'Who dunnit?' and the numbers game
Historical portraits dealer Philip Mould is a well known art sleuth and someone with much first-hand experience of the often vexed subject of art attribution.
"Anyone can buy and enjoy a picture. The whole point of talking about attribution and re-attribution has to be: can you get your money back or even make money on art?" he says. "Otherwise it's nonsensical. Unless you are just ???-talking about morality and aesthetics."
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Mould is a good judge of the role attribution plays in buying art as an investment. Most recently he argued that the portrait of Elizabeth I as a 12-year-old princess is not a late copy, as long thought, but original. His attribution evidently convinced buyers because the picture, priced at ￡800,000, quickly sold when it was exhibited at Grosvenor House in June.
There are, of course, many different factors that affect the price of a painting. "There is a picture in the National Portrait Gallery, the first one they acquired," says Mould. "It is by an unknown artist, in terrible condition, largely overpainted and we are not even sure that it was painted during the lifetime of the sitter, although we are pretty sure it was. And yet this wouldn't stop it being worth between ￡10m and ￡20m." The punch line: "That portrait is of William Shakespeare. If it was of a nobody, an unidentified figure, it would be worth - on a good day at Christie's South Kensington - about ￡600-￡800."
If identification of a famous or grand sitter makes a picture's price zoom up, so, of course, does the discovery that it is by a celebrated artist. But zeros that are quickly added can be just as speedily erased. A provocative example of both occurred at Sotheby's this summer.
In 1974 London antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs bought a profile view of a long-necked young fellow with his head tilted back. On the canvas was written "Henry 6". Gibbs paid Christie's ￡2,800 for it.
Sir Roy Strong, former director of the National Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum, author of books on British art and a long-time friend of Gibbs had the opportunity to study the painting carefully over a number of years. In March his findings were published in Apollo magazine: the painting was by Holbein, he concluded, and its subject was Thomas Wyatt, the Younger. There are three known copies of the painting, though the original was lost - or so it had been thought.
Christopher Gibbs sent his re-discovered Holbein to Sotheby's for auction on July 5: its estimate was ￡2m-￡3m. Dealers and collectors sent restorers to examine the picture and there was a good deal of advancepublicity. Yet the "Holbein" didn't sell. No one was convinced - at least, not enough. The zeros so recently added to the price were lopped off.
But for all the great advances in technology, the fact remains that attribution is not a science. It is, rather, the product of educated guessing, though experts work hard to narrow their margin for error.
Art historians build their reputations on attributions. They may find that some pictures thought to be by an artist in whom they have special interest are not, or that others thought to be by different painters should be re-attributed to him. The body of an artist's work is the foundation on which assessment and analysis is made.
A recent example occurred at a German exhibition devoted to small, powerful, early 17th century ivory carvings. The unknown sculptor of these often writhing images is known as the Furienmeister (Master of the Furies). Once the group of his carvings was assembled, the show's curator realised that an ivory dog in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence also must be by him. It has now been re-attributed.
But the stories surrounding some attributions can be unsettling, A young curator who recently made her second attribution (of a 15th century painting executed in Siena), and who prefers to remain anonymous, says the payment for expert opinion can have disturbing consequences. For instance, she claims she has come across attributions that are so questionable they could surely not really have been believed by the eminent scholars who wrote them. She, herself, has taken no payments: "I just want to publish the article," she says. "I see myself as a scholar, as an academic I don't want to be involved in the market. But," she says, "when you give an important attribution you can earn lots of money".
This sort of thing might make a potential buyer nervous. Philip Mould offers some steadying advice. "Elevate your own eye," he says. "That requires seeing things and seeing and seeing. Then, follow the opinion of somebody you trust; rather like buying a stock."
Of course you can always simply buy art in which attribution plays no part. "The artists of antiquity didn't sign," says dealer Rupert Wace. "As one very rarely can attribute a work to an artist one is lucky enough to be able to just take things at a visual level."
So the question then becomes not "Who dunnit?" but "How good is it? Do I love it?" And these are questions at the heart of collecting whether works are signed or not.
