Hubris and optimism

June 15 2015

Picture: Mail

Here's a story of a lethal combination of attributional optimism, hubris, and lawyers who don't know their way around art history. A fellow called Jonathan Weal, who was recently declared bankrupt, is being prosecuted in the UK for the crime of 'non-disclosure of property by a bankrupt'. The government is claiming that far from being bankrupt, he apparently has a valuable art collection worth up to '£20 million'. The star of his collection is the above picture by 'Turner' - which Mr Weal did not tell bankruptcy officials about when he was declared bankrupt. 

But the picture is not by Turner. It was bought by Mr Weal for £3,700 at an auction in 2004, and he then (as is the way with these cases of attributional optimism) came to believe that it was by Turner, and worth a great deal. Apparently he was filmed on television declaring his delight that the picture had been 'authenticated' by some experts, though this in fact turns out not to be quite accurate.

I have been sent photographs of the painting more than once, by different people, asking my opinion - and though I am no Turner scholar, it was immediately clear that this picture is nothing more than a pastiche, and not even a very good one at that. So it baffles me that the government is now prosecuting Mr Weal - who's only major crime appears to be believing that he might have had a Turner - for not declaring the value of a painting which is in fact not worth anything. 

More on this sorry saga here, in the Daily Mail. 

Update - an email arrives from Mr Weal:

I formally challenge you to a live televion debate on the picture fishing boats in a stiff breeze by JMW Turner.

The opinion you seek to rely on is totally discredited.The authentication was approved by the leading art law firm Mischcon de Raya.

Your firm recieved an invitation to the academic event inclusive of my posaition as a lecturer on the topographical component location as the Kent coast Ramsgate and Margate.

Instead attending to hear your superiors speak you produced your own fake and fortune production and walked the coastline at the location that you had been notified was close to mine.

The Turner museum at Margate then had there work authenticated by your team.These pictures unlike mine did not contain the forensic and historical research relation to the signature.

I formally challenge you to a head to head live television debate.More than 700 invites to the Dulwich Picture gallery conference were sent including ten to the Fitzwilliam museum at Cambridge.

The prognosis that it was not had been discredited.

The Swiss/Germans used to loot art in the 1930susing such false instruments as forged valuations either side of the Bundesbank printing counterfeit money in 1928 and Nazis making there counterfeit instruments inclusive of forging the Queens head on Pound notes.

Bendor Grosvenor you have not seen the picture live is your just another  art looter opinion from the 1930s or can you stand up to me Man to Man.

I have thrown down the gauntlet the debate  can be live.

For the record the Turner museum attended the lecture and approved it .So who are you to say it is not.

Man or mouse who are you? Take the challenge or are you to scared?.

Jonathan Weal

Hmmm...

Update II - further emails arrive...

Update III - Mr. Weal was found guilty, but spared jail because the judge found that the painting could only be valued at £6,500 - after all, no widely accepted Turner experts have judged the painting to be by Turner. So the offence was relatively minor, and only community service (120 hours) is appropriate. And yet Mr Weal emails me copiously to say that he has 'ten professors' behind him.

In all, a sorry tale. 

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