Degas Bronze Appraisal

I have been attending the ASA annual conference in Washington, DC and Victor Wiener was one of the conference presenters. After his talk Victor and I had a chance to talk and he asked if I had seen the Artnews article on the Degas bronzes made from the recently found plaster casts.

He highly recommended I read the article. Victor contributed an article with attorney Charles Wong on authentication in the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies - 2011 which used the newly discovered plaster Degas molds as an example of authentication complications. You might recall from published articles and posts on the AW blog, there is serious debate and concern in the marketplace on the authenticity of these newly discovered molds, with some experts agreeing they are authentic and others saying they are not.

The ArtNews article deals with a collector who cliams to have paid between $7 million and $20 million for 73 Degas sculptures from Maibaum in August 2009 through his Global Village Champions Foundation Inc., and then last year bought a bronze replica of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

The collector is named in the article, as Canadian Yank Barry. The appraiser used was New York art dealer Stewart Waltzer appraised the set of 74 bronzes at $37.25 million. The most valuable sculpture in the set, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, is worth $15 million, Waltzer wrote in his appraisal. The ArtNews article stated the appraisal was available online, but from what I can find it has been removed. Too bad. If anyone had downloaded the appraisal before it was removed from the internet, I would like to have a copy.

The appraisal approach and valuation has raised many issues. One of the main concerns is the appraisal did not mentioned the questions by some experts as to the authenticity of the found plasters and any bronzes created from them. That is a rather large omission given the debate within the art and collecting community, and one that could certainly impact value, and potentially reduce the number of collectors interested in purchasing.

The ArtNews reports

In this appraisal, as in his earlier ones, Waltzer uses public- and private-market valuations based on recent sales of Degas's sculptures, often relying on what the sculptures fetched at auction. In his analysis, he sidesteps the controversy around the sculptures and values the bronzes as if they were fully authenticated works made from Degas's own plasters.

"This appraisal is accompanied by various letters and [a]ttestations from Leonardo Benatov, owner of the Valsuani foundry, stating explicitly that the plasters, which serve as the basis for the 74 Edgar Degas bronze sculptures from the 1998 Valsuani Edition marked 'Set VII/XI,' are authentic," Waltzer wrote in his 2010 appraisal. "Therefore, these works have been appraised as authentic works by Edgar Degas. This appraiser and this appraisal [do] not warrant the authenticity of the 74 Edgar Degas bronze sculptures from the 1998 Valsuani Edition marked 'Set VII/IX.'"

Waltzer's valuation of the individual bronzes is repeatedly at the high end of recent market trades, reflecting his belief that the market for Degas's sculptures has held steady, if not increased, despite the Great Recession that began in 2007 and 2008. "The market in Degas bronze sculpture has gone up about 15% since 2006," Waltzer writes. "What it meant to this appraisal was the concept that high values for works of art are not anomalous events, and the art market is more stable than many others."

The bronze sculpture to which Waltzer attributes by far the most value is Little Dancer. The wax version of this figure, wearing a muslin-and-gauze tutu, with a silk ribbon in her hair, is now in the National Gallery. It was the only sculpture Degas allowed to be exhibited during his lifetime. According to Hedberg and Maibaum, their bronze was cast from a Valsuani plaster and represents an earlier stage of the figure, a view that was disputed by Degas expert Patricia Failing on the basis of technical evidence in her recent ARTnews feature (see "Unraveling the Mysteries of Degas's Sculpture," May 2011).

Without mentioning the controversy, Waltzer values Barry's Little Dancer at $15 million, based in part on the sale of an authorized Little Dancer at Sotheby's London in February 2009 for $19 million, surpassing an estimate of $13 million to $17 million. He also cites other sales of the sculpture at auction during the past 12 years, ranging in price from $9.1 million to $12.3 million. Waltzer's $15 million valuation, he writes, "reflects the uplift that has occurred in the market in the past few years." He values two other of the Hedberg/Maibaum bronzes at more than $1 million: Le tub, at $3.2 million, and Étude de nu pour la danseuse habillée; Jeune danseuse nue, at $2.1 million.

To read the complete ArtNews article, click HERE. An excellent article for the appraiser to read, as is Victor Wieners article, entitled The Role of the Appraiser in the Process of Authentication.Click HERE to order the 2011 Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies.