Issue 42 summer 24 web - Flipbook - Page 114
18ct gold signet ring with an intaglio seal on my left hand
for many years and used to explain to clients that I could
buy it at auction for little over £100, but that it would
easily cost over £1,000 to have it remade.
Therein lies part of the answer. It would be rare to find a
Chelsea gold anchor figurine of a gardener from the earlier
years of the London factory in the 1750s and 1760s which
didn’t have some damage to the bocage (the leaves behind the figure). Indeed a lack of damage would probably
indicate a later copy or a fake. The Chelsea body is a soft
paste porcelain which was prone to chips. So here damage
to the fringe elements of the figurine affects the value either to a minimal extent or not at all. However if the head
has been broken off and restored, that would make a
marked difference to the price. Some of the earlier 18th
century European porcelain produced at the Meissen
factory in the 1730s included large scale/life size models
of animals, such as goats, which inevitably had some
cracks in the body due to the experimental nature of these
pieces and their large size. Many prototypes collapsed in
the kiln. As each ceramic colour had to be applied separately and re-fired, the earlier pieces are only to be found
without any colour. It just wasn’t worth the risk. The rarity
of these earlier pieces, despite their flaws, made them
highly collectable.
Let’s take a case from last year. I was instructed to value
artwork from a property where there had been a flood.
The rented flat was on the lower ground floor. I had to
determine how much of the art was a total loss in insurance terms. This largely comprised works on paper.
Clearly it’s easy to list a total loss when there is a pile of
paper fragments, but not so simple when a print or photograph that is worth X in perfect condition is only worth
25% of X if not. Add to that an owner who insists that he
only buys and possesses art in pristine condition. This also
brings briefly to mind an occasion this year when the
claimant in a commercial litigation matter was adamant
that there was damage to the red marble base of an Art
Deco clock. This was in the form of two elephants sitting
back to back against the drum forming the circular clock
mechanism. Even the claimant’s own solicitor could not
identify where the damage was supposed to be, although
the defendant’s solicitor was gracious enough to comment
that there was a natural flaw in the marble which might
appear to be damage. Many would argue that marble is
interesting precisely because of the natural flaws. So part
of my role is to bring objectivity on such occasions.
Does a rip in a watercolour affect value? Will a rip in a
print destroy its value? Certainly there are some very
skilled paper restorers who can reconstruct the paper so
that any trace of previous damage no longer exists. This
is, of course, a costly process, and only worth carrying out
if the value to the owner is justified, whether for sentimental or hard cash reasons. Rips to the edges of older
prints are to be expected and many collectors in past times
used to cut off the wide margins of many prints – now we
usually rate them higher if still there. Many prints are
pages removed from books, such as atlases, which have
been subject to a great deal of use, being carried around
frequently, with consequent frayed edges to many pages.
At such a time the book may be taken apart and the single/double page be separately framed, albeit in a tight
mount that can eradicate the signs of wear and tear.
However, returning to the previous case in the flooded
flat. There were two silkscreen prints which had a degree
of water damage and which the owner claimed were a
total loss as far as he was concerned. On one level the insurers could have paid him out, taken possession of the
prints and sold them themselves at auction to mitigate
their loss. The problem arose that the artist, although extremely successful in Dubai, where he sold his work directly to clients, had one gallery in London representing
him. However nothing by him had ever sold at auction
to date, thus indicating that the market value of his art
was nominal/nothing as his second hand auction market
had yet to be established. This was despite the fact that
his oils, mostly commissions, cost upwards of £50,000,
with the upper range at £250,000. Comparables of the
screen prints were each selling in London for £17,000.
Luckily for the owner, my instruction was to provide a
value for replacement at retail levels and so he got his
money back. It would have been different if the matter
had ended up in court, where he would most likely have
been obliged to accept the market/nominal value.
How to deal with fakes and forgeries – advances in
forensic skills
In a previous article for Expert Witness Journal I wrote
about a case involving some large scale fake Francis Bacon
drawings. I ended up being involved on three occasions:
once when the original seller was taken to court to recover the £1million or so that he had taken from my
client (by this time this was the Official Receiver as the
seller had declared himself bankrupt 24 hours after the
purchase price was demanded back), a second time when
his son was involved (strangely with exactly the same
name as his dad – no confusion there then!) and a third
time when his mother was taken to court (both mother
and son had been part of the original package deal which
included some genuine Bacon works). During the course
of the latter case, forensic evidence was produced to indicate that a) the paper on which the drawings had been
created contained a carbon element that had only been
introduced by that manufacturing firm a few months
Condition Issues
How does the valuer determine how old damage is and
how does this affect the value? If a piece of glass is chipped
on an edge, it can sometimes be cut down and smoothed
out, so that the item retains a percentage of its value and
still looks acceptable. Cracks are more problematic – a
crack in a paperweight will not affect value radically, but
a crack in a decanter will mean that it ceases to be fit for
purpose.
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