Not my problem, alas....

Dennis Mahon, 1932
by Frank Brooks
 

The spectacular difference the attribution of a painting can make to its value has been made only too clear by a current court case centring around "The Cardsharps", a painting bought at Sotheby's for £50,400 in 2004 by the Anglo-Irish art historian and connoisseur, Sir Denis Mahon. Sotheby's listed the work as a 17th-century copy of a work by Carravaggio now in the Kimbell Museum in Texas. Mahon, however, was convinced the painting was by Carravaggio himself. Subsequently, some experts have agreed with Mahon and some have upheld Sotheby's view that the work is a copy by a follower. Sotheby's also point out that the market at the time evidently agreed with them by setting the auction price at £50,400: in other words, it seems only Mahon thought the piece was by Carravaggio.

    A genuine Carravaggio would potentially be worth £50 million, and the huge difference has prompted the original owner to take Sotheby's to court, claiming they failed to carry out proper research and analysis, which would, he says, have established that the painting was an autograph work. Whatever the outcome of the case, it powerfully demonstrates that a change in attribution can make a painting worth as much as a thousand times more. Presumably the painting is good enough to convince at least some experts that it is by Carravaggio, and no-one is disputing that it is later than 17th-century. But a copy is not seen to contain the highly-prized quality of "originality", the spark that set Carravaggio apart from other painters of his time. 

Anthony Blunt

    This is not the first controversy over an attribution involving Sotheby's and Mahon. In 1964 he bought a painting at a Sotheby's auction which had been listed as by Pietro Testa, a contemporary of Poussin. Mahon had thought it was probably actually by Poussin, and became convinced of this once he had had the painting cleaned and relined and an inscription was found which showed it had belonged to a major Poussin patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo. The painting was of the biblical scene of Rebecca at the well, the same subject as a painting owned by Sir Anthony Blunt, director of the Courtauld Institute, Poussin expert, and, of course, ex-Soviet spy (not yet officially unmasked). Blunt believed his picture was the one owned by dal Pozzo, while Mahon went public with his view that Blunt's was a late painting dating from after dal Pozzo's death. The dispute became highly accrimonious and the two men were never reconciled, but it is now generally accepted that Mahon was right. (Mahon died in 2011, leaving his paintings to galleries in Britian, Ireland and Italy.)

    All this also reminds me that I heard a story from a former employee of an American art museum that during a visit from some experts on a particular Old Master to see some paintings held by the museum by that painter, the experts insisted that some of those paintings were not genuine. Nevertheless, the attributions were not changed. Public galleries may not need to consider the market value of their works (indeed, the market value becomes irrelevant, as the works are very unlikely to return to the market), but inaccurate attributions affect their reputations and thus potentially their ability to attract funding.

    Some may say that what matters is the quality of a painting rather than who painted it, but as long as some artists are held in higher esteem than others, and thus in greater demand, attribution will have a huge influence on price. All purely academic to most of us of course!

Scotch and ice

Art with menaces?

ALTHOUGH I intended to go Italian at the Estorick in this post, it occurred on me that (a) Burns night was coming up, and (b) I was born in Scotland, so I decided to visit the Fleming Collection of Scottish art instead. But before that curiosity prompted me to visit the annual international ice sculpting competion at Canary Wharf. It was a cold day but plenty of spectators, including lots of children, turned up to watch competitors from a number of countries compete, some of them against the clock (something for the Tate to consider for the Turner Prize perhaps?). 

     I was too busy enoying the novelty of seeing Canary Wharf on a non-working day to keep up with who won what, but I felt all the competitors deserved a round of applause just for putting themselves forward for such a public demonstration of their skills (though probably most of them are well used to it). Walking about the area gave me a better appreciation of the architecture and layout of Canary Wharf - I wouldn't say most of the buildings are in any way outstanding, but the overall effect of the office blocks in their setting and landscaping is impressive in a way not typical of London - definitely a New York-by-the-Thames feel.

     The ice sculpting was followed by a first time ever attendance at a Burns Night supper; a very pleasant evening in spite of the fact that no-one else had Scottish connections (I forgot to ask why a Burns Night supper was being given in that case, but don't look gift horses in the mouth I suppose).

      The visit to the Fleming Collection took place the following week. This smallish gallery is in Berkeley Street, off Piccadilly, and originates with a collection of Scottish art set up by Flemings bank, founded by a Scotsman in 1845. When the bank was sold to Chase Manhatten, the collection was separated and eventually given its current home about ten years ago. It is most famous for its holding of Scottish Colourists, a group of four painters active mainly in first three decades of the last century, all of whom were heavily influenced by post-Impressionist French art.

     The gallery was holding an exhibition of one of them, Leslie Hunter, who painted in the United States, Italy and the Cote d'Azur, but whose finest work is arguably a series of oils of Loch Lomand. Hunter is the only painter I know to have been thwarted by geology: he lived in San Francisco for a while as a young man, and was due to have a solo exhibition when the San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire destroyed all the paintings in his studio. Hunter had limited success in his lifetime, and died prematurely at 54, but nevertheless one of his Loch Lomand paintings was acquired by the French state shortly before his death in 1931. This highlights the fact that the Scottish relationship with the continent and its art was different from England's; the English were still very resistant to modern art during the time the Colourists were part of the French art scene, and the name Fleming itself is a marker of Flemish migration to Scotland, the close ties between Scotland and the Low Countries, and the enduring influence of Dutch art in Scotland.

     A news item caught my eye: a group was ejected from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris because of the alleged smelliness of one of its members. This reminded me that middle class visitors to the National Gallery in the nineteenth century often made a similar complaint about some of the large number of working class visitors, attracted because Trafalgar Square is easily accessible from the East End. A Keeper of the Gallery at the time reported that these visitors were quite unawed by their surroundings; when he suggested to a family party settling down to a picnic in a gallery that this was inappropriate, the mother merely laughed and offered him a glass of gin! A fine example of bringing art to the people perhaps, but it is no coincidence whatsoever that the Victoria and Albert Museum is situated in highly salubrious Kensington, safe from the hoi polloi.