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Is it Real? A Caravaggio Rediscovered
21 Plays6 years ago
If you find an Old Master artwork in your attic, how can you be sure it isn’t fake? This month Ben and Michael consider the case of "Judith and Holofernes," a painting attributed to Caravaggio and estimated at $100–$150 million that sold to a private buyer on June 25.
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Transcript
Discovery of a Potential Caravaggio
00:00:00
Speaker
There's a kind of refusal to accept that artistry is alive and that there can be new pictures.
00:00:06
Speaker
If you don't leave a chance to a picture, if you don't look at it with a benevolent eye, you will never make a discovery in your life.
Introduction to the Curious Objects Podcast
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello, welcome back to Curious Objects, I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:25
Speaker
Five years ago, a long-forgotten painting was discovered in an attic in Toulouse, France.
00:00:30
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That same painting was to be sold at auction this week with a starting bid of 30 million euros.
Auction and Private Sale Controversy
00:00:36
Speaker
Why the hefty price tag?
00:00:37
Speaker
Well, it's said to be a masterpiece by the great Renaissance artist Caravaggio.
00:00:42
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This is only the second painting of his ever to be sold at auction.
00:00:46
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If true, it's an extraordinary rarity and a once-in-a-lifetime event in the art world.
00:00:51
Speaker
Today, we are talking all about that painting, asking whether it's authentic and, if it is, what is its power and its significance.
00:00:59
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I'll be joined first by an outside expert, and then I'll speak with the man himself, Eric Turkan, who is representing the painting and selling it.
00:01:07
Speaker
I need to note here, when we recorded the following interviews, the painting was scheduled to be sold at public auction on June 27th.
00:01:14
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Just today, it was announced that the painting has been sold privately and the auction will not take place.
00:01:19
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So, we'll have to wait and see if more information comes out about the price and the buyer.
00:01:24
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In the meantime, before conducting these interviews, I got some help prepping for them from Michael D.S.
00:01:29
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Griffith.
00:01:37
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Curious Objects is sponsored by America's oldest auction house, Freeman's.
Personal Art Stories and Influences
00:01:42
Speaker
Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Freeman's has been telling the story of valued objects and collections since 1805.
00:01:48
Speaker
With a network of international resources and buyers and a comprehensive knowledge of market conditions, the specialists at Freemans work closely with consignors and collectors to offer unparalleled assistance in the sale and purchase of fine art, furniture, decorative arts, jewelry, books, and more.
00:02:03
Speaker
If you're curious about the value of a single item, an entire estate, personal property, or a corporate collection, our dedicated and experienced specialists are always available to assist.
Rarity and Authenticity of Caravaggio Paintings
00:02:16
Speaker
So this is my formation myth.
00:02:20
Speaker
When I was five years old, my parents, they had dragged me to every museum in Italy because my dad was doing his dissertation research there.
00:02:27
Speaker
And we went to the Uffizi, which as a five-year-old, I had no idea the significance of that.
00:02:33
Speaker
And all I knew was that I was bored and tired and hungry and miserable and upset.
00:02:37
Speaker
And we walked through the various galleries.
00:02:40
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I yawned at all the paintings.
00:02:42
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And then I don't remember this, but according to my parents, what happened next was we walked into the room that has Botticelli's picture of the birth of Venus.
00:02:50
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So she's coming out of the ocean, born on a clamshell.
00:02:54
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And according to my parents, I walked up to this picture.
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My jaw dropped open.
00:02:59
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I stared up at it, mouth gaping, eyes wide open.
00:03:02
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And I stammered, she's so beautiful.
00:03:05
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Aww.
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And that is the experience that I credit with my lifelong infatuation with art and women.
00:03:12
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Your words not mine.
00:03:12
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That's delicious.
00:03:14
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And well told.
00:03:18
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Well, I did turn on the mics for that, actually.
00:03:21
Speaker
Oh, good.
00:03:22
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You are on mic.
00:03:23
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We're hot.
00:03:24
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We're live.
00:03:25
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So do you want to do a little lead-in?
00:03:26
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We'll just kind of wing it and see where it goes.
00:03:30
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Can I hear myself?
00:03:31
Speaker
So Michael, we're talking about Caravaggio.
00:03:34
Speaker
There are how many Caravaggios in the world?
00:03:36
Speaker
A few dozen, maybe?
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think 65, maybe 66.
00:03:39
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Okay.
00:03:41
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And maybe two thirds of those are in Italy.
00:03:44
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And by my count, maybe six of them are in private hands.
00:03:49
Speaker
And that number seems to have just gone up by one, which is very exciting.
00:03:53
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And it doesn't happen very often.
00:03:55
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And part of what I want to get at with this episode is, has that actually happened?
00:04:00
Speaker
Is this painting that's been discovered really a Caravaggio?
00:04:04
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And I'm going to talk to a couple of people
Excitement and Skepticism in Art Discoveries
00:04:06
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to try and get to the bottom of that.
00:04:08
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Yeah, I think it's going to be more an interrogation than an interview.
00:04:12
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And I'm excited about that.
00:04:13
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My reputation is as a real hardball.
00:04:17
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I want to talk about our personal experience of Caravaggio before we go anywhere with this, because he is a very emotionally rich artist.
00:04:27
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And I think the experience of looking at his paintings is a very personal and emotional experience.
00:04:31
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And when I first encountered this particular painting, it was actually here in New York.
00:04:35
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It's being sold in France at auction in a few days.
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But I had the good fortune of actually seeing it in person at Adam Williams Gallery here on the Upper East Side.
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where it was being shown for about a week in advance of the sale, you know, as part of their publicity drive.
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And that's where I met Eric Turcan, the fellow who is representing the painting and trying to sell it.
00:04:59
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And he gave me this introduction to the work.
00:05:03
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And I have to say, it is probably the only time in my life that I will ever be allowed to touch a Caravaggio.
00:05:09
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They don't like that at the museum so much.
00:05:11
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They certainly don't.
00:05:12
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And it was really an amazing experience.
00:05:15
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I mean, Caravaggio is known for his use of contrast, particularly of light versus dark, this chiaroscuro idea.
00:05:26
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And standing in front of this picture with a violent scene, we're talking about the beheading of a man, Judith beheading Holofernes.
00:05:34
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That's the subject of this painting.
00:05:35
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And standing in front of it and watching this act of absolute brutality painted with vivid realism, you know, it's hard not to be swept up in it.
00:05:46
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It's one of those pictures that makes you think, yeah, like that's why pictures matter.
00:05:50
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So I'm kind of, I'll just put it out there.
00:05:52
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I think it's real and I hope it's real.
00:05:54
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Yeah.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there's something really seductive about the idea that in 2019 or 2016, whenever we can discover new works that were perhaps not known at all, they were in attics, they were in cellars, wherever, or they were unattributed or misattributed.
Art Authentication Challenges
00:06:14
Speaker
The idea that there is still territory to be discovered is on its own very exciting.
00:06:21
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And, you know, in my discussions with people,
00:06:24
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people on the trade side of the art world, of course, that possibility of discovery motivates.
00:06:32
Speaker
It motivates them personally.
00:06:33
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It motivates their businesses, right?
00:06:35
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The idea that they'll find something great that has not been fully understood before, or we might say exploited from a business perspective.
00:06:45
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On the critical side, on the side of scholars and curators, obviously there is a much less sanguine approach to these matters.
00:06:56
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And I think that's interesting as well, because we need this sort of defensive line of skeptics to ensure that we're not tricked, we're not fooled, and that we don't, with a total lack of judiciousness, allow works into the mainstream of the canon that are not right.
00:07:14
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What do you think about the Leonardo, the Salvatore Mundi that was sold a few months ago for $450 million?
00:07:20
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I mean, this is the most expensive painting ever sold.
00:07:23
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And it has a sort of a troubled provenance.
00:07:26
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I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty about it.
00:07:29
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There's a lot of scholarly dispute, but that didn't stop it from fetching this world record price.
00:07:34
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And now, in a sense, it almost seems like it's been proven to be real by the market.
