Auctions

[phkrause]

2 Rembrandts have been hidden in a private collection for 200 years. Now they're headed to auction.

Two recently rediscovered Rembrandt paintings will be up for auction at Christie's in London next month, expected together to fetch between about $6.3 million and $10 million. They have not been seen in public since they were last auctioned off at Christie's – nearly 200 years ago. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rembrandts-auction-rediscovered-christies-200-years-after-sold/

[Hanseng]

I had a friend who owned an art gallery in Los Angeles.  In his collection was a painting he believed to be a "lost" Rembrandt painting of the Ethiopian eunuch being baptized. He took it to the Rembrandt certifying authorities in Europe. Unfortunately, they rejected it as authentic, believing it to be done by a copyist or someone in his studio. Still a very interesting piece since there was/is no known work of Rembrandt on that subject. 

Sometime after his disappointment, an art scholar employed by a California university contacted him. He offered to help overturn the judgment of the Rembrandt authorities for a percentage of the final sale price. The gratuity, in those days, would have still amounted to hundreds of thousands of $$$.

Another time in San Francisco, a gallery mounted an exhibition of Rembrandt engravings. I went to the showing and became interested in two items. They were priced at such and such. When I asked the gallery owner for a provenance [history of ownership], his countenance changed, he stammered a bit, then said he could provide one but the price would go up.

I wondered why I should be expected to pay more for some assurance that he wasn't simply doing high end copying in a back room of his gallery?  I guess there would be added expense for providing some phony documentation to "authenticate" some fraudulent engravings. I passed on the purchase, which I couldn't afford anyway. 

[phkrause]

🎨 Hidden masterpieces hit auction

Claude Monet's 'Le Jardin des Tuileries' on display during a preview of the Blaquier-Arrieta Collection at Sotheby's in London. Photo: Ben Bauer/PA Images via Getty Images A dozen Impressionist and post-Impressionist artworks collectively valued at almost half a billion dollars are going up for auction after sitting unseen for decades in South America. Works by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne are expected to smash records for the artists in the Nov. 18 sale in New York, AP reports. The paintings come from a collection amassed by the late Argentine art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her sugar magnate husband, Carlos Pedro Blaquier. They include van Gogh's landscape "Châtaigniers en fleurs" (Chestnut Trees in Flower), estimated at $180 million, and Cézanne's portrait "Arlequin," estimated at $120 million. Neither has been seen in public for half a century. Keep reading.