portrait of Isabella Clara Eugenia, estimated at £400k-£600k. This appeared about a year ago as just 'Studio' of Rubens, but was withdrawn on the day of the sale, just as I was about to bid for it. Another reappearance is Van Dyck's Portrait of Henrietta Maria, estimated at £2m-£4m; it was offered at Sotheby's in 2015 at a lower estimate of £1.5m and didn't sell, but then it was subsumed within a larger canvas, having had some legs added in the 18th Century, to make it into a full length. The legs were a bit too long, so it wasn't an entirely happy result. But then, were the additions part of the painting's history? I suppose if you bought it, you can do what you like with it. Maybe the legs are still around somewhere. There's another Van Dyck in the sale, also newly identified; a crucifixion. I've seen it, and though it's catalogued as 'Van Dyck and Studio' it seems largely autograph to me, and I think a bit of a bargain at £150k-£250k.
At Bonhams, they have a newly identified Gericault, a study for his famous Wounded Cuirassier. This seems quite reasonably estimated at £30,000-£50,000.
Update - on the very day of my moan about the Day Sales, Sotheby's sale goes online. I like the Romney sketch of Emma Hamilton, here, and the two still lifes by Anna Ruysch here and here. Anna was the sister of Rachel Ruysch, and not much is known about her. Indeed, both of these were previously considered to be by Rachel, but have now been given to Anna. The are estimated respectively at £50k-£70k and £30k-£50k. Back in 1962, when considered to be by Rachel, the pair made £2,800.
Nottingham Castle to close
November 21 2022
Picture: ArtUK
More distressing regional museum news; Nottingham Castle Trust is to go into liquidation, and will close. The Castle houses the City's main art collection, as hung in the Long Gallery, above. The Castle only reopened last year, after a £30m refurbishment. It seems there are some longstanding management issues, and the collections are still the property of the city council. But there's obviously uncertainty now over where they can be displayed. It's more evidence of the coming crisis for regional UK museum funding. More here.
National Gallery Sainsbury Wing extension (ctd.)
November 20 2022
Picture: BG
There have been some developments with regard to the National Gallery's plans to renovate the Sainsbury Wing entrance (as part of plans to make it the Gallery's main entrance). After some criticism (such as from a group of eight former Presidents of RIBA) the plans for the lobby were altered, here. The current President of RIBA has hit back at his predecessors, and supports the plans, here. The original donors have backed the changes too.
Discussions over the architectural merits of the changes seem to me to be missing the fundamental point - that the National Gallery doesn't need to spend £35m for a new entrance. Part of the justification for the project has been congestion at the Gallery's entrances, given the number of visitors. The National Gallery has been saying to critics of the project that visitor numbers are nearly back at their pre-Covid level. But this is not the case.
The above graph shows monthly National Gallery visitor numbers from pre Covid to this September. They come from DCMS, but the graph is mine. As you can see, visitor numbers are about 50% what they were. the temptation is to blame this on a slow recovery from the pandemic. But I think there might be a more fundamental shift in the Gallery's visitor profile as a result of Brexit. Remember, before Brexit (or rather, before the end of the Brexit transition period) overseas visitors made up more than 70% of the Gallery's visitor numbers. It's easy to see how travel restrictions (especially for school and student groups) can have a significant impact on this figure.
If this reduction in visitor numbers holds, then the main argument for the new extension is redundant. The existing entrances will be more than adequate, and for some time. Then, if the Gallery does have £35m to spend, the discussion turns to how else it might more effectively spend it. Especially at a time when so many regional galleries are facing closure for sums which, by comparison, are trivial.
Moreover, anyone who has recently tried to visit the Gallery will be able to suggest to the management how they could improve the visitor entrance experience without spending £35m. At the moment, it's a horrible mess. You can no longer enter at the Annenberg Court entrance, this is now exit only. The original, main entrance at the centre of the Gallery facing Trafalgar Square is for some reason closed entirely, both for entry and exit. Instead, you have to enter via the Sainsbury Wing, and go through a bag check first. This involves being shouted at - as I was - by four different people, and following a rather pointless line marked out by barrier ropes. It's frankly very grim, and as far as I can see, entirely unnecessary. Then there are significant room closures when you finally get in, including of course the whole of the Sainsbury Wing, which has been closed and decanted despite planning permission not having been granted yet. I'm sorry to say I left the Gallery the other day thinking I've never known it to be in such a dissatisfactory state, in terms of visitor experience.
£10m for 'only' Shakespeare portrait
November 20 2022
Regular readers will know I despair at how the press can be so credulous at seemingly any news of a new art discovery involving Shakespeare. The latest, reported as being "the only signed and dated image of William Shakespeare created during his lifetime", is to go on sale with an asking price of £10m. Despite there being no direct evidence it is Shakespeare. The 'signed and dated' part refers to the signature of Robert Peake, who painted the above portrait of someone, who is not Shakespeare. The painting is being offered in 'a private treaty sale', and was unveiled in a London hotel. All of which should raise red flags, but instead had the press queueing up to take photos. Such is the appetite for news (and clicks). Examples here, and here.
Vermeer or not Vermeer?
November 20 2022
Video: NGA
I mentioned in September that the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC would be revealing further news about the attribution of one of their disputed Vermeer paintings, Girl with a Flute, in their exhibition, 'Secrets of Vermeer'. In the above video, NGA curator Betsy Wieseman, sets out with great clarity why technical analysis has led the Gallery to believe the picture was not painted by Vermeer, but by someone working within his studio in his materials and style. So the picture has now been downgraded (a daft word, but an easy one to use) from 'attributed to Vermeer' to 'Studio of Vermeer'.
However, the plot thickens with news that the Rijksmuseum has decided to catalogue the painting as by Vermeer - sans doute - in its forthcoming exhibition on Vermeer to open next year. Speaking to The Guardian, Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits says:
“They have been doing great research at the National Gallery, Washington on their four Vermeers, and we have, during the pandemic and in research ahead of the exhibition, been able to do research on 10 Vermeers,” said Taco Dibbits, Rijksmuseum director. “We have discussed the technical findings with Washington and our view of Vermeer based on these technical findings is a more inclusive one than that of Washington.”
Dibbits was diplomatic about the difference of opinion. The National Gallery’s findings will be cited in the exhibition’s catalogue, he said.
“Attribution is not a hard science but we feel that Vermeer is such an innovative artist who took so many directions in his art that we feel that for us as yet the painting is by Vermeer”, Dibbits said. “We keep it within the oeuvre. We differ in view. It is something we have discussed at length. We are all happy with it.” It didn’t seem to be a source of irritation. “No. Not at all.”
I'm no Vermeer expert (but the perk of having your own blog means you can have an opinion nonetheless) yet I'm inclined to be more in the Rijksmuseum's camp. First, as the disagreement over the picture's 'quality' shows, such views are subjective; one gallery's dubious passages (and a sign of a studio assistant not quite up to Vermeer's standard) are another's sign of brilliance (and a sign that this mystery assistant was as good as Vermeer himself). Secondly, before we attribute pictures to someone within Vermeer's studio, I'd want more evidence that he did in fact have studio assistants, which might be considered unusual since he wasn't in the business of selling his own pictures at anything like the rate of contemporary professional artists who did employ assistants.
The Rijksmuseum show opens next year, 10th February.
