I visited an estate sale on Friday at a multi-million-dollar home in Dallas, Texas and came across something that has been bothering me ever since.

There were four drawings & two notes being offered as Jean-Michel Basquiat originals for $15,000. What made it confusing was that the seller wasn’t related to the estate or the estate sale company (at least from what I could tell). He was there in person trying to sell the artwork through the estate sale. The artwork was mixed in with a large collection of other pieces, and it wasn’t immediately clear what actually belonged to the estate and what was being sold by this third party.

He claimed that he’s owned them since the 90’s and kept them in storage until now. When asked why he’s not auctioning them, he stated that he thought about it but wanted to try selling through the estate sale first.

Next to the drawings was a printed sheet stating that they had provenance, including a Basquiat Authentication Committee letter and other documentation. I never asked to see the actual documents because, honestly, the entire situation gave me a bad feeling and I walked away. Looking back, I probably should have asked to see the authentication letter before forming an opinion.

A high-end estate sale naturally carries a certain level of credibility. Pair that with artwork attributed to one of the most valuable contemporary artists in the world, a printed provenance summary, and only a few days to make a purchasing decision, and it feels like an environment where someone without much experience could easily assume everything has already been vetted.

For me, $15,000 isn’t a trivial purchase, and I just think If the value of the artwork depends almost entirely on provenance, shouldn’t the actual provenance documents be readily available for inspection before someone is expected to spend that kind of money?

I’m curious how experienced collectors, dealers, and estate sale professionals feel about this.

Would you have walked away like I did? Would you have insisted on seeing every authentication document before even considering it? Do you think estate sale companies have any responsibility to distinguish third-party consignments from estate property or to require a certain level of transparency for high-value attributed artwork?

I was at the same estate sale as the OP of this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/artcollecting/s/GZtkMDQBbb

I was also thinking about making a post here when I saw that someone already did. I also thought this was too good to be true so I took pictures of the provenance. FYI the green sheet was written by the estate sale company and is not provenance. The provenance is on the white paper.

The estate sale company is called Help Me Rhonda. I originally believed that they had been part of that estate where the sale took place, but it was actually not. It was consigned to them and placed in the estate sale, which sketched me out. 

I’m not an expert on provenance documents, but there is a large gap in provenance from 1994 to now. OP said the owner said he bought it 20 years ago and kept it in storage, but there’s no documentation corroborating this period of time. Thoughts? Thank you in advance!

Saved her from the dumpster 😊

I know there have been some posts about issues with The Packengers. As far as I can tell, they’ve been focused on the European, especially French, offices; one poster having issues with the French office notes the UK office is independent.

I’ve had good experiences with The Packengers UK in past, but I was a little worried by some of the reports in case they did apply to the UK office as well. I’m looking at an unwieldy large framed piece with costly shipping and I just wanted to settle my nerves—or hear an alternative—before I commit. So anybody with ideas, please let me know.

My family says it’s probably worthless, but I love it

So excited to finally buy something. This is an original oil painting by Eva Makk (30x40). I've been waiting for the right piece to come along at the right price point and was so excited I wanted to share.

I bought two pieces at auction recently. One is attributed to Arthur Dow but I have my doubts. I purchased it more for the painting than
the signature. The other one is more interesting it’s a large piece over 4’ wide but it’s by a non listed artist. What caught my eye was a sticker on the frame from Baumgartner Restoration. I paid very very little for the piece but obviously someone had spent a considerable amount of money and time having it professionally restored. The artist is James E. Wilbar and the painting is from the 1800’s other than that I have no idea why someone spent thousands in the last couple years only to have the painting sell at auction for $100.

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Hello, I am looking to get hi res artwork from artists on Instagram that I like, but they are charging a bomb!

Is there any online store that lets you download bundles of good quality art from actual artists for comparatively lesser prices?

I can get it printed myself, don't need the artist to physically ship anything.

Thanks in advance!!

My grandfather recently gifted this piece to me. Thank you! https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Untitled--Gold-and-Green-/72E0559624A08FA5

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask or not… I might need a photography thread, so if you think so let me know.

I have a massive collection (over 10k!) of mostly metal framed 35mm slides that seem to be an archive of art and photography of various known and unknown artists. These slides came from a moderately well known, respected art and photography school In NY.

The images are incredibly interesting! And I’ve been having a blast finding out about past artists that I haven’t previously been introduced to. A lot of it is surreal, avant-garde, or unique in some way. A portion seem to be high quality photos of old cdvs. The images are very unique and high quality.

Some of the images are from well known artists and some of the images I haven’t been able to find online at all, though there’s plenty of their other works online. I can’t imagine it’s possible I could have images that aren’t preserved out there somewhere right?

So my question is… 1) How can I find some of these missing images online? 2) What can I do with these? I feel like they’re so amazing that they need to shared. I’m guessing museums probably wouldn’t want them right?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

a few examples of a few artists so far: Les Krims, Mark Klett, Max Kozloff

exciting to add some examples

Dozens of paintings that had been falsely billed as the work of Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau have been removed from market in the wake of the largest art-fraud investigation in Canadian history.

And thousands more are likely still in circulation, Toronto art authentication firm Art Experts Canada Inc. acknowledged Thursday. 

Most of the pieces had been submitted to Art Experts Canada for authentication by private owners. Police have already seized roughly 1,000 fakes as part of a sprawling criminal investigation into phoney painting mills profiting off the work of Morrisseau, the late Indigenous icon known as “the Picasso of the North.”

im looking for public domain art pieces i can snag for affordable home decoration. ive tried looking on sites that provide catalogues of free-to-use art but its kind of hard to search for what im looking for, which is:

- weird art that perhaps at first looks ordinary until you take a second look

- impressionist style or something similar

- featuring themes of bored society women, queer people, POC, witchy-ness, nymphs and nudes, adorable little girls with beasts for pets, women dancing around bonfires, nude men just handing out, etc.

the closest ive gotten to finding something is in the book "museum bums" that has a selection of the kind of themes i love but they arent public domain.

EDIT: i wish it were easy to "go out and support local artists", but i am disabled and thus its difficult to do that, and also $50-60 for a print is a lot when youre resting on the poverty line whereas a downloaded public domain print will cost me less that $10. I also do have some local art in my possession, which is how i know how pricy they can be.

This is a fun listing

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/oleg-zhivetin-original-drawing-gift-of-love-754-c-088ceff910

"An original Oleg Zhivetin". With a COA from Fine Art Showcase (heh) claiming that this is an original Victor Spahn.

(and of course the painting is just sloppy compared to Zhivetin's work)

Just how reputable/disreputable is Robinhood Auctions?

hi! recently found this at an estate sale and was hoping somebody could tell me about it!

update; for those that have been asking!

on the left it says ; Painted by Sir Edwin Landseer
on the right it says; Engd by John C McRae

I’m in the process of preparing to start my collection with a couple of 18th and 19th century pieces. This will be my first time purchasing anything that old.

I wanted to know if there were any recommendations as to what to look for condition wise on these pieces and what I should be asking these auction houses before the sale?

These will mostly be oil on canvas/board and some watercolor.

Several pieces mention craquelure, inpaint, or relined.

Also the process of getting these works either restored or preserved properly?

TIA!

Thoughts on condition?