00:07:40
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In other words, you know, the fact that it's been sold for $450 million seems to lend a lot of credence to its authenticity, whether justified or not.
00:07:49
Speaker
True.
00:07:49
Speaker
I mean, I think there's also a lot of skepticism and cynicism.
00:07:53
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In fact, around that work, I, you know, I have to state from the beginning that I know many of the players involved and they're all good people.
00:08:02
Speaker
And, you know, good people can be involved in, um...
00:08:06
Speaker
territory that's quite gray.
00:08:08
Speaker
And I think that you're not always certain at first glance of what you're looking at.
00:08:13
Speaker
In the context of, you know, the Leonardo, there are so many questions to do with conservation and restoration work and provenance and
00:08:23
Speaker
legal questions to do with the way the art market functions between America and Europe and the Middle East, blah, blah, blah.
00:08:32
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But one of the things that I always come back to is the idea that the auction itself, the sale in which that amazing value was attained, was in the end a competition between two actors.
00:08:46
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And the more we know about them, the more...
00:08:49
Speaker
fragile our understanding of that result is.
00:08:52
Speaker
And that's true of auctions generally, and perhaps ever more so.
00:08:56
Speaker
I mean, it's theater, and it's really the contemporary art market where you see auction results that are highly manipulated and questionable.
00:09:04
Speaker
And not that this is, but, you know, it's the old scenario of, you know, if you're the last bidder, you're also potentially the fool.
00:09:13
Speaker
You know, I think with Caravaggio, the other interesting thing here is that
00:09:18
Speaker
the subject of this painting, Judith, is obviously a strong woman who committed a very brave act, and I know that you'll discuss that in your interviews.
00:09:29
Speaker
In a way, the subject matter is a little more seductive and compelling for our times than that of the Leonardo.
00:09:36
Speaker
No offense to anyone in the audience.
00:09:39
Speaker
And I'm just sort of bracketing that.
00:09:41
Speaker
We might not know if that is relevant until we know who purchases, who acquires the picture.
00:09:46
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Yeah, but the subject has to be important, right?
00:09:49
Speaker
I mean, and in this case, it's just totally fascinating.
00:09:53
Speaker
I mean, it's a great, great image.
00:09:54
Speaker
It's a fascinating subject.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:09:57
Speaker
And image.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah.
Impact of the New Caravaggio on the Art Market
00:09:59
Speaker
And it's easy to tell is the other thing.
00:10:01
Speaker
You know, it's not a lot of these academic paintings.
00:10:03
Speaker
You kind of have to be immersed in theology or in, you know, scriptural work to really understand what's going on.
00:10:12
Speaker
This one, no, it's a great story.
00:10:15
Speaker
I was going to say it's a David and Goliath story.
00:10:18
Speaker
What other cultural reference points do we have?
00:10:22
Speaker
You know, there's an archetype there.
00:10:23
Speaker
And in this case, it sort of takes the archetype of weak versus strong and adds the gender dynamic and, you know, becomes something that's very interesting to talk about and to think about.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:34
Speaker
Well, and with the added dimension of Caravaggio's commitment to depicting distinct individuals rather than abstracted types, and that's major.
00:10:44
Speaker
That's a big part of the appeal of this type of painting, if it is indeed a Caravaggio, which you will, of course, discover.
00:10:51
Speaker
I'm going to get to the bottom of that, don't worry.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
00:10:53
Speaker
I mean, look, this is not my field.
00:10:56
Speaker
It's not my market.
00:10:57
Speaker
I'm not an expert in old master pictures, but I won't be shocked if this piece goes to hundreds of millions of euros.
00:11:05
Speaker
You know, it doesn't seem crazy to me in the context of a world in which a much disputed and questionable Leonardo can sell for half a billion dollars.
00:11:14
Speaker
Why can't a Caravaggio that, at least by the press reports, and I'll find out more about this from my guests, but that seems to be on somewhat firmer footing, why can't that be worth a quarter or a half of what the Leonardo is worth?
00:11:29
Speaker
It's true.
00:11:29
Speaker
It just takes one buyer.
00:11:31
Speaker
And an underbidder.
00:11:32
Speaker
And an underbidder.
00:11:33
Speaker
And who is more foolish is a question that can be determined after the sale on the 27th.
00:11:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:39
Speaker
So gut check here, Michael, it's neither of us is an expert in this field, but, and I'm going to be talking to experts.
00:11:45
Speaker
So, you know, we're going to hear from them,
Authenticating Caravaggio Paintings
00:11:47
Speaker
but right now, what do you think?
00:11:49
Speaker
Is it Caravaggio?
00:11:51
Speaker
Ben, I did not see this thing in person.
00:11:53
Speaker
And so I'm going to, my gut tells me, unless you've seen it in person, even if you're just an amateur, you need to see it in person to have the gut feeling that tells you one way or the other.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:03
Speaker
I want you to go forth and to sort of find out what these experts think on a really nitty gritty granular level about what authenticity means.
00:12:13
Speaker
And we'll see where this goes.
00:12:15
Speaker
All right.
00:12:15
Speaker
Well, I'll see what I can turn up.
00:12:18
Speaker
Now let's hear from James Gardner.
00:12:20
Speaker
He's a contributing editor at the magazine Antiques who writes frequently about Renaissance paintings and who was recommended to me by the magazine's editor, Greg Surio.
00:12:29
Speaker
Oh, and a quick reminder that as always, if you want to follow along with your eyes, you can see pictures of the painting at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
00:12:38
Speaker
Here's James.
00:12:39
Speaker
So let's start with the basics.
00:12:41
Speaker
How common is it to find a Caravaggio?
00:12:44
Speaker
Well, in terms of findings that is attributed to Caravaggio, that, uh,
00:12:48
Speaker
happens with fair regularity in terms of finding something that's actually by him or that is commonly accepted as being by him.
00:12:58
Speaker
That's far less likely, but it does happen.
00:13:02
Speaker
He's become rather prolific in the final years of the 20th century, the beginning of the 21st century.
00:13:11
Speaker
more prolific perhaps than he was in life, but still prolific.
00:13:16
Speaker
And one of the reasons that these things come to light is that he fell so much from grace shortly after his death around 1610.
00:13:26
Speaker
And he died amidst some scandal and controversy.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, there's some thought that he might have died of syphilis or he was murdered as he was trying to get back to Rome.
00:13:39
Speaker
after he was exiled.
00:13:40
Speaker
And he was exiled because of a tennis match.
00:13:43
Speaker
That's right.
00:13:43
Speaker
I think that it is said that he got into a fight with a fellow artist and he slew that fellow artist and that was one offense too many.
00:13:57
Speaker
So in 1606, he had to leave Rome.
00:14:00
Speaker
So getting back to... So I was saying that
00:14:05
Speaker
One of the reasons these paintings exist to be discovered and sincerely correctly discovered is that there wasn't a strong incentive really before around 1940 or 1950 to attribute a painting to him.
00:14:23
Speaker
because so much prestige and value attached to it.
00:14:27
Speaker
So this is not like Picasso, where he was famous and revered in life, and anything that could reasonably be attributed to him would be worth a lot of money.
00:14:35
Speaker
And also, he was not like, say, Rembrandt or Rubens, who in their lifetimes and after their death especially, were...
00:14:49
Speaker
held in such high esteem that you would attribute a painting to them even if it was not by them.
00:14:54
Speaker
In the case of Caravaggio, he was largely forgotten and he didn't really become
00:15:02
Speaker
famous again until Roberto Longhi, the great Italian art historian and art critic of the first half of the 20th century, revived interest in him.
00:15:15
Speaker
So in consequence of that, and in consequence of the fact that his fame and esteem grow only greater with every year, there is a greater search for works by him.
00:15:29
Speaker
And invariably, there will be some attributions to him that are false, but some of them have to be accurate.
00:15:38
Speaker
Okay, so how do you tell the difference?
00:15:41
Speaker
Well, there's no one way to do it.
00:15:45
Speaker
I suppose the correct way to do it is to establish a canon of works by him that are beyond dispute, and then through comparison and analogy,
00:15:57
Speaker
to see how close the new discovery is to what you already know to be by him.
