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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Sicily: The Conquered Isle (PBS)
This is rather a good series, so far. Plenty of talking head oomph and a refreshing lack of the usual travelogue flannel.
However, the reason I am informing you of this here rather on the TV thread, is that in its coverage of the Byzantine and Arab period (500 - 1000 AD) I got a strong whiff of something being terribly wrong. Pounce on it yourselves and tell me I'm not wrong.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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I gave up early doors, at the stage where we were informed Sicilians stopped speaking Sicilian and went over to Greek as the lingua franca of the Mediterranean, presumably because there are no written records of prehistoric Sicilian (and they even compared Ancient Greek to French as the 17th century European language of culture and diplomacy despite English-speakers and others not losing their native language in the C17)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, I said to myself, 'Hatty will be giving up at this point.' Though he did offer 'written proof' by quoting someone contemporaneously saying he had witnessed this. I too smiled at the universality of French-speaking though I also wondered why he said 17th century when surely that wasn't true, even at the diplomatic level.
You had to listen hard but the voice-over claimed Hannibal was defeated in Italy, inferring it was at the Battle of Cannae, the site of his most famous victory. Those who believe in these things, that is.
However I urge you to return for a quick listen to the Arab/ Byzantine section since, to my mind, this could be a very valuable building brick in the History of Christianity that needs dislodging. And with it the European Dark Age. It is surely significant that it was 'the Normans' (of all people!) who brought it to an end.
Round, round,
Get around.
They get around.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Did you know Frédéric Chopin never existed? His piano works were written by Franz Liszt and the other stuff by a coupla other French composers in on the scam. The biographical material was written by Lizst's girlfriend, George Sand. They used a daguerreotype of a tubercular Parisian pleb for the publicity pic. When researchers later stumbled across the daguerreotype they said, "We have found the original Chopin portrait at last."
I'm not endorsing this, I've taken it straight from a Radio Three series of essays which might themselves be a piss-take. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002flwb
But I want to believe it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Something you might not have thought of if you were a music sharpie:
| Present the same piece of music but under a different title. |
"Poppycock. If it was advertised as Harper's Symphony No 2, I'll be right peeved if it turned out to be note-for-note Harper's Symphony No 1."
Not if it was the nineteenth century, before recording, you wouldn't. You heard my first symph two years ago, how on earth would you know, listening to my 'second', it was note for note the same as my first?
"Maybe I wouldn't but I'd be vaguely familiar with the main theme and whatnot. I'd at least complain it was somewhat derivative."
No, you wouldn't. You'd say, 'Ah, unmistakably Harperian' and nod knowingly to the impressionable young lady you had taken to the concert. And what about my Violin Concerto?
"What about it?"
It's the same piece of music as my Symphonies One and Two.
"You wouldn't catch me this time. I'd notice there was no soloist out front fiddling merrily away."
Not in the nineteenth century, you wouldn't. Your eyes would be trained on the First Violinist fiddling merrily way, assuming that was the solo part. All symphonies are mainly the first violins going at it hammer and tongs.
Full story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002fm4y
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost
As the gorilla in thingy says, "I've got a bad feeling about this." Can someone get down to outing it, I've got a bad feeling about disappearing down unnecessary rabbit holes at the moment.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The Lost Leonardo (2021) Sky Arts
| Sold for $450 million by Christie's, investigators explore the case of the missing 'Salvator Mundi', the first painting by Leonardo da Vinci to be be discovered in more than a hundred years and the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. |
There are more red flags in those few words than you'd see at the Emirates on matchday. But that is not what I find most interesting about the blurb.
Whatever the status of the Salvator Mundi, nobody can possibly say for sure that Leonardo 'did it'. Even the most revelatory tests would only be able to show that it was done, say, in his studio at a time when he was active. (Though we can be pretty sure that much is not knowable.)
So my question is not 'Who would buy a probable Leonardo?' It is 'Who would spend four hundred and fifty million dollars on something that might not be?' If I had the dosh I might venture a few million dollars, even maybe ten or twenty million, on something which--if nothing else--is a very famous painting.
But you'd have to be a complete twat to stick four hundred and fifty million on the nose.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The first red flag is to hear that an 'After Leonardo', apparently a near contemporary copy of the lost Salvator Mundi, is available for $1175. Even at 2005 New Orleans prices that strikes me as weirdly low. I'd buy one myself for that kind of outlay, just as a conversation-stopper for my cocktail parties. Though I'd put it in the loo at other times.
It is not explained how a 'sleeper hunter' (someone who looks for unrecognised and hence undervalued paintings being sold at auction) and an 'Old Masters art dealer' (like a motor trader who specialises in pre-1900 cars) could 'agree a price' for an auction offering, but I let that pass.
Then comes the titles, then some rhubarb, then a nice lady restorer (who lives in Florence, Italy, natch) with regulation I M Pei glasses, is taking off the varnish. She comes across a pentimento, a detail initially put in one place but, when the artist has had second thoughts, painted over so it can be put somewhere else on the canvas. Our matronly guide assures us
| You don't usually find that in a copy. |
No, I don't suppose you would, dear. Anything else noteworthy? She spots a modern restorative crack to the upper lip of JC and having jiggered about with it a bit says
| There's no transition from the upper to the lower lip. It is exactly what is present in the Mona Lisa. No-one but Leonardo could have painted this picture. |
So there you have it. The best known pout in the world could only have been painted by one man... and he did it twice. But, great artist that he was, no more than twice. And some bastard painted over it!
I had to stop at this point--it's the last day of the Tour de France. I've taken a slice out of that four hundred fifty million which I reckon is a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Toodlepip, back tomorrow.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It's getting worse. Or better, as you prefer. The National Gallery is having a Leonardo Exhibition so after the 'restoration' the painting is taken over there. They show it to the leading authorities on Leonardo. Before I tell you their verdict, let's just ponder what a Leonardo expert actually is.
They're not people versed in the art of forgery, they are people versed in the life and times of Leonardo. How good will be they be when it comes to Fake or Find? There are only fifteen known Leonardo paintings in the known universe so we're not talking about a large statistical universe here. But the big question is:
| Is there anyone who can identify the painter of a painting by looking at it? |
No, there isn't. Even the painter can get it wrong. It's simply impossible for anyone else. The difference between a good copy/fake and the real thing is so small nobody else has got a prayer. A really steeped connoisseur would score better than random but if you gave any art expert a proper blind trial on any painter they'd score... better than random.
After an afternoon in London inspecting the New Orleans Salvator Mundi--one of them had a magnifying glass he was terribly proud of--they said, one and all
Clearly they believe they can work the oracle--nobody expressed a qualification of any kind that I heard. So it was stuck on the wall as the genuine article in the Nat Gal exhibition which was thereby catapulted to a worldwide sensation. The first new Leonardo for a hundred years will do that for you.
| 'Is it the greatest ever exhibition?' |
wondered the London Times in a screaming headline. What times we live in. We've reached halfway. Can I go on? I'll try. I can splutter for England, but I've got my limits.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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So the (I would say) most respectable art gallery of them all, the National Gallery in London, has launched the Salvator Mundi on a surprised world. There seem to have been no scientific tests, just the opinion of a bunch of people who once wrote a book about Leonardo.
The National has just cleaned up on the Leonardo exhibition, has the biggest collection of Leonardo drawings in an annex, but for some reason isn't anxious to buy. What's next for the Salvator Mundi? The man who shelled out eleven hundred bucks on it has lunch with a New York art dealer and shows him a photo. 'What do you reckon? The National Gallery has authenticated it.' 'In excess of two hundred million,' he avers.
They start working the phones to the usual suspects in the well-heeled end of the museum trade. 'Not for us, sorry,' say Houston.
