There’s a story told about an experienced collector who worked in Belgium in the late last Century. He would go around to garage sales to try and find some gem whose true value would not be immediately apparent. His plan was simple. He would offer a reasonable amount for what seemed to be a piece of unwanted memorabilia. Often times his skill would identify a rare piece. He’d take it to an expert, and make a modest profit. Other times he’d be not so lucky and this profit would vanish. So obviously he tried to keep the second kind of scenario to a minimum.
One day he was rummaging through a fairly typical collection of assorted family collectables that had been advertised as part of a deceased estate. They'd belonged to a recently departed widower who had lived on his own for many decades. His disconnected family was happy to be cleaning up the mess from their grouchy old uncle to whom no one had spoken in ages. In among all the dross he found an old painting that looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day for decades. It was dusty, mouldy, dilapidated and very much worse for wear. His speciality was antique furniture and he didn’t know much about art, but he did know enough to recognise this could be a rare old copy of an original Rembrandt from around the mid 19th century, or about 200 years after the master had lived. Around this time the practice of producing high quality copies of the masters was a regular occurrence, and they were becoming a much sort after curiosity by collectors.
Several days later he took it to a fellow collector who owned a small art gallery in the city. He surmised that if it was one of the aforementioned high grade copies it might mean a reasonable profit margin. His friend was quite impressed with the quality of it, but as he was no expert either he suggested our collector go and see one of this gallery owner’s friends at another gallery. This other fellow was much more knowledgeable about the 17th century ‘Dutch Golden Age’ artists.
This move up the art guru tree turned out to be quite positive because the new expert did identify it as potentially one of the sort after copies, but to be really sure our collector should go and see such and such at yet another gallery. Each new gallery assessor he encountered was impressed with his copy, and in turned referred him to someone more qualified until he finished right at the top of the tree and at the Museum De Reede in Antwerp. Here he met up with one of the country’s unquestioned and premier Rembrandt experts.
The use of this level of expertise was important because during World War 2 the Nazis had made a regular habit of looting the art in many of the countries that 2 they invaded. In the absolute chaos of the early 1940’s this common process of art theft meant many paintings by European masters simply disappeared without a trace. When the war ended the local people in the invaded countries who had collaborated with the Nazis were very quick to try and hide away any incriminating evidence of their disloyalty. As a consequence anything that was obvious booty that they might have accumulated or collected during the occupation was stashed and forgotten with great haste. Then as time progressed, memories faded, and the generations of collaborators died off, the odd previously stashed away gem would sometimes re-merge to everyone’s delight.
These were precisely the motivations behind the grouchy old uncle in hiding away for so long this painting. He was a Nazi sympathizer and had used his position during the occupation to line his pockets, and remained unrepentant in the aftermath. This lead to his isolated status that had been imposed by his family. As it turned out the particular Rembrandt he had scored was in reality a high quality work. According to most assessments it did appear to be a really excellent copy of one of the missing masterpieces. Even though its current neglected status made it look like a piece of junk it had a potentially that was highly valued and important.
At the time of this new painting’s uncovering the Museum De Reede had recently taken into its own possession what was generally recognized as one of the best other copies currently available. Just what had happened to the actual original no one had a clue, so the discovery of good copies was significant. Imagine then everyone’s shock when this top of the tree expert said that this newest entry into the modern art market was in reality not a good copy at all. He then made the totally shocking and mind-blowing declaration that the painting from the junk sale was not a copy but it was actually, as far as one could determine, the missing original. Jaws dropped. Gasps echoed. Shocked visages emerged. Smiles of delight were everywhere. And suddenly because of this significant pronouncement its potential value in the art market of several hundred dollars as a worthy copy moved up into the stratosphere. Numbers like several million dollars started to get thrown around.
So the question arises, through all this detective work and assessment what had actually happened to change the painting and increase its value? The fact is that nothing happened to alter anything about it. It was still a dilapidated and neglected old piece of junk from a garage sale. In fact, any objective or pragmatic comparison between it and the other high quality copy now owned by the art gallery would have identified the copy as a better version of the long lost painting. Because of decades of neglect the original was in of need of some serious renovation. Some aspects of it were so damaged by the dust and humidity of its recent history it was thought it may actually be irreparable. Whereas the copy was in excellent condition. The copy would last longer. It looked way better. It would require much less maintenance and care. And yet the seemingly finer and more practical copy had an extremely modest value attached to it, whereas the original with all its faults, failures and shabbiness had a value given to it that was not even in the same universe. It’s nature was no different but because it was deemed to be an original from the hands of the master himself it was reckoned to be worth millions.
So now and more importantly, what do you think happened to the old painting? Do you think it would be left as it was to just deteriorate more and more? Or do you think that because of its changed status and the monumental increase in its value it would now be set apart, sanctified, (look that one up too) and treated with the love, care and attention that its new status justified. All its ir-repairable damage would remain, but that would now be overlooked when determining its true value.
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