00:16:03
Speaker
And there are at least some dozens of pictures that we can pretty much all agree are definitely by Caravaggio.
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker
He wasn't as rare a painter as Vermeer, for example, or...
00:16:17
Speaker
Giorgione.
00:16:18
Speaker
I mean, in the case of Giorgione, there are, I understand, three paintings that are securely attributed to him, but not by everyone.
00:16:28
Speaker
And all the other attributions are based upon the provisionality of those attributions.
00:16:36
Speaker
But in the case of Caravaggio, he wasn't
00:16:40
Speaker
Given that he lived
Caravaggio's Unique Style
00:16:41
Speaker
a relatively brief period of time, he died around 37, depending upon when you consider to be his date of birth, he wasn't that parsimonious in secreting these paintings out into the world.
00:16:58
Speaker
So this painting is not signed by Caravaggio.
00:17:02
Speaker
Is that unusual?
00:17:03
Speaker
No, I don't think so.
00:17:04
Speaker
I don't.
00:17:05
Speaker
I'm not aware that he frequently signed his work.
00:17:09
Speaker
And in a way, that could be seen as a warrant of its authenticity because the first thing that a forger would probably want to do is sign Caravaggio in big letters.
00:17:22
Speaker
So there's no chain of custody.
00:17:25
Speaker
In other words, we don't have an ironclad provenance going all the way back to the day that it was painted.
00:17:31
Speaker
Sure.
00:17:32
Speaker
So what else can we look at to determine whether we should take this seriously?
00:17:36
Speaker
Well, one of the first things you want to do is to do some chemical analysis of the canvas and the paint to ensure that it was not painted a few years ago.
00:17:48
Speaker
Right.
00:17:49
Speaker
And how reliable are those methods?
00:17:53
Speaker
Well, I think they're extremely reliable in being able to exclude a work.
00:17:58
Speaker
In other words, if you can prove, as was recently the case with some paintings sold at Sotheby's in the old master's department, if you can prove that there is something in the chemical composition, some element that did not exist before 1920, and it's present in the paint,
00:18:16
Speaker
that means it's not by an old master.
00:18:21
Speaker
But a clever forger might be able to avoid including those elements in the work.
00:18:26
Speaker
But anyway, the fact that...
00:18:29
Speaker
that does exist in the composition means that it can't be.
00:18:32
Speaker
Sure, sure.
00:18:34
Speaker
So you could argue since this painting, there is another version of this painting by Finzon or Finzonius who seems to- He's a French Flemish painter.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, who worked, who seems to have associated with Caravaggio.
00:18:53
Speaker
I mean, you could argue that some great forger found that painting by Finzon, Finzonius, and working backwards created this, but it should be said that this is a far better painting than that.
00:19:08
Speaker
So that would have to be some extraordinary forger.
00:19:11
Speaker
And stylistically, does it seem consistent with other Caravaggios that you know?
00:19:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, definitely.
00:19:16
Speaker
The thing to know about Caravaggio is that he wasn't a perfect painter or a necessarily scrupulous painter.
00:19:23
Speaker
He was a very good painter, obviously, but he did certain things hastily.
00:19:29
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He did not necessarily seek perfection.
00:19:32
Speaker
Sometimes he did seek it and achieve it.
00:19:35
Speaker
And there's an earlier version of this theme,
00:19:39
Speaker
not another version of this painting, but another version of the theme from around 1602, which would be five years before this.
00:19:48
Speaker
Also depicting Judith Beheading Holofernes.
00:19:52
Speaker
Which is, I have to say, a greater painting, and it's brought to a higher level of perfection.
Debating Painting Authenticity
00:20:00
Speaker
and the composition is more interesting.
00:20:02
Speaker
But this... What's better about that one?
00:20:06
Speaker
Well, almost every component of it is more interesting and more fully realized.
00:20:15
Speaker
This is a very good painting, but I would guess that is better.
00:20:20
Speaker
This, we'll put it this way, the reason people are having some doubts is that the main reason is that the old woman in the center who's helping Judith is not as well drawn as the rest.
00:20:34
Speaker
Also, there's something odd about her.
00:20:37
Speaker
For one thing, she has a bad case of goiter and the wrinkles on her forehead are
00:20:44
Speaker
are apt to seem to our contemporary sentiments inartistic.
00:20:49
Speaker
That sort of face is repeat, and also the goiterous condition, are to be found in post-Caravaggio painting throughout Europe for the next 30 or 40 years.
00:21:01
Speaker
It's been suggested that it's possible that those wrinkles in particular were added or modified after Caravaggio painted it.
00:21:09
Speaker
It could be.
00:21:10
Speaker
Does that strike you as... And it could also be that...
00:21:13
Speaker
That sort of image, which, as I say, appears often in European art, especially northern art, for the next 30 or 40 years, had to come from somewhere.
00:21:23
Speaker
And so given that it occurs in a Caravaggio context, it's very likely that there was some lost painting by Caravaggio that was the archetype of that.
00:21:35
Speaker
And something like this would be it.
00:21:38
Speaker
So the fact that that figure looks a little odd is not... It's not disqualifying in your mind.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker
At the same time, you have certain things that are extremely good, especially the face of Judith, right, which is probably the best part of the painting.
00:21:56
Speaker
And looking straight at us.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:58
Speaker
And when you compare that with Vinson's copy of it, you can see the degree to which whoever painted this work attributed to Caravaggio was a far better painting.
00:22:09
Speaker
I would also say that the drapery on the upper left-hand side is extremely good here, and even better than in the 1602 painting.
00:22:20
Speaker
So, gun to your head, is it real?
00:22:22
Speaker
How much of it is real?
00:22:24
Speaker
I would not be at all surprised that it was real.
00:22:27
Speaker
If, as has been suggested, there might have been more than one hand in this painting, that other hand would be manifested in the handmaid who's helping Judith, and also perhaps in the head of Holofernes, who's about to be decapitated in the painting.
00:22:48
Speaker
But as I say, to get back to what I had said before,
00:22:51
Speaker
The thing about Caravaggio is that he was not a perfect painter, and there is a relatively wide range of quality that he permitted himself.
00:23:01
Speaker
So the lapse in quality, if there is any, in the face, the head of Holofernes, and the maidservant would not be disqualifying.
00:23:13
Speaker
Though it is true that those are not as strong as the drapery or the face of Judith.
00:23:21
Speaker
So if I can't get you to commit 100% to one explanation, can you tell me what do you think is more likely?
00:23:27
Speaker
Do you think it's more likely that the entire picture as we see it today is the way that it was painted by Caravaggio?
Discovery and Authentication Process
00:23:33
Speaker
Do you think that it's more likely that Caravaggio painted most of it and certain details were added by someone else?
00:23:41
Speaker
Or do you think it's more likely that Caravaggio was not involved in it at all?
00:23:46
Speaker
I would think it's by Caravaggio.
00:23:59
Speaker
We're going to take a quick break.
00:24:00
Speaker
When we come back, I'll get the story from the horse's mouth.
00:24:03
Speaker
Eric Turcambe, the French dealer who is selling the painting later this week, will join me for an interview.
00:24:08
Speaker
First, I just want to say thanks for listening.
00:24:11
Speaker
I love hearing your feedback.
00:24:12
Speaker
You can email me at curiousobjectspodcast at gmail.com.
00:24:16
Speaker
And you can reach me on Instagram at Objective Interest.
00:24:19
Speaker
Michael's Instagram is at Michael Diaz Griffith.
00:24:22
Speaker
And you can support Curious Objects by leaving a rating or a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening.
00:24:32
Speaker
Thanks so much.
00:24:40
Speaker
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00:24:45
Speaker
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00:24:51
Speaker
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00:25:06
Speaker
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00:25:17
Speaker
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00:25:19
Speaker
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00:25:24
Speaker
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00:25:29
Speaker
This call is now being recorded.
00:25:31
Speaker
Hello?
00:25:32
Speaker
Eric, hi, how are you?
