I never put in a bid:
"Vase that drew $1.7m bid also drawing federal scrutiny; Antique and invaluable or new and suspect?" by Sean P. Murphy and Andrea Estes | Globe Staff, May 12, 2013
It was the kind of big ticket sale that puts a new art auction house on the map: A bidder on the phone in Italy offered $1.7 million for an 18th-century Chinese vase from Altair Auctions of Norwood, an eye-popping price more normally seen at elite houses like Sotheby’s or Christie’s.
But when the Globe, acting on a tip, discovered that the vase bore a striking resemblance to a modern reproduction auctioned off a year ago for just $3,840, the deal began to unravel. The two vases are almost certainly one and the same, but sometime between the earlier auction and the Altair sale on March 30 someone had written a phony ownership history and placed a Christie’s sticker on its base, as if to hide its humble past from a rich new buyer.
“You could tell from looking at it that the vase did not predate the 20th century,” said James Jackson, the Iowa-based auctioneer who sold the vase on May 23, 2012, as a relatively low-cost reproduction. “It didn’t require an expert. It would be like putting a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament on a VW Beetle.”
Now, instead of making Altair’s reputation, the vase sale is threatening to topple the company before its first anniversary as federal prosecutors begin an investigation into whether Altair or its clients engaged in fraud to inflate the price of the porcelain vase or other art works.
Altair’s owner, Benjamin Wang, insists the vase he sold is authentic, but he has canceled what would have been the biggest sale in the company’s history.
After giving various accounts of the vase’s history, Wang now says it is probably the same one that Jackson sold a year ago, but that Jackson didn’t realize what a valuable antique he was selling. Wang admitted he made a “big mistake” by not questioning a false sales history provided by the vase seller, but said that shouldn’t take away from the antique’s value....
The vase’s owner, a customer of Wang’s named Dong Hua of Andover, hung up on a Globe reporter and didn’t return repeated phone calls seeking his explanation for why he said the vase had last been sold in 1989 rather than in 2012 as Jackson’s records show.
The imbroglio offers a rare glimpse into the frenzied Chinese art and auction market, which has exploded in recent years as wealthy Chinese collectors have spent vast sums on art and other luxury items at auctions around the world.
But with that rapid growth has come charges of fraud and fakery as people attempt to cash in on perhaps the world’s most lucrative art market.
“The trouble in China is that 70 percent of the art is fake. Even villages are reproducing ancient prototypes. A lot of the modern art is fake as well,” said Robert K. Wittman, a former FBI agent who runs a firm that specializes in recovering stolen treasures.
And the problems don’t stop there: Some bidders are fake, too.
“One of the big problems is phantom buyers in the Chinese markets,” said Wittman. “What’s happening is the Chinese are bidding up their own artwork . . . so they can point to that and say this is what it’s worth.”
In other words, the art world operates like the stock market.
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Related: Masterworks await as an MFA gallery reopens
"Prized stolen art frequently resurfaces after decades" by Todd Wallack | Globe Staff, May 10, 2013
Art detectives say long-lost works are increasingly turning up after going missing for decades, thanks in large part to readily available information on the Internet or in electronic databases. The trend is feeding hopes of art fans that the prized pieces taken from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 23 years ago could eventually surface as well.
Related: The Gardner Gambit
Just wondering if you are tired of having your mind-manipulated by the government mouthpiece.
Though the vast majority of missing artwork is never recovered, stolen items are often discovered when they change hand, sometimes many years later, when brokers and buyers research the pieces online and through databases, according to brokers and others in the business.
Who cares?
“We’ve got recoveries happening every week,” said Christopher A. Marinello, an attorney for the Art Loss Register of London....
The Gardner theft, the costliest museum heist in history, remains one of Boston’s most enduring mysteries. Thieves took 13 items worth roughly half a billion dollars, including Rembrandts, a Vermeer, and a portrait by Edouard Manet.
In March, the FBI said it believed it knows who committed the crime and traced some of the art to Philadelphia, where it was offered for sale. But the bureau said it is unsure where the art is today.
And yet my paper made it seem like a big break in the case. Nothing but tools, and whether wittingly or unwittingly it is not good.
Also see: Man linked to Gardner art heist gets prison term
The prison term wasn't linked to the heist, but who cares about deceptive headlines anymore? We have come to expect them from dog-s*** media.
Though no hard data is available on how recovery rates have changed, many art detectives believe that dealers and collectors are increasingly spotting stolen items as information becomes more widely distributed on the Internet and in searchable databases, such as the global Art Loss Register, started by the insurance industry in 1991, and the FBI’s National Stolen Art File, which was put online three years ago....
Translation: this is all agenda-pushing, public relations promoting bulls***.
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Also see:
"The folk art building was well received when it opened in 2001, partly for its striking bronze facade and partly because it signaled the city’s recovery from Sept. 11. But the museum was also criticized as a cramped place in which to view art, because of its narrow galleries."
Ironic indeed. It's collapsing as fast as a WTC tower and the government's official account.