'Too rich for our patrons at that price,' says Boston.
'I'm surprised the National Gallery has given its imprimatur so quickly,' sniffs Berlin.
'One doesn't think such a noted perfectionist as Leonardo would paint on a wooden board with a giant knot in it.'
Another ten minutes done and dusted. Back on the case tomorrow all being well. All being not well.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The art business comes in two halves. On one side are the people responsible for the art. They're a bit stuffy, not too bright but beyond reproach. On the other side are the sharpies who do the business.
The problem is that the art side have to appoint sharpies to high office because high art is highly competitive, and the sharpies present themselves as lovers of art, and they mostly are. Remember this because the Salvator Mundi [why do I keep wanting to say Salvador Dali?] went from $1100 to $450,000,000 for one reason and one reason only:
| A body vastly beyond reproach, the National Gallery of London, England, authenticated it after a procedure that was somewhere between derisory and pitiful. |
I don't care what anyone says, they didn't do that except that someone in authority at the National Gallery must have been in on the scam. It wasn't a matter of noble cause corruption (they wanted their Leonardo exhibition to be a success) it was because that someone was in on a percentage of the final sale. Nobody's that noble.
I was formulating this thought when we were actually introduced to the person who painted the Salvator Mundi. Less Leonardo da Vinci, more the woman who did the 'restoration'. It was painful watching her denying it.
We then got a little interlude that seemed to indicate another 'beyond reproach' institution, Sotheby's of London, England, was in on it too. But that one requires a post all of its own.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Wasn't it Al Capone who said, "A million dollars buys you a lot of judges."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Sotheby's are the most powerful entity in the art world. Are they crooks? Yes, you have to be in the art world. But they are also 'beyond reproach'? You have to be if you're a PLC and the world's biggest auctioneers. An auction is a public event, run according to the laws of the land. Right out there in the open for all to see.
That's why Sotheby's are also dealers. Anything goes when you're a dealer. Let us watch as they turn eleven hundred dollars into half a billion dollars without doing anything wrong. Without doing much at all.
Right now the Salvator Mundi is worth $1175 plus an authentication from the National Gallery. But nobody will touch it. An authentication is not money in the bank, an authentication is a promise to pay, if you can find the right person. But not to pay for the Salvator Mundi. You'll see.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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If the respectable world of art galleries and museums don't want to know, you head for the epicentre of the secret art world. Where all the valuable stuff that can't be shown in public is stashed--it's fake, it's looted, ownership is disputed, it's being hidden from divorce lawyers or bankruptcy courts, it's in escrow for a drugs deal, all sorts of reasons.
| The vaults at Geneva airport. |
We are introduced at this point to Yves Bouvier. He's a small time Swiss crook with one incomparable asset, he's the bagman for a Russian oligarch. Now, at last, we can put the painting next to squillions of dollars. But not in the sense that the painting is going to be exchanged for the money. If it was that simple, anyone could do it...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Dmitry Rybovlov is described as a 'billionaire and art collector only interested in exceptional artists and masterpieces' which is lucky because Leonardo paintings certainly qualify under that heading. (I've yet to meet a billionaire art collector who is only interested in unexceptional artists and minor pieces but we can let that pass too.)
| "He said he had seen a photo of the Salvator Mundi, that he had liked it and wanted to buy it. " Yves Bouvier |
That's my kind of Russian oligarch.
| "I started to investigate the painting and nobody wanted it. So I told him, 'Dear Dimitry, don't buy this painting. It will not be a good investment, there are major issues.' The price of $200 million was too high, he would be a laughing stock in the art art market." |
That's my kind of bagman. Dmitry tells him to go ahead anyway. It's only money. Bouvier tells Sotheby's to 'find the painting so we could sign a contract with the owners of the painting'. No talk of public auctions, no talk of the owner having a shufti, just a little coterie of art lovers doing the biz.
It gets worse before it gets worse.
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