00:25:34
Speaker
Benjamin.
00:25:35
Speaker
Fine, thank you.
00:25:36
Speaker
So tell me, what do you want me to say?
00:25:39
Speaker
So I just, you know, what I have in mind is I want to have you sort of talk me through this story about how you encountered the thing and tell me a little bit about the painting itself.
00:25:50
Speaker
And then toward the end, I'd like to ask a question or two about the authentication process and questions of originality and that sort of thing.
00:25:59
Speaker
Very good.
00:26:01
Speaker
So actually, I did not discover the picture.
00:26:03
Speaker
The picture was found by the Toulouse auctioneer, Marc Labarbe,
00:26:08
Speaker
He had a friend, client, who was emptying a 17th century house, and when he was finishing to empty the attics, behind a bed frame and a mattress, he found against the wall, stretched but unframed, this painting.
00:26:27
Speaker
The painting was not in the condition it is today.
00:26:29
Speaker
It was covered with dirt, covered with dust, and a varnish that had
00:26:36
Speaker
more than 100 or 150 years old.
00:26:38
Speaker
Very hard, very yellow, very discovered.
00:26:41
Speaker
Mark Labarbe was equipped with American technology, so he had an iPhone and we, in the office here, have iPads.
00:26:51
Speaker
And he sent us a photo of the picture.
00:26:56
Speaker
We are his experts, we advise him, his consultants, for all master paintings since the last 20 years.
00:27:03
Speaker
So every month or so, he sends us photographs.
00:27:07
Speaker
He's one of the very good provincial auctioneers that we have in France.
00:27:11
Speaker
And did he send this to you immediately, as soon as he found it?
00:27:15
Speaker
No.
00:27:16
Speaker
He knew it was a good 17th century painting, sent it to us, and the three of us, because we are three experts, looked at the photograph.
00:27:24
Speaker
And in all fairness, we did not recognize Caravaggio.
00:27:28
Speaker
We saw that it was a good 17th century Italian picture that with some elements of real quality.
00:27:35
Speaker
So we sent him, we don't know what we said to him, we don't know what your picture is, but send it by the next van and we'll work on it.
00:27:42
Speaker
Ten days later, the picture arrives.
00:27:45
Speaker
I was away, but Stéphane Pintin and Julie Ducheck, who were here, immediately thought of Caravaggio.
00:27:52
Speaker
Julie remembered that a year before there had been an exhibition in Naples about a lost Caravaggio around a copy that they had of that painting.
00:28:02
Speaker
And this is the copy by the Flemish painter.
00:28:06
Speaker
The copy by Fincen, which is in Naples, in the Palace of Zévalos today.
00:28:10
Speaker
And it's thanks to this copy that actually we could discover our picture.
00:28:14
Speaker
Because then she opened that wonderful book by Sebastian Schutzer, published in 2009.
00:28:19
Speaker
And in the 2009 book, there was a color photograph of our picture saying this is a lost painting.
00:28:26
Speaker
And of course, it's not a photograph of our picture because...
00:28:29
Speaker
Our picture had been in that attic probably for more than 100 years, but it was a photograph of the copy.
00:28:35
Speaker
And that exhibition really was all about, this is all we have left of a great Caravaggio that was famous in his time and that disappeared in
Narrative and Themes in the Painting
00:28:45
Speaker
1617.
00:28:45
Speaker
So your colleague had a suspicion that maybe this was the lost Caravaggio.
00:28:50
Speaker
But when that notion was first raised, you must have had some skepticism about it.
00:28:57
Speaker
Well, I must tell you, I never had skepticism, because they called me.
00:29:02
Speaker
I was far away.
00:29:03
Speaker
Actually, I was valuing a Fincen in the south of France when he has left.
00:29:07
Speaker
There are very many pictures by the artist.
00:29:10
Speaker
And I didn't ask...
00:29:13
Speaker
They called me and said, Eric, there was a bomb in the office.
00:29:16
Speaker
You must come back.
00:29:19
Speaker
I didn't ask what was the bomb, the mark of the bomb, the trademark, but I asked who was the bombardier.
00:29:26
Speaker
And when they told me that the plane was Marc Lavarbe, I was very encouraged because I knew him as a good man.
00:29:33
Speaker
So the next morning at 8.30, I knew I was going to see a great picture.
00:29:38
Speaker
But they had not told me who it was by.
00:29:40
Speaker
But as soon as I saw the face of Judith, I thought of the woman in the death of the Virgin, the head of the Virgin in the Louvre painting.
00:29:49
Speaker
And to me, it was the same hand.
00:29:51
Speaker
From that very second, I never had a doubt.
00:29:54
Speaker
And I don't understand how people can have doubts on this painting, you know, because of the energy of the writing, you know, the energy that you feel in that picture is not the one of a copy.
00:30:06
Speaker
We're talking about truly a once in a lifetime discovery.
00:30:10
Speaker
It's not every day you come across a lost Caravaggio.
00:30:13
Speaker
It's not once in a lifetime.
00:30:15
Speaker
It's one in a generation.
00:30:17
Speaker
This is one of the most, it's of the level of the Leonardo da Vinci that was discovered by Robert Simon for $1,000 in a country auction.
00:30:26
Speaker
You're talking of something, a real enormous discovery.
00:30:30
Speaker
But I knew also that Caravaggio was a difficult artist, that he was a very...
00:30:35
Speaker
contentious artists and that there would be fights so this is why we kept the picture secret for two years and to make sure that the secret would be well kept we kept that picture in our bedroom so I really I hope at least no one would come in and we managed to keep the secret for two years you actually showed this picture to me in New York and we stood next to it and it's I would say the figures are probably about life size is that right?
00:31:04
Speaker
Yes, roughly
00:31:05
Speaker
roughly the picture is in centimeters
00:31:08
Speaker
It's 140 by 160.
00:31:12
Speaker
Right.
00:31:13
Speaker
It's fairly large.
00:31:14
Speaker
It's a big-ish picture, but still it's a house painting.
00:31:18
Speaker
It's not an altarpiece.
00:31:21
Speaker
It's not one of these huge pictures that Caravaggio painted.
00:31:24
Speaker
Caravaggio is an artist who is really in the counter-reformation, in the Baroque movement, and he paints a lot of altarpieces, which are six meters high or five meters high.
00:31:35
Speaker
And he's also an artist who is very quick.
00:31:37
Speaker
He paints very fast.
00:31:39
Speaker
And we know he had commissions of 40 square meters painting.
00:31:42
Speaker
Two months afterwards, they were hanging.
00:31:44
Speaker
So we know he's a very quick artist, fast, when he's really at it.
00:31:50
Speaker
So tell me about the subject.
00:31:52
Speaker
This is a scene of Judith beheading Holofernes.
00:31:55
Speaker
It's a biblical scene.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's a marvelous text from the Bible.
00:31:58
Speaker
You know, it's something to read, the book of Judith.
00:32:01
Speaker
Basically, it's a story about the courage, about the idea of not surrendering, about the fighting for your faith and defending your people.
00:32:09
Speaker
Israel is at war with its neighbor of the northeast, Assyria.
00:32:14
Speaker
And the Assad of the time was called Nabucodonosor.
00:32:18
Speaker
And Nebuchadnezzar is really at war with Israel because Israel will not recognize him and mainly will not recognize his gods.
00:32:27
Speaker
because he's pagan.
00:32:28
Speaker
And Israel is the people of God, is the people with the unique God, and it's the people who had made an alliance with God.
00:32:36
Speaker
And the whole theme is around the theme of alliance, of fidelity, of loyalty, of courage.
00:32:43
Speaker
That's why it was branded as a very counter-reformation, a very Catholic painting, a kind of anti-protestant painting in the time.
00:32:52
Speaker
So Israel is at war and Nebuchadnezzar raises an enormous army.
00:32:57
Speaker
The text says he raises an army of 120,000 soldiers, plus 20,000 helpers, you know, transporters, surgeons and so on.
00:33:02
Speaker
Right.
