The seller of the picture is trying to sue Sotheby’s for an error in attribution

Sotheby’s auction house is currently suing for damages arising from the underestimation of work sold at auction in London in 2006.

Initially, the painting "The Cardsharps" (Shulers) was considered to belong to the brush of one of the followers of the great Caravaggio. Scientist Denis Mahon paid only £ 42,000 for his work. Subsequently, he determined that the painting was painted by Caravaggio himself and received a license to export the painting, whose estimated selling price soared to 10 million pounds.

The plaintiff in the case is Lancelot William Thwaytes, who submitted the painting for auction. The canvas was classified as a copy from the original "The Cardsharps", made in the XVII century. It was believed that the original canvas is on display at the Kimbell Art Museum.

The painting has been in the Twits family since 1962. According to the lawsuit, which was filed in late January, the former owner seeks to return the price difference between the amount that was obtained during the 2006 auction and the real value of the artwork. The plaintiff alleges that Sotheby’s experts did not undertake the necessary studies during the pre-sale analysis.

The auction house appeals to the fact that the decision on the authorship of the painting was made by the scientist Richard Spear (Richard Spear), an outstanding expert on the work of Caravaggio. This decision was supported by other experts, including Helen Langdon (Helen Langdon), a specialist in Italian Baroque, author of the biography of Caravaggio, and Sebastian Schutze (Sebastian Schutze), professor of art history at the University of Vienna.

In particular, Schutze writes in his 2009 catalog: "quality of execution… assumes that the picture was a copy." Sotheby’s adds: “Our point of view coincides with how the picture was evaluated in 2006. The catalog, in which the painting was included, was distributed among the world’s leading museum curators, art historians, collectors and dealers, and if they thought that the painting was underestimated, it would certainly become known. ”

The authenticity of the painting was established by leading experts, Maurizio Marini, Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museum, curator and expert Daniel Benati, Thomas Schneider, writer and restorer.

Denis Mahon, who died in 2011, bequeathed 58 works from his collection totaling approximately 100 million pounds to UK galleries. He was one of the experts who in 2005 claimed to be “convinced” that the painting “John the Baptist with a lamb”, cataloged at Sotheby’s in 1998 as a work by one of Caravaggio’s students, actually belongs to the artist himself.

Anna Sidorova

Caravaggio Paintings