You Said it Was Worth WHAT?

Thought for the Fortnight

Apologies to all my readers. For the first time ever, I missed sending out a Wednesday newsletter at 8 pm British time. This is because I went abroad and, in order to avoid carrying too much weight, I left my computer at home. Neither I nor my computer were happy about this. The result was that I couldn’t manipulate what I needed to on my phone to send out the newsletter. The Substack bot apologised and said it was a technical hitch which was very helpful information.

I presume you were all weeping into your beer at the loss. I am home now, my computer and I have had a very happy reunion and I offer you a little extra bonus at the end of this newsletter

So, at the wrong time and four days late, here is my Thought for the Fortnight.

It caught my eye some months ago. I meant to write about it sooner, but I got distracted and it is not time-sensitive at all.

This sort of thing bothers me every time.

A painting was sold last year for a shedload of money as a Rembrandt, but a few years ago it wasn’t a Rembrandt and was worth a whole lot less. Indeed, some years before that, it was worth even less.

But perhaps you protest – I certainly do – it is the same painting.  Nothing added, nothing taken away. Exactly the same.

Has it suddenly got better? Will you or I like it more because of new information?  Will we look at it more carefully? It raises so many questions.

We like to think that we judge paintings for what they are. But do we really? What do we see? How does what we know beforehand affect how we look? Or whether we bother to look at all?

Rembrandt is a brilliant painter – one of the best in my view. But yes, he could have an ‘off’ day – don’t we all! – so not every painting may be of the same standard. 

But it does make you think.

Changing prices

Let me give some details, all taken from a newspaper article last autumn (The Times 6 October 2023). 

In the mid-1950s, a Dutch collector acquired a small painting (not clear how) showing a scene from the Bible. His widow put it up for auction in the mid-1980s, where it was attributed to ‘circle of Rembrandt’, but it is not clear what it sold for then.

In 2021, the painting’s value was estimated to be £10-15K, but due to rumours that it might be a genuine Rembrandt, it sold for £860K.

After considerable research by the new owners, it was proclaimed to be “a really significant Rembrandt” and put up for sale at Sotheby’s with an estimate of £15m. 

Yes, ten times the 2021 estimate.

And this sort of thing happens all the time. Two weeks after noting this particular change in valuation, there was another article on the same theme. A somewhat cloudy (due to not being cleaned) portrait of Mary Magdalene, thought to be by a disciple of Leonardo da Vinci, was now attributed to Raphael. Having been sold for £30K it was suddenly worth millions (The Times, 23 October 2023).

And the famous ‘Rembrandt project’, started in 1968 and continuing well into this century, resulted in a lot of changed attributions, including the reduction of the number of signed self-portraits by half.

Values and valuations

Now, most people find this kind of story interesting because of the change in monetary price. Ouch, they think, the person who sold it for less must be really annoyed! If only he had hung on awhile longer. Or perhaps, wow, somebody made a nice killing! Wasn’t she lucky.

Well I think, fine, but that’s not my focus. I am interested in the painting itself. How could the very same canvas be seen as worth such widely differing amounts? What is its intrinsic merit?

What if someone discovered that the Mona Lisa was not done by Leonardo da Vinci at all but by Joe Bloggs? What would everyone do then? Would the smile become less mysterious? Would the valuation drop? Would all the other paintings by Joe Bloggs suddenly become notable? Or would we just walk on by?

Perhaps galleries should mix up paintings, with some lesser-known painters among the greats with no visible attribution, so that visitors would have to make up their own minds. They could always have all the painters’ details in a separate guide. Values would then override immediate mental valuations.

A variant of this idea can be seen in the Barnes Collection in Pennsylvania. The paintings and other items are mixed together non-sequentially, but their attributions are fully available.

On occasion over the years, when my husband and I have gone to a new gallery, we have chosen to look at paintings before looking at their labels, therefore not having any prior information on the painter. This was to learn what we could see without any information, including any art historian’s point of view. It is a very interesting thing to do. You certainly look more closely.

A personal experience of valuation

Some years ago, we received an invitation for a free valuation of the pictures on our walls and thought, why not? Aside from a painting bought from a friend (who painted it) and the odd lithograph, almost all our pictures are reproductions or even cheap posters.

Yet the valuator stopped at one picture, a mother and child by a Diego Rivera, and insisted it was the real thing. I said no, it was bought for $5 in a shop over sixty years ago, more or less the first picture I ever chose for my walls. I was very taken with it then and continue to like it a lot, but no, I insisted, it had no monetary value.

He was sure he could see that it was an original. We didn’t want to take it out of the frame, as it would have then needed to be re-framed. Perhaps we are missing a trick. Perhaps we will find out one day, but I very much doubt I was sold a real painting from an ordinary bookshop back in 1963. And I wouldn’t like it more (I think!) if he were to be proved right.

Paintings in transit

On a slightly different – but related note – I have discovered a new pleasure with regard to paintings. This is to go to the pre-sale exhibition of an auction house, such as Sotheby’s, to see the paintings (or other artwork) due to be sold.

The delight is in knowing that these paintings are almost within your grasp (minus a million pounds or two, sometimes even less). Paintings in galleries are fixed. Many have been in the same gallery for decades, if not centuries, and will be expected to remain in the same location for years to come.

But these auction paintings are suddenly available. They are of no fixed abode. In transit. How wonderful to think that they could come your way if only you could afford them. I am sure I look at them differently.

I always come back elated from such a visit. 

Isn’t it wonderful what the mind can do?

Over to you: Do you ever choose to look at paintings with no information about who painted them (or any art for that matter)? Do paintings in transit feel different to you?

P.S. For those who want to know more about my life, I was interviewed this week by

Debbie Weil

at (B)OLD AGE. It may give you more information than you want, but whether you press the link is up to you.