Tuesday 23 October 2012

Buyers Beware: Surfacing Medici Material

Last week I was discussing the continued surfacing of material identified from the Medici Dossier with Cambridge University researcher Christos Tsirogiannis. It is clear that material is shortly due to be auctioned. And this raises a bigger question.

a. Is the auction house aware that it is offering ex-Medici material? Has its rigorous due diligence checks picked up the relevant collecting history/histories?
b. Has the Art Loss Register spotted the material in its checks? I am sure that if it has, the auction house will have been informed.
c. Have the Italian authorities identified the material? We know that the Italian authorities scan the sales and have made requests for material to be withdrawn, although such requests are often declined.
d. Will potential buyers be aware of the ex-Medici material in the sale? The only advice on offer is to avoid any material that cannot be traced back to the period prior to 1970.

Buyers should be cautious.

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2 comments:

kyri said...

david,the art loss register is no use unless the pieces have been reported stolen[most auction houses check up every piece worth over 2-3k anyway]
why dont you just bite the bullet and tell us all which pieces your talking about,you have done in the past.
kyri.

David Gill said...

Kyri
We know that the ALR has access to the Medici Dossier. It will be interesting to see if the auction house reveals what it knows.
David

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