[CPProt.net] True or false?

[MSN CPPnet]

True or false? 
Julia Tanski-Gilbert

Weekend: June 4-5, 2005 

Finding truth in art can be a Platonic task. A long process of comparing
technique, tracing the methodology of the painter and a reading of any
correspondence about a painting is often needed to give a precise idea of
its provenance.

It is not only in China that concern surrounds auctioned art. International
houses Christie's and Sotheby's are at the crux of a controversy concerning
paintings by Raden Saleh, a noted 19th century Indonesian artist. 

In an intriguing twist of events, lot number 21 at Christie's May 29 sale at
the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, an oil on canvas signed
Raden Saleh, 1849, entitled A family promenades along a path with two tigers
in wait and the Borobudur in the background was withdrawn two days before
the auction. 

When the painting was catalogued and previewed, it evoked a strong reaction
from the specialized art community of Southeast Asian painting. Its
resemblance to a work sold in 1999 by Sotheby's is striking. A Singaporean
businessman owns this painting, entitled Lying In Wait , and is questioning
the authenticity of one or both pictures. 

With a price tag of S$2.4 million (HK$11.15 million) - the second highest
price ever commanded in Singapore for an artwork - a second look at both
paintings seems warranted.

And this is exactly what Christie's is going to do. It withdrew its painting
"for further confirmation of the provenance,'' explained Victoria Cheung,
from Christie's Hong Kong. 

Christie's expert WF Rappard, curator of 19th century art at the Netherlands
Institute for Art History, said the painting was an original, but did not
back his claim in writing as he felt an investigation should be done to give
a "more definitive answer.''

Amir Sidharta, curator of The Museum Pelita Harapan outside Jakarta where
three paintings by Raden Saleh are housed, came to the same conclusion. 

"There is quite a difference in technique, particularly in the brush strokes
and in the way the figures are formed, particularly the anatomy of the man
and the horse in the [Christie's] picture,'' he said. 

"Of course, it is possible the artist painted two paintings of the same
scene but I would really like to know what other experts think. I don't
think a simple judgment of `original' or `fake' is what we need. We need to
know the reasoning behind it. That is most important toward our
comprehension of art.''

The price of these pictures is what may draw our interest but this is not
the only impressive aspect. Saleh's overall composition, use of color and
technique also merit attention. 

Born in 1807, Saleh studied with Dutch and French masters of the period,
including Antoine Payen and Horace Vernet, first in Indonesia and then in
Europe. His figures are painted with delicate skin tones and an
expressiveness in the eyes that comes directly from the Dutch tradition,
whereas the precise animal musculature in movement that he depicts is close
to that of the French Romantic masters. 

Saleh's landscapes are inspired by his homeland, however, with local
architecture in the background. 

In all, it is a rich, well-executed combination, that has made his works
"landmarks in the development of Indonesian art appreciation,'' says
Sidharta. 

The Saleh paintings in question are an excellent example of Saleh's style.
In the foreground, a pair of hungry tigers are ready to pounce on an
unsuspecting man walking while his wife and child ride on a delicate horse.
In the background, is Java's famous Borobudur monument and a sunset filtered
through a cloud-scattered sky. 

"The painting echoes the timeless, dreamlike vision of an illusory reality,
heavy with paradoxical symbols like shadow and light, innocence and danger,
man and animal, divine spirituality and human materialism,'' writes
Marie-Odette Scalliet, who wrote the catalogue entry for Christie's. "The
ambitious artist, gifted with an insatiable greed for knowledge, had reached
his full maturity.''

Christie's catalogue for its May Southeast Asian and Modern Indian Paintings
sale dedicates a long entry to the Saleh painting, underlining the
exceptional nature of the work and states that "since experts and analyses
confirm, however, that the authenticity of the present lot is beyond doubt,
it cannot be excluded that Raden Saleh painted the same composition twice,
one being commissioned by the Duke of Saxony-Coburg-Gotha, another being
acquired by an unknown person. 

"This hypothesis is reasonable when one bears in mind that Raden Saleh also
painted Deer Hunt twice.''

Deer Hunt sold for S$2.8 million at Christie's March 1996 auction in
Singapore. "The price achieved a record for Southeast Asian painting while
marking the peak of the Indonesian art boom,'' states Sidharta. 

This boom also encouraged the theft of more than 25 paintings from the
National Museum of Jakarta in 1995, five of which turned up for auction at
Christie's a year later in Singapore. Two were by Raden Saleh. The stolen
works were withdrawn from sale and returned to the museum. 

Even with the withdrawal of this latest picture, the May Christie's Hong
Kong Southeast Asian sale brought in almost HK$36.4 million and Christie's
series of six just-concluded Asian art sales here reaped more than HK$698.4
million, a record for any Asian art auction series.

Hopefully, the mystery surrounding A family promenades will soon be
resolved.