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Meetings with Remarkable Forgeries (British History)
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Hatty
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
I am lost ... I thought we had previously established that the central figure in all this was Alexis Soltykov, you know the brother who made those trips to India, clearly that is where the ivories were coming from, it is surely a more obvious provenance than the ivory being exported 9th century from India and then carved by a Frank, until mysteriously disappearing and then reappearing with brother Petr?

Sometimes Peter is named, other times Alexis, but in general the references to the 1861 sale simply say 'Prince Soltykov' (spelling varies).

Could go either way but it's Alexis who gets the gig in the World Catalogue library


CATALOGUE DES OBJETS D'ART ET DE HAUTE CURIOSITE composant la célèbre collection du Prince SOLTYKOFF. (Russie)
SOLTYKOFF Prince (Alexis)
Published by Catalogue original (1861) de la vente SOLTYKOFF chez Drouot lundi 8 avril 1861 et jours suivants. 1 volume in-8 reliure basane noire, dos à faux nerfs avec lettres dorées. Gravure dépliante en frontispice, (3) + IV + 260 pp. Description des lots n°1 à 1109 (complet).
Prince Alexeï Soltykoff (1806-1859), painter, archaeologist and great Russian traveller, built up an important cabinet of curiosities which he partly relinquished to the French state and the rest of which was dispersed in several sales from 1861 to 1890
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Mick Harper
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Interest in Soltikoff and his collection will continue as long as works associated with him reach the art market. On July 5, 2000, two significant Late Gothic works of art, reliquaries of St Christopher and St Sebastian, sold at Christie’s for approximately 5.6 million dollars. Both reliquaries belonged to Soltikoff, and their sale has generated further interest and discussion about the Prince and the collections he formed in Paris more than 150 years ago.

Thus endeth the paper. I am assuming the St Sebastian is the one pictured previously. If so it was 'saved for the nation' by the V & A asking the government to prevent its export and then going cap-in-hand to the usual suspects so they can add it to all their other early medieval reliquaries -- you can't have too many.

Can we pause there and ask just why we are so often asked to contribute millions of pounds to stop some other country benefiting from things which have nothing to do with this country? It is the kind of dog-in-the-manger attitude with other people's money that should be remembered next time they start whingeing about how they can't afford a fresh antimacassar for the Director's chair. What they need is somebody who understands the principles of egalitarianism and has a proper regard for the public's hard-earned crust. An ex-Labour MP possibly, somebody from outside the magic circle anyway. These toffs must be stopped.
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Mick Harper
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Though of course it’s too late for this one, the one that didn't get away



I don't know much about art but I know what I like and it isn’t this kind of gallimaufry. Why not? It’s too baroque. Or do I mean rococo? Anyway, too Catholic. Which is odd because when it was allegedly made, 1497, there weren’t any Catholics, if you see what I mean. If it had been baroque or rococo, or even Trentine, I wouldn’t have minded one little bit, but now I come to look at it, I would have to say, best guess, hand on heart: France, nineteenth century, Ultramontane, post-Galican, Pio nono, give or take. Only my style notes, you understand, let’s get physical...
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Mick Harper
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I may not be Sherlock Holmes but I know how to cut and paste

Employing the services of goldsmith Reinhold Vasters (and likely others in Germany), Spitzer had a great number of pieces forged in a foundry in Aachen and sold them as legitimate 15th-century objects

Yeah, well anyone can throw stones. Where's your evidence?

In 1978, a scholar unearthed over a thousand of Vasters’s drawings. Among the documents were clear instructions for how to craft the medieval and Renaissance objects they depicted. The revelation cast doubt upon many pieces, including some 45 works in the Met’s collection. In response, the museum removed some from display.

Dig that crazy 'some'.
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Mick Harper
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The next step in the saga is to decide on the relationship between Spitzer and Soltykoff. They certainly employed broadly the same scam which goes like this (I'll use the Soltykoff variant first):

1. A wealthy but somewhat mysterious figure shows up in Paris
2. He buys a very large town house in the most fashionable quarter
3. He displays a part of his family's art collection in the house
4. He is an amateur enthusiast and augments his collection until the house is soon groaning with three floors of the stuff
5. He keeps something of an open house which becomes a sort of cross between a salon and an art gallery
6. One doesn't know who one will meet there, it could be Liszt, it could be Napoleon III
7. But mein host has rather been overdoing it (even died) and a public auction of his effects is announced
8. Some of it, alas, has already been snapped up by one or more of the crowned heads of Europe
9. But the rest is available, an illustrated prospectus may be obtained on enquiry
10. Soon the world's museums are groaning with the stuff.
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Mick Harper
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Please understand that this is not my ten steps to heaven, it is the orthodox account of the origin of the Soltykoff sale of 1861. The only thing you have to choose between is
a) it is all genuine save for a few rotten apples that, quite understandably, Soltykoff's passion allowed to inch their way in. Though news that it was 'via his dealer', if true, is a bit worrying.
b) it is all fake. Whether it was salted with a few genuine items is not known.