00:33:07
Speaker
And that army is the biggest army that was ever built in the antiquity, and it marches on Israel to destroy Israel, to destroy Jerusalem.
00:33:17
Speaker
And that army is blocked by that city of Bethulia, which is Judith's city.
00:33:23
Speaker
Judith meaning the Jew, and Bethulia meaning the city of God.
00:33:27
Speaker
And Olofenes, who is the general-in-chief,
00:33:30
Speaker
who is the head of that army, he's a very bad guy.
00:33:34
Speaker
We should not have any good feeling for him, any bad feeling for him.
00:33:38
Speaker
He's deserving what he's getting.
00:33:41
Speaker
He doesn't respect anything.
00:33:42
Speaker
He blows the... He burns the villagers.
00:33:46
Speaker
He kills the men.
00:33:47
Speaker
They don't say what he does to women, but it's probably not fair.
00:33:51
Speaker
And he cuts the sacred trees, the sacred trees.
00:33:54
Speaker
So he's an awful guy, awful man, who doesn't respect his word and so on.
00:33:59
Speaker
And he...
00:34:01
Speaker
He hesitates to attack the city and he has sieged.
00:34:06
Speaker
He decided to put Bethulia under siege.
00:34:10
Speaker
And after three weeks, the Bethulians want to give up.
00:34:13
Speaker
They are tired.
00:34:14
Speaker
They have no water, no salad, no nothing.
00:34:17
Speaker
And they want their elders to discuss, you know, to go and make peace with Olofenes.
00:34:23
Speaker
Right.
00:34:24
Speaker
And they discuss it.
00:34:25
Speaker
And eventually, because we are in Israel, they make a compromise.
00:34:29
Speaker
This is the time when there were compromises in Israel.
00:34:32
Speaker
The seventh century before Christ.
00:34:36
Speaker
And the idea is, we will leave us five days.
00:34:42
Speaker
And if in these five days God hasn't given a sign, then
Caravaggio's Depiction Choices
00:34:46
Speaker
we'll surrender.
00:34:46
Speaker
We'll give up.
00:34:47
Speaker
We'll go and ask for... We will surrender.
00:34:51
Speaker
When she hears this, Judith
00:34:55
Speaker
She is furious and she goes to them and says, you are cowards, you are wicked people because you are breaking the alliance with God.
00:35:02
Speaker
God has taken his people out of Egypt.
00:35:04
Speaker
He opened the Great Sea and closed it on our assailants.
00:35:09
Speaker
When we are thirsty, he gave us water.
00:35:10
Speaker
When we were hungry, he gave us food.
00:35:13
Speaker
He gave us the quails and the bread.
00:35:16
Speaker
You can't do that.
00:35:17
Speaker
You are breaking the alliance.
00:35:18
Speaker
Let me go out and I'll try something.
00:35:21
Speaker
She's allowed to go out, and the text says that she leaves behind her widow garment because she is a young widow.
00:35:28
Speaker
The text says, you know, Judith is a patrician.
00:35:31
Speaker
She's a kind of Jewish aristocrat.
00:35:35
Speaker
We know she descends from Daniel or from David, I think.
00:35:39
Speaker
I forgot.
00:35:40
Speaker
Anyway, the text gives that.
00:35:41
Speaker
Truly, it's a wonderful text, and it's really worth reading.
00:35:44
Speaker
It's full of small touches of Jewish humor.
00:35:46
Speaker
It's really delicious.
00:35:49
Speaker
So she dresses herself up as a beautiful girl that she was before widowing, before she lost her husband.
00:35:56
Speaker
And she walks to the camp of the Assyrians.
00:35:59
Speaker
She seduces the sentinels and she seduces the officers.
00:36:03
Speaker
And of course, she's going to seduce Olofenas.
00:36:07
Speaker
She excites him.
00:36:09
Speaker
She goes almost to the end, but not to the end.
00:36:12
Speaker
She doesn't give herself.
00:36:14
Speaker
But he's totally enamored with her.
00:36:17
Speaker
And after three days he says, you know, I want to make the most out of you.
00:36:22
Speaker
And I won't let you go back to your city without trying something.
00:36:26
Speaker
We will make a banquet for you.
00:36:29
Speaker
If you do a banquet for me, I'll spend the night under your tent.
00:36:32
Speaker
So the text says that he drinks wine as he has never drunk in his life, and he falls asleep.
00:36:39
Speaker
When he falls asleep, everybody goes out, and he's left alone with Judith.
00:36:43
Speaker
And Judith sends her servant, Hebra, outside, so she's alone with the man who is asleep.
00:36:51
Speaker
And then there was the best part of the text, which is 10 verses, when she, her prayer to God, she asks God to...
00:36:59
Speaker
to give strength to her woman's arm so that she can do what she has to do.
00:37:06
Speaker
And she has this wonderful saying, this is what she's looking at her straight and she said, listen well to me, I'm going to commit a deed that our children will talk about from ages to ages.
00:37:17
Speaker
It's a very wonderful text.
00:37:19
Speaker
And that's what she's doing.
00:37:20
Speaker
And the text said she takes Olofen's own sword, which was at the head of the bed, and she cuts his throat in two
00:37:28
Speaker
in two goes and she's in the middle of the two.
00:37:31
Speaker
So there is blood spreading, you know, and he's just trying to get off his bed, but it's too late.
00:37:38
Speaker
He's almost gone.
00:37:40
Speaker
It's a very violent scene, you know, with blood, with... But Caravaggio liked violent scenes, you know, and he probably saw some of them.
00:37:49
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:49
Speaker
Well, and yeah, the blood is spraying out straight toward us.
00:37:53
Speaker
And at the same time, Judith is making eye contact with us.
00:37:56
Speaker
She's looking straight out.
00:37:57
Speaker
She's taking us into the picture.
00:37:59
Speaker
But you know, what was wonderful is when we cleaned it, we discovered that the eyes originally she was gazing at him.
00:38:07
Speaker
She was looking at what she was doing.
00:38:09
Speaker
And then the painter, as Caravaggio had done in the other version, and then the painter changed it.
00:38:15
Speaker
Now she's looking at us.
00:38:16
Speaker
She's taking us as witnesses and said, look, I've done it.
00:38:20
Speaker
You know, it's fantastic.
00:38:22
Speaker
Why do you think Caravaggio painted this scene multiple times?
00:38:25
Speaker
Twice.
00:38:27
Speaker
Because there was, we always forget one thing.
00:38:29
Speaker
Caravaggio never painted things for the market.
00:38:31
Speaker
Most of his pictures were painted on commission.
00:38:34
Speaker
So he had obviously a commission to paint that subject.
00:38:37
Speaker
It's been suggested by certain people that Caravaggio was something of a feminist painter.
00:38:42
Speaker
And this scene depicts a strong woman representing her nation, killing a man on their behalf.
00:38:51
Speaker
Do you think this is a feminist painting?
00:38:52
Speaker
And do you think that Caravaggio is a feminist painter?
00:38:56
Speaker
I don't know if you can talk of Caravage as a feminist painter because there was no feminism in the 17th century.
00:39:01
Speaker
But one thing is sure, the Cantor Reformation was built on women.
00:39:07
Speaker
The Cantor Reformation, the Catholic Church capitalized on the women because there are no women in the Protestant Church.
00:39:16
Speaker
There are no women amongst the reformers or they have a very minor role.
00:39:21
Speaker
So the Catholic, at the same time, in the Cantor Reformation was a kind of
00:39:25
Speaker
anti-protestant move.
00:39:27
Speaker
They pushed the women.
00:39:28
Speaker
That's why the Virgin became so important.
00:39:31
Speaker
The Mary Magdalene, St.
00:39:32
Speaker
Irene, all these are ladies.
00:39:35
Speaker
Judith, Esther, all these were pushed because they were female fighting for the faith.
00:39:42
Speaker
They were associated to the church.
00:39:44
Speaker
There were other depictions of this scene from the period by other painters and even a sculpture by Donatello and others.
00:39:54
Speaker
How would you compare this particular depiction to others of the time?
00:39:59
Speaker
Well, this is much more violent.
