Art Authentication and the Law

Fellow appraiser Xiliary Twil of Art Asset Management Group, Inc. send me the following from the The NY Times.  It is a very good article on art authentication and the law, looking at the balancing act courts face in making decisions between competing experts, the law and connoisseurship.

The NY Times reports

Of course judges and juries routinely decide between competing experts. As Ronald D. Spencer, an art law specialist, put it, “A judge will rule on medical malpractice even if he doesn’t know how to take out a gallstone.” When it comes to questions of authenticity, however, lawyers note that the courts and the art world weigh evidence differently.

Judges and juries have been thrust into the role of courtroom connoisseur. Legal experts say that, in general, litigants seek a ruling from the bench when the arguments primarily concern matters of law; juries are more apt to be requested when facts are in dispute.

In a seminal 1929 case involving the authenticity of a painting purportedly by Leonardo da Vinci, both a judge and jury got the chance to weigh in. The art dealer Joseph Duveen was sued by the owners of the painting, “La Belle Ferronnière,” for publicly calling it a copy. The jury included a real estate agent, a shirt manufacturer and a furniture upholsterer. Two artists were also on the panel and ended up on opposite sides of a hung jury.

With a deadlock on his hands, the New York State Supreme Court judge took the case back. He rejected Duveen’s argument that artistic attribution was not a question of fact that could be decided in a court of law but purely a matter of opinion, and ordered a second trial. Duveen ultimately settled with the owner.

Legal thinking on questions of authenticity has evolved since. Judges now recognize that while their word is law in the courtroom, in the art world their verdicts can be overturned by a higher authority: the market. “A decision by a court in the United States that a work is authentic may or may not have any value,” said the lawyer Peter R. Stern. “It’s totally up to the market.”

Source: The NY Times