So the obvious provenance that needs establishing is not that of the items in the sale (it is agreed they are few and far between) but of Soltykoff himself. But not of Soltykoff himself, themselves -- Russian princes are fairly numerous and there is no special reason to doubt whether either Petr or Alexis were or weren't -- but how they managed to put together the world's greatest sale of art treasures.

Russian princes are numerous because it is a courtesy title and doesn't, for example, come with a slice of Russia and a coupla thou serfs to go with it. In fact, it's the other way round. You have your estate, you have your serfs, but if you want to make your mark (if you want to make money) you have to go to Moscow or Petersburg and start buttering up tsars to give you concessions and monopolies and governorships -- things that make rather more money than serfs listlessly turning over stooks of grain, and then eating most of it.

Only then can you turn your mind to the mark of the truly high nobility, art. So whence and whither the Soltykoffs....
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Mick Harper
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Spitzer was a contemporary of the Soltykoffs but lacked their backstory

Born in Vienna in 1815, by some accounts to a father who was a grave digger
and seemed to be somewhat following them around

After establishing his business in London in the 1840s, Spitzer moved to Paris in 1852

though whether his business model followed them or was an offshoot of theirs is hard to tell

So stocked with works was his mansion, located near the Arc de Triomphe, that it became known as “Le musée Spitzer.” Despite the lofty title, Spitzer’s home was not a museum but more of a cross between a residence and a gallery.

but used the same firm of party planners

It was there that the upper crust of society came to view the works and to buy them. Franz Liszt could sometimes be heard playing the piano. John Singer Sargent was a known presence

[Actually I think Liszt is in the wrong list, I'll get back to you on that.] And like at least one of the Soltykoffs it was his demise that led to the major cash-in

Such was the collection’s reputation that when a large chunk of these pieces hit the auction block in 1893, three years after Spitzer’s death, it was heralded as the “sale of the century” and papers across the world buzzed with hype. The auction stretched over 38 days, and by the end had netted more than $60 million in today’s dollars
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Mick Harper
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By their fruits ye shall know them

Prince Soltykoff also acquired works of art individually and in groups with the aid of dealers and advisers primarily Jean-Baptiste Carrand (1792-1871), a collector-dealer from Lyon. Carrand’s influence on Soltykoff’s collecting activities was considerable

That's one way of putting it. Jaundiced readers will recall that it was Carrand that turned up with a panel of Franks' Casket thirty years later because, as he explained to the Bargello, the famous but still elusive family in Auxerre had only just found it in their sock drawer. That's the panel that the Bargello and the British Museum will not allow, on pain of death, to be reunited with the rest of the casket in case they don't .. er ... re-unite.

What is amazing about all these duffers is that every time they come across an even greater villain, they go into even greater raptures because he's responsible for an even greater collection! Sorry to break into your weekend, Hatty, but you'll have to add Louis-Fidel Debruge-Dumenil to the pot. Definitely Category One.
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Mick Harper
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This should be in the Modus Operandi section but one nice little dodge has been revealed whilst reading Christine Brennan's essay (from which unbeknownst to me all this has been taken). When you've got a big sale coming on, always sell it whole to someone else just prior. Why would anyone in his right mind do this? Either the buyer or the seller must be the loser.

Well, because if anyone buys anything really awful at the auction and complains then, "Pardonnez-moi, I bought ze 'ole sing as an investment, I cannot vouch for ze authenticity of every single piece. As it is I am out of ze pocket. But of course I must repay your purchase price. It is absolutely my legal responsibility." Or if the police get involved, "Pardonnez-moi, Inspecteur, but monsieur sold everything as ze job lot to an investment banker. I am sure he explained there were some reproductions included but he is not responsible for any overzealous descriptions in the brochure. He left town after selling it, having no further interest in the actual sale."

"How much did we get?"
"Seventy-two and change."
"What did you give me?"
"Eighty on the nobbin."
"I'll write you a cheque."
"I'd prefer cash."