00:40:00
Speaker
You know, the Donaletto is very elegant.
00:40:03
Speaker
You know, here...
00:40:06
Speaker
Olofenes, for instance, has dirty nails.
00:40:08
Speaker
He has tanned hands when the body is white.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's all about opposition.
00:40:17
Speaker
It's an opposition between the young and the old, between the beautiful and the ugly, between the
00:40:22
Speaker
the rich and the poor, not the rich and the poor, but the patrician and the plebeian.
00:40:27
Speaker
Abra is from the people.
00:40:29
Speaker
She has big hands, tanned by the sun.
00:40:31
Speaker
When Judith has a white hand, you know, with a very beautiful sleeve, very elegant, she's a patrician.
00:40:37
Speaker
You know, the whole thing, all of fairness, you can see his violence, you know, his nails make him, even his nails make him unsympathetic to us.
00:40:46
Speaker
You know, he's an ugly man, he's a violent chap, he's a soldier, you know, he's a kind of...
00:40:53
Speaker
run, how you said, out of the run, there is an English word for that, he's like a guerrilla rock, he's just bad, he's a bad guy.
Valuation Challenges of Caravaggio's Works
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:41:07
Speaker
So talk to me about the actual style and method of the painting.
00:41:14
Speaker
You mentioned to me that Caravaggio you painted very quickly and that this painting was composed of many long brush strokes, sort of rapidly placed on the canvas.
00:41:26
Speaker
That's what make of this picture not only a Caravaggio, but a great Caravaggio.
00:41:30
Speaker
That is, it is a kind of experimental picture.
00:41:33
Speaker
Caravaggio has left Naples.
00:41:35
Speaker
That's David Stone's idea and Keith Christensen's idea.
00:41:38
Speaker
I didn't invent that, but I'm convinced that they are right.
00:41:42
Speaker
Caravaggio has left Rome in June 1606 because he has murdered somebody, Thomas Schoenny.
00:41:49
Speaker
He, for four months, is hidden in the country.
00:41:52
Speaker
He's really hidden.
00:41:53
Speaker
He has no contact with nobody, with no other painters, with no other painting.
00:41:58
Speaker
Then he moved to Naples.
00:42:00
Speaker
Naples is a rich city in 1607, but it's the second most populated city in Europe.
00:42:07
Speaker
It's thriving economically and everything, but there are no great painters there.
00:42:11
Speaker
And the Farnese pictures have not reached Naples.
00:42:13
Speaker
There are no great, you know, Leonardo's, Botticelli's.
00:42:18
Speaker
Perugino, Raphael to be compared, Michelangelo to be compared with.
00:42:22
Speaker
It's very unlike Rome.
00:42:24
Speaker
This is why Caravaggio was striving to come back to Rome.
00:42:28
Speaker
You know, he was, that was his goal.
00:42:29
Speaker
He wanted to go back to Rome because the Rome of the counter-reformation was an incredible boiling city with culture, you know, with musicians, with sculptors, with architecture.
00:42:41
Speaker
And all the cultivated world in Europe was flocking into Rome.
00:42:45
Speaker
you know, because the papacy and the cardinals were spending all the money they could to build a counter-reformation, and they did it through arts, you know.
00:42:54
Speaker
And so, when Caravaggio leaves, you know, brutally, very quickly, that Rome city boiling, and he arrives in the middle of nowhere, and he has nothing to compare himself with, no advice, no competition, no… And now he builds
00:43:15
Speaker
the real Caravaggio, that is an artist who is really very, very original, with a new technique.
00:43:21
Speaker
And it's in this picture probably that he starts using what we call the reserve, that is, he's using the ground, the bare ground, as a background for his painting.
00:43:31
Speaker
and you see the ground through, he builds on it, and then he only, at the end, three years later, he will only draw a few strokes on the ground, and most of the pictures will be covered by the ground, and he will just paint very quickly over this.
00:43:44
Speaker
It's a new technique that he's inventing now.
00:43:47
Speaker
So that makes of this picture an experimental picture.
00:43:50
Speaker
That's also what makes it so difficult for people who do not like the late Caravaggio's, or who do not understand it.
00:43:58
Speaker
And now it's going to be sold on the 27th.
00:44:00
Speaker
And what's the final estimate?
00:44:03
Speaker
There was no estimate.
00:44:04
Speaker
We say we will start at 30 million.
00:44:07
Speaker
In all fairness, very few people know how much a picture like this can be worth.
00:44:12
Speaker
There's not been any Caravaggio on the open market in the last 40 years.
00:44:16
Speaker
So there was no reference.
00:44:18
Speaker
But if a Rembrandt alone, as beautiful as it can be, is worth 165 million euros, let's say $190 million, we are cheap at 100 million, very cheap.
00:44:29
Speaker
Caravaggio is a much more important artist and he's a much rarer artist.
00:44:35
Speaker
There are only 35 pictures known by the artist and more than half of them are in Italy where they will never be exported.
00:44:41
Speaker
And the rest is in museums, so no pictures will come unless we discover them.
00:44:48
Speaker
But there are more to be discovered.
00:44:49
Speaker
You think there are more out there?
00:44:50
Speaker
Yes, yes, there are plenty more.
00:44:52
Speaker
We know for instance that the artist lived for five years painting
00:44:56
Speaker
flowers and fruits in other painters' paintings.
00:44:59
Speaker
We have no one of them.
00:45:00
Speaker
We know that he lived then for a few years painting portraits.
00:45:04
Speaker
We have two.
00:45:05
Speaker
So there are plenty more to find, plenty more.
00:45:08
Speaker
And this allowed us to... Sorry?
00:45:11
Speaker
Did you insure the picture immediately?
00:45:13
Speaker
No, not immediately.
00:45:14
Speaker
Well, what we did is that we insured the picture...
00:45:18
Speaker
every time we raised the estimate that we gave to the owner.
00:45:23
Speaker
So I went to Toulouse back and forth several times, you know, and we told them, your picture is worth more than the 60, 80,000 that we put as an insurance value when it came in.
00:45:35
Speaker
We should place the insurance value at two to 300, then six to 800, then two to three millions, and on and on.
00:45:43
Speaker
So we were very sympathetic to them for a long time.
00:45:47
Speaker
I want to come back to the issue of authenticity, because anytime that a picture of great value and age appears, there is inevitably a skepticism about it.
00:45:59
Speaker
And there's concern that the people involved in selling it, of course, have an incentive to want to believe that it's real.
00:46:07
Speaker
So we saw this, of course, with the Leonardo that you mentioned, the Salvatore Mundi.
00:46:13
Speaker
And now, even after it sold for a world record price, you'll still find plenty of people who will say that it wasn't Leonardo or it wasn't all Leonardo.
00:46:25
Speaker
With this picture, there have been a variety of opinions about it.
00:46:31
Speaker
I've spoken just a little bit ago with James Gardner, who's an art critic.
00:46:36
Speaker
And I spoke with him about this painting and he expressed to me that he felt with any old master picture, it's more of a question.
00:46:44
Speaker
It's less of a question of proving that it's authentic and more of a question of removing as much doubt as possible.
00:46:51
Speaker
And his view was that this painting looks to him very much like a Caravaggio.
00:46:59
Speaker
He said there were certain details that stood out to him as being quite indicative and representative of Caravaggio's
Skepticism in Art Authentication
00:47:08
Speaker
hand.
00:47:08
Speaker
And there were
00:47:10
Speaker
A couple of details that he thought showed the possibility of coming from another hand.
00:47:16
Speaker
Overall, he felt that it's more likely than not that the painting is Garavaggio.
00:47:24
Speaker
And my sense, based on reports in the press, is that the general consensus among experts, and you can give me your perspective on this,
00:47:36
Speaker
The general consensus among experts is that this is probably a Caravaggio and that it's possible that a couple of elements, like, for example, the wrinkles on the maid's face, that there's some chance that they've been done by another hand.
00:47:56
Speaker
So I want to ask you to comment on this.
00:47:58
Speaker
No, but the thing to understand with Caravaggio is that he's an artist who had a blank in his history for 300 years.
