After LiveAuctioneers, now Invaluable.com: rubbish fakes

In a recent blog post, I ranted about Liveauctioneers which is swamped by (American) auction houses selling fake early modern works.

Less usual but equally problematic, they also appear on Invaluable.com. The one that caught my eye today was "Top Auction Items.com Inc" (yes, most of them don't have the most imaginative or reassuring names), selling works "by" Georges Braque and others, with certificate.

If you wonder where the above "Braque" comes from, it is a reverse and slightly modified copy of this one:

The harbour at Estaque, a finely coloured painting by Braque, has been changed into a rather psychedelic and way more simplific one. Too bad that the auction house was genuinely fooled by this of course...

And the above "Delaunay"? Well, the Eiffel Tower is a very straight copy from the below one, with then some Delaunay-like patterns added. It is at least a bit more convincing than the Braque.

I don't know why they value a weak copy of a Degas painting at $15,000 to 18,000, but at least they don't claim it is a Degas one. And so on, and so on...

Let's just finish with this ridiculous "Musée d'Orsay" label. The fakers behind this "auction house" are the same as the five houses I named in the LiveAuctioneers blog post; how hard can it be for these two sites to exclude such sellers of obvious and rather criminal fakes from their site? It should be obvious after five minutes that these are not genuine art dealers and that providing them a forum to sell their wares is not really in your or anyone elses benefit.

Oh, and you can add to Top Auction Items also the lookalike "Old School Auctions.com Inc.", the exact same company with yet another name (that's the seventh so far).

These jokers sell a very unconvincing "Henri Rousseau" from 1907, from a faker who can't even spell the name of the artist right.  This piece of criminal rubbish is estimated at $80,000 to $90,000!

They also sell the exact same Acrylic Paul Klee I posted about in my earlier blog post, and the exact same Georges Braque I showed above...


By the way, why have these sites all such a big stock of valuable "William Verdult" pieces? They have at the moment 211 Verdult paintings on this site (well, many recurring ones, as is their habit) with estimated values of up to $300,000. There doesn't seem to be much interest in him, but they are selling his works (or fakes of it) by the truckload. At least with the Braques and so on, real ones would be worth that kind of money. But these Verdult pieces? I wouldn't want them for free.

Note that Old School also tries to fake Old Masters: not just a ridiculous Rubens portrait drawing, but also an impressive number of works by "Abraham Mignon Fecit" (sic!). Yes, once one starts paying attention, it is unbelievable how many artists had the surname "fecit". Must have been one heck of a family! While the modern fakes sometimes need some familiarity with the artist to note the difference (certainly with abstract works), the older or more figurative work are much easier to spot and so far I haven't seen any that could fool any slightly discerning buyer. Doesn't make them less obnoxious or punishable of course. 

Venus and Amor: De Quade de Ravesteyn or Rottenhammer

For sale at Ventes SARL May in Roubaix, 16 March 2015: a "Venus and Amor", attributed to the
Prague School, environment of Dirck De Quade van Ravesteyn (1565-1620). Estimated at 6,000 to 8,000 Euro, it seems to be a good picture, but the only picture I found is much too small to judge it correctly.

The topic has been painted multiple times by Ravesteyn, e.g. this one sold at Christie's in October 2014 for 9,375 Euro. While there are obvious similarities, from the overall composition to the position of the legs of the Venus, the differences are too big to situate this around the same artist (and the one for sale seems to be a better picture as well).

To me, it seems much more likely that the work comes from the environment of Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1625), active at the same time and places as Ravesteyn. There is e.g. the above by Rottenhammer from Christie's in 2010, sold for £58,000.

This one is more closely comparable to the one for sale now. These two make it clear that the painting for sale is not by Rottenhammer himself, but the figures are closer to him than to Ravesteyn in my opinion

For what it's worth, all these seem to go back to a Venus and Amor by Quentin Massys, vastly superior to any of these. And of course the Venus paintings by Titian, like the one below. The Massys is earlier than the Titian though!

After Rubens, Rape of the Sabine Women

Attributed to "Environment of Theodor van Thulden" or "Antwerp School, 17th century" and identified as a "Rape of the Sabine Women", the painting for sale at Rouillac on 9 March 2015, a very large painting on copper (70 by 86 cm), estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 Euro, seems not to have been recognised as a copy after Rubens.

