[CPProt.net] Gary Schawrtz and The Sotheby's code ('Attributed to' means: 'Definitely not by')

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

The Sotheby's code


"'Attributed to,' you know what that means? 'Definitely not by.'" Patricia
Volk, Stuffed: adventures of a restaurant family.


Any auction-goer knows the truth of that peeved remark by an outsider. For
some reason we go along with the cynical reversal in the art world of the
meaning of the word attributed. We also accept auction-house denominations
that falsely pretend to an historical dimension: School of, Follower of and
so forth. These words do not mean, as they seem to, that the artist in
question had a known school or had followers. They simply express a quality
judgment. Instead of saying, "Badly damaged and inexpertly overpainted
imitation of a well-known master by a third-rate hack two generations
younger," the auctioneer says "School of." 

Curious to see whether there is method behind this institutionalized
insincerity, I checked the July 5th auction at Sotheby's Olympia in London.
an unpretentious sale of 265 lower-range Old Master paintings (in 230 lots),
to see whether the house uses nomenclature systematically. I found that it
does. "Attributed to" turns out to be a very favorable description in the
eyes of Sotheby's. If we assign the value 1 to the average low estimate for
paintings given to named masters (actually £4843) and calculate the average
estimates for the various euphemisms for "definitely not by," the following
scale emerges:

1.00 Master 

0.96 Attributed to 
 

0.95 Circle of 
 

0.76 Follower of 
 

0.61 Generic school (for example, Dutch school, 17th century) 

0.45 Manner of 
 

0.27 After 
 

This means that Sotheby's uses the terms "Attributed to" and "Circle of"
quite aggressively. Taking their estimates at face value, they expect these
lots to fetch about as much as accepted originals.

Then, of course, I wanted to know whether the house was right. To measure
success, I divided the average hammer price per category by the total number
of paintings in that category, whether sold or not, again assigning a 1 to
paintings by named masters (actually £6095).

1.004 Circle of 


1.00 Master 

0.90 Generic school 

0.68 Follower of 
 

0.64 Attributed to 


0.20 After 
 

0.18 Manner of 
 

This measurement, which is based on a very limited sample, reveals a
pronounced discrepancy between the model employed - perhaps unconsciously -
by the auction house and the reactions of buyers. At the July 5th sale,
buyers improved on the house estimate of "Circle of" but bid low on
"Attributed to" and hated "Manner of." They liked generic school paintings
far better than Sotheby's thought they would. There is room here for a
psychologist of art-world semantics to make a killing in the market, buying
attributions and reselling them as "Circle of
." or generic school
paintings. Any bettors? 



Before putting good money on the line, you are advised to expand the body of
material. The use of this Sotheby's sale is arbitrary. All auction houses -
and museums, for that matter - use the same euphemisms, each in its own way.



© Gary Schwartz 2005. Published in Loekie Schwartz's Dutch translation in
Het Financieele Dagblad, 13 August 2005 


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Not being able to find my copy of Patricia Volk's book right now, the quote
is from memory and therefore inexact. Apologies.


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Other columns by Gary Schwartz:

http://www.garyschwartzarthistorian.nl/index.php?page_id=8