00:48:05
Speaker
Caravaggio was totally forgotten from 1650 to 1951 until Roberto Longhi's exhibition in Milan 1951
00:48:14
Speaker
This artist was worth nothing.
00:48:16
Speaker
Nobody would look for him.
00:48:18
Speaker
His pictures would go for nothing in auctions.
00:48:20
Speaker
They would not be recorded as Caravaggio.
00:48:22
Speaker
To give you an example, the great English guide in the early 20th century is the Karl Baedeker's guide.
00:48:30
Speaker
And Karl Baedeker's guide in of San Luigi dei Francesi is one page.
00:48:35
Speaker
And he talks about the Guido Reni.
00:48:37
Speaker
He talks about the Domenico, which is marvelous.
00:48:39
Speaker
He doesn't talk about the Caravaggio.
00:48:42
Speaker
Really?
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:43
Speaker
He doesn't mention, he doesn't even mention the name.
00:48:45
Speaker
That's, that gives you, yeah, no, it's not incredible.
00:48:48
Speaker
That's the way artistry go.
00:48:50
Speaker
You know, artistry is a lesson of humility for the whole of us.
00:48:54
Speaker
And we should not forget, forget, you know, that our predecessors, our grandparents, great grandparents,
00:49:00
Speaker
totally forgot the greatest artist of the 17th century.
00:49:04
Speaker
And if we had not had Robert Olonghi, that artist would probably still be unknown.
00:49:09
Speaker
You know, and he's a difficult artist because he changes all the time.
00:49:14
Speaker
He's not, this is what Keith Christensen says, you know, he says...
00:49:19
Speaker
This is an artist that you cannot put into a box because the box is going to explode.
00:49:25
Speaker
He has huge potential and he's a very fast, violent building painter, who never repeats himself exactly.
00:49:33
Speaker
He's looking for new things all the time, at least from 1600.
00:49:39
Speaker
That's what makes it difficult.
00:49:42
Speaker
But to come back to this picture, this picture is documented.
00:49:46
Speaker
We know that there's a picture of the same measurements, the same description by Caravaggio, which is lost.
00:49:52
Speaker
We know that picture from a copy.
00:49:54
Speaker
That copy had been published by everybody for 25 years as being the copy of a lost Caravaggio.
00:50:00
Speaker
Now that we found the original, they start questioning it.
00:50:05
Speaker
There is a kind, particularly in Italy, there's a kind of refusal to accept that artistry is alive and that there can be new pictures.
00:50:14
Speaker
And, you know, I've been fighting like a lion for that painting for the last five years.
00:50:19
Speaker
But I'm not fighting for that picture.
00:50:21
Speaker
I'm not fighting only for my stand as an expert, who is at risk in that thing.
00:50:28
Speaker
I accept that.
00:50:29
Speaker
I'm fighting for the possibility of finding pictures, the possibility of finding new things.
00:50:34
Speaker
And I'm amazed that a documented picture, published by everybody, when there was a kind of reward bill saying, please find us that picture.
00:50:43
Speaker
When you find it, they don't want to give us the reward.
00:50:46
Speaker
There is something wrong there.
00:50:49
Speaker
you must understand why certain experts and commentators are skeptical or why they would begin from a place of skepticism.
00:50:59
Speaker
And the reason is just that there are plenty of people out there who would like to deceive us and to sell us fake pictures.
00:51:09
Speaker
So, you know, I don't think it's unreasonable to begin with a healthy skepticism about a new discovery.
00:51:19
Speaker
So the question is then, what's the process that you go through to convince a skeptic?
00:51:24
Speaker
So tell me about the... I want to go back on this.
00:51:32
Speaker
The picture is by Caravaggio because Keith Christensen says it's by Caravaggio.
00:51:38
Speaker
Keith Christensen is the authority on Caravaggio.
Defending the Painting's Authenticity
00:51:41
Speaker
And I would not have dared to call that picture Caravaggio if he had not said yes.
00:51:47
Speaker
Right.
00:51:47
Speaker
So that's the thing.
00:51:49
Speaker
Now, there are a lot of, we call them the yellow jackets of the art history who will criticize it.
00:51:56
Speaker
But that's the case with that Leonardo.
00:51:58
Speaker
You know, let's face it.
00:52:00
Speaker
That picture is right.
00:52:01
Speaker
It's perfectly authentic.
00:52:02
Speaker
And I'm fed up to see all these people criticizing a picture just because they didn't handle it.
00:52:08
Speaker
You know, I see people who have no legitimacy to talk about it because they are drawing persons or they are not specialists of Leonardo.
00:52:14
Speaker
They don't know.
00:52:15
Speaker
We saw, the whole of us saw that picture in the London show in 2011 and we admired it.
00:52:22
Speaker
That picture is damaged.
00:52:24
Speaker
True, it's almost ruined.
00:52:26
Speaker
They can say that.
00:52:27
Speaker
But to say that is not by Leonardo.
00:52:28
Speaker
It's just not acceptable.
00:52:31
Speaker
It is not acceptable.
00:52:33
Speaker
And I'll tell you what, the market gave them a very good answer.
00:52:37
Speaker
I hope it's going to give them the same answer on the 27th of June.
00:52:40
Speaker
You know, you are talking of art historians who do not want to see new pictures, who are totally unable to make a discovery because they have that negative approach, and who criticize...
00:52:52
Speaker
things, without seeing them for most of them.
00:52:54
Speaker
In Italy, many art historians had taken a position, not against the picture, but against Nicola Spinoza, because they don't like him.
00:53:02
Speaker
And before seeing the picture, they said, this picture cannot be right, without looking at it.
00:53:08
Speaker
How can you do that?
00:53:10
Speaker
Is this the new art history?
00:53:13
Speaker
That's very, very annoying if it is, I can assure you.
00:53:17
Speaker
So that picture, I can assure you, in five years' time, this picture will be uploaded by everybody.
00:53:23
Speaker
But it's true that I don't... You tell me you should understand the skepticism.
00:53:30
Speaker
Well, I do not understand it, because I do not understand that somebody who loves Caravaggio cannot love that beautiful face of Judith.
00:53:37
Speaker
That face of Judith in itself is a fantastic piece of painting.
00:53:41
Speaker
So bloody hell, if they don't think it's by Caravaggio, well, they should produce a name and they should support the attribution.
00:53:47
Speaker
They should be what I'm doing today.
00:53:50
Speaker
I'm sorry to be so... No, I appreciate it.
00:53:56
Speaker
Maybe because it's the end of a five years fight, but I'm getting pretty fed up.
00:54:01
Speaker
Pretty fed up by people who are not sensitive to the beauty of things.
00:54:05
Speaker
I cannot accept it.
00:54:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:08
Speaker
Well, your passion is certainly persuasive.
00:54:12
Speaker
I'm passionate because for once, we have a documented picture.
00:54:17
Speaker
We have a picture that is documented by letters of the 17th century.
00:54:22
Speaker
It's a picture that has been documented by technicians who made radios, who made infrareds, who made pigment analysis, everything
00:54:30
Speaker
conducts you to Caravaggio.
00:54:32
Speaker
So, or that picture is a copy, or it's the original.
00:54:36
Speaker
And as it is not a copy, it is the original.
00:54:38
Speaker
And we can prove it's not a copy because there are some big changes.
00:54:42
Speaker
And these big changes cannot be the work of a coppist.
00:54:45
Speaker
Because a coppist doesn't change.
00:54:47
Speaker
A coppist copies what is there.
00:54:49
Speaker
He doesn't copy what is underneath.
00:54:51
Speaker
Like the change of Judith looking at us versus looking at Holofernes.
00:54:54
Speaker
The change in the eyes of Judith, the change in the hand of Olofenes, the change in the hand of Ebra,
00:55:01
Speaker
the fact that the black veil was painted over the robe of the servant, who is totally painted, a coppice never does that.
00:55:09
Speaker
Why would he paint underneath?
00:55:10
Speaker
He doesn't see what is underneath.
