Understanding condition (ctd.)
October 17 2013
Picture: Christie's
Regular readers will know I'm always beanging on about the importance of understanding a picture's condition, when buying at auction. The above picture, by Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, was recently sold at Christie's Amsterdam for EUR133,000, against a EUR20-30,000 estimate. As an attractive and engaging image, painted fluidly in oil on panel, it ticked a lot of boxes. Kinda cute, don't you think?
But did you spot the later over-paint around the chin? The picture had been very cunningly 'restored' by a previous owner, which had the effect of making it look a touch 19th Century. Click 'read on' to see what it looks like now, with all the over-paint removed.
Now it's still a fine and important picture, and is in fact in excellent condition. Academically, it's the sort of thing that would work well in any museum collection. But if I'd bought it, I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed the surprise.
A hint as to what the picture really looked like beneath the over-paint is provided by the painting below, attributed to Jan David de Heem.