"I need hardly mention to you how important is this collection, the history of which is well known. It is now the property of Baron de Seillières who gave I believe 80,000 £ for it." [Franks]

The celebrated collection of medieval and Renaissance art treasures belonging to Prince Peter Soltykoff was sold at the Hotel Drouot, Paris between 8 April and 1 May 1861, achieving a total of £72,000.
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Mick Harper
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Wandering about amongst Ms Brennan's footnotes I come across copious mentions of two of our other faves, the Basil Cathedral wonders and Basilevsky. This presents us with a tactical problem. It's becoming increasingly clear that there was, to put it at its lowest, a sub-culture of art-and-antique forgery in France during the nineteenth century. The problem is that if we put it any higher we're going to run into a really bad case of "by proposing a theory about a conspiracy you are ipso facto a conspiracy theorist".

Not that that ever stops us. Or should stop us. But it would be nice, just once, if the pointy heads would say, "Yeah, all right, we'll give you that one." What I find really weird though is why one or other of them never says, "Yeah, I'll take that one and make a bit of a name for myself." They are of course at liberty to do just that without mentioning us as their source. We're not proud. They would be wise not to in any case.

PS I spelled Basel Cathedral in error the Basil Fawlty way. I think I'll leave it as it is.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Within the orthodox paradigm there are at least three categories of items sold at the famous sales.

1) The original, even at the Spitzer sale it is still claimed that some items could be defended as legitimate.

2) The forgeries. I dont know why no one seems to have considered
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitzer_Cross Maybe it is just me?

3) Restored originals, including badly restored originals.

Common sense (within the paradigm) tells us that most antiques will not make it through the various ravages of vikings, civil wars, dissolution etc and even if they do there might be elements that have needed repair, touching up or rebinding. These restored originals could also be forgeries, but some are so clumsy one doubts why any self-respecting forger would give it a go, rather than go for a fake original in pristine state that would net higher value ???

Maybe within the ortho paradigm, even bad restoration, or damage, or a missing piece, can be ignored if the remaining original element has a wow factor like the Franks casket ?

Just musing.....
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Mick Harper
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I profoundly disagree with this. Not least because it breaks our cherished AE Rule: one cause, one effect. (Or however we put it last, Ishmael will know).

1. If you've got genuine things to sell, why would you imperil them (and your own reputation) by mixing them up with fakes?
2. Forgeries sell quite easily, it would seem, and stand the test of time
3. Every professional knows that collectors prize the real thing because of, not despite, its signs of being out and about in, and battered by, the real world. I know because I watched an Antiques Roadshow that one time.

You only 'restore' things in order to hide the fact they are fake to start with. As Franks did with his casket. Especially, remember, as he was presenting it as a historical artefact, not a work of art. Even he didn't pretend to be that dim.

PS Reading your post with Hatty -- we do this every morning -- I realise I have misrepresented your position, Wiley. We are, after all, on the same page.
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Hatty
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The sale doesn't only put discrete items on the market but an assemblage of objects purporting to illustrate the entire history/evolution of their design and execution

One particularly significant feature of Soltykoff's medieval collection was that he had assembled an unbroken series of works in specific media. This could be seen in his religious and secular ivory carvings dating from the sixth to the fifteenth century and in his assemblage of medieval enamelwork. It was as if he had wanted to represent a complete history of medieval production in various media

The enterprise would seem tailor-made for satisfying the desire of collectors who want/need to acquire the full works (not only rich Americans, these gewgaws were the pride and joy of Baron Adolphe de Rothschild's Waddesdon collection and Sir Richard Wallace's Wallace Collection among others).
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Mick Harper
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Yes, for some reason both ivory and enamel play large parts in all this. I am never quite sure what enamel is and always forget five minutes after I look it up. Sir Augustus Franks (I may award him a peerage soon, I feel sorry for him having to keep up with all these barons and princes) made his name by writing a paper about forgeries in the enamel trade!

They weren't to know that ivory could one day be carbon-dated and all their chicanery exposed though they probably guessed that nobody would ever dare to do so with a single one of their productions. But keep looking, guys, you never know. There may one day be an (intellectually) honest museum curator born of mortal man.
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Hatty
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The desire for enamelware and ivory caskets etc. might be connected to the popularity of chinoiserie, relatively recent (late 17th century onwards) and much copied in the west. Lacquerware is actually a Japanese tradition so maybe I mean japonaiserie. Even today, I think, this stuff can fetch huge prices.

How much, or even if, medieval or Renaissance craftsmen worked with, had access to, ivory is unknown, not helped by the inadequacies of art history, but enamelling really took off in the nineteenth century, though again it's believed to have been around for centuries (based on dodgy dating of jewellery etc said to be Byzantine, Merovingian, whatever)
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