艺术品身份的价格游戏
什
么是艺术品归属？
从事历史肖像画买卖的菲利普?莫尔德(Philip Mould)，是个有名的艺术品“侦探”，同时，对于往往令人头疼的艺术品归属问题（译者注：指将艺术品的作者、地域或时代归属为特定人物、地点和时间），他有着丰富的第一手经验。
“任何人都可以购买并欣赏一幅画。在谈到归属及重新确定归属的问题时，所有的重点只能是：你是否能从艺术品上收回投资、甚至从中赚钱呢？”他表示，“否则就毫无意义可言。除非你只是在谈论道德和美学问题。”
对于归属问题在购买艺术品作为投资时扮演的角色，莫尔德是个很好的鉴定人。最近他辩称，伊丽莎白一世12岁时的公主肖像画，并非像长期以来人们所认为的那样，是后来的仿制品，而是一幅真品。他给予的这种归属，显然令买家确信不疑，因为这幅定价为80万美元的作品，于6月份在 Grosvenor House参展时很快卖了出去。
影响艺术品价格的因素
当然，许多不同的因素都会影响一幅画的价格。“英国国家肖像馆(National Portrait Gallery)有一幅画，那是他们获得的第一幅画，” 莫尔德表示，“它出自一位不知名的作者之手，作品的状况很糟，大部分地方进行了复绘，我们甚至无法确定它是否是在画中人在世的时候画的，尽管我们对此十分肯定。然而，这并不妨碍它得到1000万至2000万英镑的身价。”关键的问题在于：“那是威廉?莎士比亚(William Shakespeare)的肖像。如果它是个无名小卒、一个身份无法确定的人的肖像，那么，运气好的话，在嘉士德南肯辛顿拍卖行(Christie’s South Kensington)，它能卖上600至800英镑。”
如果说，确定画中人是一位著名人物或伟人，能使画作的价格急剧飙升的话，同样，发现作品出自一位著名画家之手，也会收到同样的效果。但价格尾数上迅速加上的零，也可能以同样快的速度被抹去。今年夏季发生在苏富比(Sotheby’s)的一件发人深省的事例，说明了上述情况。
1974年，伦敦古董交易商克里斯多弗?吉布斯(Christopher Gibbs)买下了一幅画，是一位脖子很长的年轻人的侧面像，他的头向后垂下。画布上写有“亨利六世”(Henry 6)的字样。吉布斯当时花了2800英镑，从嘉士德购得。
曾担任英国国家肖像馆和维多利亚阿尔伯特博物馆(Victoria & Albert Museum)负责人的罗伊?斯特朗爵士(Sir Roy Strong)，撰写了数本关于英国艺术品的著作，也是吉布斯多年的好友。他有机会对这幅画进行了多年的研究。今年3月，他的研究结果刊登在了《阿波罗》(Apollo)杂志上，他的结论是：这幅画是霍尔拜因(Holbein)的作品，画的是小托马斯?怀亚特(Thomas Wyatt)。现存3幅该作品的复制品，不过真品已经丢失――或者说人们是这样认为的。
7月5日，克里斯多弗?吉布斯将这幅重新被鉴定为霍尔拜因作品的画像，送到苏富比拍卖：其估价为200万至300万英镑。交易商和收藏家派来修复专家对此画进行检验，同时进行了大量的前期宣传。然而，这幅“霍尔拜因”作品没卖出去。没人相信――至少是不够相信――它是“霍尔拜因”的作品。因而，不久前加到价格尾数上的零，又被抹去了。然而，尽管科技方面取得了巨大的进步，仍未改变这一事实：判定归属的工作不是一门科学。更确切地说，它是训练有素的推测的结果，专家们努力减少误差。
谁做的？VS.它有多棒？
艺术史家确立了自己在艺术品归属问题方面的名声。他们也许会发现，原以为是由某位他们对其特别感兴趣的艺术家画的一些画，其实并非出自他手，或是发现，其它一些原以为是其他艺术家的画，反而应该重新归为他的作品。艺术家作品的主体，是进行评估和分析的基础。
最近的一个例子出现在德国的某次展览上，专门展出大量17世纪初的小件象牙雕刻。这些雕塑常常呈现出痛苦扭曲的形象，其作者姓名不详，被称为“Furienmeister”（字面意思是“复仇女神大师”）。当他这组雕刻凑在一起时，这次展览的负责人意识到，佛罗伦萨皮蒂宫(Palazzo Pitti)里的某件象牙狗雕，也肯定出自他的手。如今，有关方面已经重新确定了这件作品的归属。
不过，有些关于归属的故事可能会让人感到不安。一位不愿透露姓名的年轻鉴定者表示，为专家观点付费的做法，可能会造成令人烦恼的后果。她最近刚进行了第二次归属鉴定工作，对象是一幅15世纪意大利锡耶纳完成的画。例如，她声称，自己曾见过一些值得怀疑的归属鉴定意见，撰写它们的著名学者自己不可能真的这么认为。她本人没有收取任何费用。“我只是想发表文章，”她表示，“我把自己当作一个学者，一名学术界人士，我不想与市场有瓜葛。不过，”她表示，“当你出具一项重要的归属意见时，你能挣到很多钱。”
这类情况也许会使潜在买家感到紧张。菲利普?莫尔德给出了一些可靠的建议。“睁大自己的眼睛，”他说道，“这需要观察，反复的观察。然后听从你信任的人；这有点儿像买股票。”
当然，你可以永远只购买不存在归属问题的艺术品。“古董艺术家是不署名的，”交易商鲁珀特?韦斯(Rupert Wace)表示，“由于很少有人能把一件古董归为某位艺术家的作品，所以你可以很幸运地仅凭观察来购买。”
于是，问题就不是“谁做的？”，而变成了“它有多棒？我是否喜爱它？”无论作品署名与否，这些才是艺术品收藏的核心问题。