00:55:13
Speaker
And what do you think about the detail of the wrinkles on the maid's neck?
00:55:22
Speaker
That's one area where... No, no, no.
00:55:26
Speaker
Nobody criticizes the neck.
00:55:28
Speaker
They criticize the wrinkles.
00:55:29
Speaker
They say the wrinkles, they don't look like what he paints.
00:55:31
Speaker
Well, I don't agree with this because...
00:55:35
Speaker
They never bothered me.
00:55:35
Speaker
I think actually the face of Ebra is very beautiful and that it is a wonderful counterpart to the beauty of Judith's face.
00:55:42
Speaker
He tried to make her the eldest and the most ugly possible.
00:55:46
Speaker
And so some people say it's a caricature, but that's how he becomes at the end of his life.
00:55:53
Speaker
If you compare that picture to Roman pictures or to early pictures, of course it won't work, but you have to compare it with the latest pictures, you know.
00:56:01
Speaker
And it works perfectly.
00:56:02
Speaker
But again, if you don't leave a chance to a picture, if you don't look at it with some benevolent eye, you know, positive eye, you will never make a discovery in your life, you know.
00:56:15
Speaker
If a doctor, if your physician is only interested in corpses, well, you should not go and see him.
00:56:25
Speaker
I like that analogy.
00:56:28
Speaker
So this painting is being sold on June 27th.
00:56:33
Speaker
And you could follow, you will be able to follow the sale on the internet, on the site, thetoulousecaravaggio.com.
00:56:39
Speaker
The sale will be online there.
Nature of Art Appreciation and Value
00:56:41
Speaker
You can't bid online, but you can follow it.
00:56:45
Speaker
But you can watch it.
00:56:46
Speaker
But you can watch it.
00:56:47
Speaker
And how do you feel right now about the sale?
00:56:51
Speaker
Well, of course I'm not anguished, but I'm nervous because I know it's going to sell, but I don't know for how much.
00:56:57
Speaker
It's true that if it only sells for 30 million, I'll be sad because I think that picture had a much bigger potential and you, Turkey, have not been able to reveal it.
00:57:08
Speaker
But if it sells for more than 40, I would be happy.
00:57:12
Speaker
And if it reaches the estimate that I gave, I think it's normal.
00:57:19
Speaker
And we won't dare to think about what happens if it goes beyond normal.
00:57:25
Speaker
No, no.
00:57:26
Speaker
I don't think that's possible, no.
00:57:30
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:57:31
Speaker
My pleasure.
00:57:32
Speaker
Thank you.
00:57:53
Speaker
Well, I think that there is probably a consensus in there, Ben.
00:57:57
Speaker
Good job.
00:57:59
Speaker
Did Eric convince you to bid 150 million euros to buy this picture?
00:58:04
Speaker
You know, I might even go to 170.
00:58:05
Speaker
Wow, that's bold of you.
00:58:07
Speaker
I have been saving money for an acquisition for the past year and a half.
00:58:13
Speaker
So if I check my compounding interest rate, it checks out.
00:58:17
Speaker
Maybe I'll have 170 for this.
00:58:18
Speaker
Well, it's an appreciating asset, I'm sure.
00:58:20
Speaker
So you need to take a loan, put it on a credit card.
00:58:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'll do that and get some air miles.
00:58:25
Speaker
No, I was really impressed with your interrogation.
00:58:27
Speaker
Never mess with a silver dealer.
00:58:30
Speaker
And although I feel that in disciplinary terms, there are a lot of really interesting differences in the way these men look at the work, they are kind of in consensus about its authenticity.
00:58:41
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't, I mean, James didn't raise any serious doubts about Caravaggio's hand being the primary hand.
00:58:47
Speaker
It sounds like he feels there's some possibility that certain elements might not have been by Caravaggio.
00:58:53
Speaker
And when I asked Eric about that, you know, he didn't oppose that with any great vehemence.
00:58:59
Speaker
But he made this really interesting point, which is that if you don't believe a picture with the kind of evidence and documentation that this one has, then you're maybe you're just never going to believe anything.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah, and that leads to the question of why do you believe all these people from the past who tell you that the works in our great museums are authentic?
00:59:17
Speaker
They were also often working from nothing, far less than we have for this picture.
00:59:22
Speaker
And maybe the answer is that everything in the Louvre needs to be questioned from square one.
00:59:27
Speaker
But maybe the other response is, well...
00:59:29
Speaker
You know, there are people with an intent to deceive.
00:59:32
Speaker
There are people who create fakes or who try and sell things with sketchy provenance or who, you know, are basically trying to make money off of dishonest practices.
00:59:41
Speaker
But there are also people who are selling legitimate objects in a legitimate fashion.
00:59:46
Speaker
And these pieces really are what they purport to be.
00:59:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:50
Speaker
I loved, though, that the wrinkles that were discussed by both of your interviewees
00:59:57
Speaker
which are felt to be anomalous.
00:59:59
Speaker
I mean, Eric said they didn't bother him.
01:00:01
Speaker
And by the way, I love that language because it speaks to a 20th century vocabulary of the art market that I'm really personally comfortable with and delight in.
01:00:11
Speaker
And I love this sort of language of the trade where someone like Eric says, ah, the wrinkles didn't bother me.
01:00:19
Speaker
They didn't feel anomalous to him.
01:00:21
Speaker
I just love that.
01:00:22
Speaker
He doesn't say they are or are not authentic.
01:00:25
Speaker
He's kind of thinking through his eye and the ramifications of his connoisseurship in action.
01:00:32
Speaker
Anyway, I love the confidence of that.
01:00:34
Speaker
I love the culture that comes with that.
01:00:36
Speaker
Well, it's like something that James told me was that with old master pictures, it's not so much about proving that they're authentic in some ironclad way.
01:00:44
Speaker
It's more about removing as much doubt as possible.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yes.
01:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:00:48
Speaker
And he mentioned, he said, well, it's one thing if it's the Sistine Chapel, you know, that hasn't been moving around a whole lot.
01:00:54
Speaker
But for most pictures where you don't have a, you know, a complete provenance since the day it was painted, you know, you can never rule out every possibility, right?
01:01:03
Speaker
But you can say the most likely thing, the most likely story behind this picture.
01:01:08
Speaker
Given what we know.
01:01:09
Speaker
Given what we know.
01:01:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:10
Speaker
is that it was painted by Caravaggio and that it was in Italy for some time and that at some point it was, you know, went to France and then it sat in an attic in Toulouse for 150 years.
01:01:20
Speaker
And then it turned up a few years ago and now it's being sold.
01:01:24
Speaker
And that's the most, that seems to me, having now talked with these people about it and having talked with you about it and reading about it, you know, that to me is the convincing story of this picture.
01:01:33
Speaker
I love that we might never get to degree zero and that may be okay.
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:38
Speaker
these works are actually you know unless we have ironclad provenance or authorship these works are in a way living documents you know we kind of have to live with that i don't know that i'd want to gamble hundreds of millions of dollars on any interpretation like that but i think that those interpretations constitute a larger part of our um understanding of works of art than we maybe think about routinely
01:02:01
Speaker
And maybe that's also, maybe that's our view of our understanding of history in a nutshell.
01:02:06
Speaker
You know, like we kind of understand the 19th century based on what we know of it today.
01:02:10
Speaker
Another document that comes down the pipeline will cause us to have a different understanding of the 19th century tomorrow.
01:02:16
Speaker
That's just the way it is.
01:02:17
Speaker
And it'll be exciting when that happens.
01:02:19
Speaker
It will be.
01:02:20
Speaker
And someone may make money from it, but hopefully many, many more will have an experience that transcends value so that this all isn't just a discussion about the art business.
01:02:31
Speaker
It's a discussion about art and what it means to us.
01:02:33
Speaker
Amen to that.
01:02:34
Speaker
I think that's a nice note to close on.
01:02:35
Speaker
Thanks, Michael.
01:02:36
Speaker
Thanks, Ben.
01:02:38
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
01:02:42
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit with a special edition from Ashrei Harishankar.
01:02:46
Speaker
Until next time.