The unusual bit is that the composition by Rubens was never completed (it was finished by Gaspar de Craeyer after his death, but still looks like a final preparatory work, not the finished painting, which should have been much bigger). The quality of the work for sale is not good enough by far to suppose any involvement of Rubens or De Craeyer though, it is just a copy of it, but in more picturesque colours. Considering the condition, not worth more than the estimate probably, but not the most usual of copies after Rubens, and not identified as such in the catalogue. UPDATE: sold for 2,000 Euro.

My first bid!

Just placed my first bid on an old master painting. Way above estimate, way below value, as the description didn't really do justice to the painting.

Can't tell you yet where or what, of course, a few weeks patience! I'll let you know afterwards, no matter if I won or lost, as it is an interesting one anyway.

Thomas Cromwell

A portrait supposedly of Thomas Cromwell, "In the manner of Holbein", for sale at Morphets on 5 March 2015, estimated at only £800 to £1,200. Assuming it is contemporary and not a later copy, it should be worth a lot more, as it is of fairly high quality and of a known sitter, and from an age that not so many good English portraits are available any more. UPDATE: sold for £2,800!

It is very close to this drawing, inscribed "Holbein" (but then again, at some time or other every 16th century portrait in England was probably attributed to Holbein). The same kind of collar (but not the scarf), shirt with three buttons, hat, position of the face, ... It is not identical, but it seems unlikely that the two are unrelated. The drawing shows a slightly fatter person, and the eyes are a lot better in the drawing

Above is a portrait supposedly made after the drawing. The only problem is that the drawing and painting are not a portrait of Cromwell, but of George Nevill, 5th Baron Bergavenny. Or is it? The Guardian claims that the drawing shows Thomas Cromwell after all.

To make things even more interesting, in October 2014 the Carnegie Museum presented the above newly discovered painting, a much better quality painting of the Bergavenny portrait than the older circular one. Attributed to Holbein or Workshop, it clearly is the painting after the above drawing.

Which leaves us with some major questions. Is the drawing of Thomas Cromwell or Bergavenny? Is the painting of Cromwell? Is the drawing a preparatory work for the painting? Is the painting original? Is it by Holbein? And what's it worth? Like I said, assuming it is a 16th century work, it should be worth a lot more, even with the damage. The other questions I'll leave to specialists and people with access to the actual works and not just photographs of them.

Copy in the Victoria and Albert, original now for sale?

Something strange going on. At Hargesheimer in Dusseldorf, they sell on 21 March an "Italian Master, 16th century or earlier depiction of the "Beweinung Christi", a Lamentatio, with a reserve price of 1,200 Euro.

The exact same image is for sale at art reproduction sites like Bridgeman or Allposters as "Entombment of Christ", a supposedly Flemish School 15th century work in the Victoria and Albert Museum, with the addition "Villabranca panel". I can't find it in the V&A collection, but there has to be some explanation for this. For what it's worth, the panel seems more Italian than Flemish, and Hargesheimer seems a very reliable auction house, so I don't expect any foul play on their part. Oh, and 1,200 Euro really is cheap as chips for this work. UPDATE: sold for 9,500 Euro!

By the way, in the same auction they have a "Portrait of a bishop". It is a Saint Blaise, if anyone is looking for a portrait of him to decorate their home... You can recognise him by the typical crossed candles!  Not my cup of tea, but it's fun to identify paintings more precisely, whether it is the subject or the artist.

February summary

Does anybody know the result (and fate) of this painting? Please let us know!

Second full month of the blog, time for a short roundup. A pity is that of many of the paintings I highlighted, I haven't been able to find the eventual result. The others I thought were underestimated usually exceeded their estimation, e.g. this one was set for 200 Euro and sold for 1,600 Euro, while this one started at 400 Euro but was sold for 1,600 Euro as well. But for what was to me the most interesting painting of the month, a Veronese copy(?) for sale here, I couldn't find the result, just like for many others. If anyone else finds results I missed, please let me know!

From 92 pageviews in January, it went to 244 pageviews in February, or from 3 to 8 pageviews a day. Of course, with much more pages to view as well... Visitors, apart from a lot of them (or a few fanatical ones, thanks!) from France, came from some new countries, including Italy, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the Philippines. Most popular, thanks to the enticing title probably, was "Was the Mytens "Magdalen" an inspiration for Caravaggio?" with 12 pageviews.