Changing Scholarship

Colin Gleadell has an interesting article in the Guardian about some recent paintings, mostly old masters which have been considered recent discoveries or re-attributions. 

I guess at times this can be either a positive or a negative.  The recent sales were generally positive in nature and brought more interest and higher dollars than originally expected.

The guardian reports

The role of experts and restorers has been accentuated in the recent discoveries and re-attributions of paintings by Leonardo, Raphael and Rembrandt outside the auction rooms, but last week’s old master sales in London had their fair share of stories, too. A portrait of an unknown gentleman arrived at Bonhams in Oxford last year as part of a consignment of works by the little-known Victorian artist Matthew Shepperson. Clearly not by Shepperson, the painting was held back for further research, and was identified by Peter Cherry, from Trinity College Dublin, as a work by the 17th-century Spanish master Velazquez. Considering how rare paintings by Velazquez are on the market, the £2 million estimate was perhaps conservative, as was the sale price of £2.9 million to New York dealer Otto Naumann, who told reporters he had been prepared to go much higher. Perhaps if Bonhams had cleaned the painting it might have made more.

There were more bidders on a previously unrecorded still life of three peaches and a butterfly by the Dutch painter Adriaen Coorte, which quadrupled estimates to sell to the Sotheby’s-owned dealership Noortman Master Paintings for a record £2.1 million. The surprise of the Bonhams sale was a view of the River Adda ascribed to the studio of the 18th-century Italian view painter Vanvitelli. As the Vanvitelli expert had not given the painting a full attribution, it was estimated at a modest £20,000. But at least two bidders were willing to pit their wits against the expert, and it sold for £385,250.

There was no doubt about the authorship of Sotheby’s top lot – a pair of stylish paintings by Johann Zoffany of the actor David Garrick with his wife and entourage in the grounds of Hampton House on the River Thames. On loan to the Tate since 2007, they had been sent for sale by Edward Lampton, son of the Tory peer Antony Lampton, who died in 2006.

But what of their value? Estimated at quite a punchy £6 million for the pair, they sold to the only bidder in the room, John Morton Morris of dealers Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, for £6.76 million. The following day, members of the Garrick Club received an email informing them that they would now be able to enjoy the paintings as the club had bought them. The club bid for the paintings not just because of its connections with the sitter, but also as an investment.

Source, The Guardian