Nail Sculpture Success Not Without Nail-Biting Moments At Copake Sale Dec 6th, 2011 By W.A. Demers

Copake's father and son auctioneers Seth and Mike Fallon hold a Guenther Uecker nail sculpture from the estate of artist Fred Eng. Signed and dated 1964, the 241/8-by-481/8-inch sculpture that had been commissioned by Eng, sold for $379,500 to a German collector bidding by phone. It is the highest priced item sold to date by the auction house

Copake, N.Y: Copake Auction recorded the sale of its highest priced item to date in an October 22 auction, but the milestone was not achieved without some emotional stress and physical wear and tear on Seth Fallon, one of the firm's principals. An unreserved nail sculpture by German sculptor, Op artist and installation artist Guenther Uecker (b 1930) sold for $379,500 to a phone bidder from Germany. The sculpture came from the Fred Eng estate in Tivoli, N.Y., and could have represented just another interesting but fairly routine sale at auction of a work by a living artist. Instead, the piece became emblematic of the lengths an auction house sometimes has to go to in order to consummate a successful sale.

Fallon ended up having to fly to Germany to have the piece authenticated by the artist, in the process getting to meet the now 81-year-old Uecker, as well as seeing firsthand the workings of art warehouses in Dusseldorf and Cologne.

"This is the most expensive piece we've ever sold," said Fallon. "And we had definitive provenance from the 1960s when the work was commissioned and purchased by Eng," adding that when the 241/8-by-481/8-inch piece was removed from the wall in the family's home, the paint was visibly lighter in color behind it.

Feeling sanguine about the sculpture's provenance, Seth Fallon and his father, Mike Fallon, prepared to put the piece in the firm's monthly unreserved cataloged estate auction.

A couple of weeks before the auction, the firm was questioned by the Uecker family about the authenticity of the lot. "We contacted them to see if we could get a better idea of their concerns, but they did not get back to us," he said. Finally, and literally one day before the auction, Copake received an email, supposedly from the artist himself, questioning whether the work was actually his. "At this point, we had seven people lined up to bid by phone. So we spoke to Mr Eng [the son] and decided we'd pull it from the auction. My dad and I got here at 7 am, called the bidders — six of whom were in Europe — and, surprisingly, five out of the seven indicated that if it was offered, they would still bid on it."

This, Fallon said, is what becomes a moment of truth for any auction house that understandably wants to make the sale but also wants to maintain that all-important ingredient of success — integrity. Copake has been a full-service auction house since 1952. It claims to be the longest running auction house in Columbia County, N.Y., as well as a member of the New York state and national auctioneers associations. Mike Fallon purchased the auction gallery in 1985 and was joined by son Seth in 1995.

So the Fallons did what they typically do — they offered a guarantee to the bidders. "We rarely deal in this kind of artwork," said Seth Fallon. "And the family did not know much about it, but they knew it was important." Proceeding with offering the sculpture, which was estimated at $120/180,000, the Fallons got more validation on its value when, according to Seth Fallon, "four phone bidders had their hands up at $280,000."

A collector in Germany on the phone ultimately prevailed, and now it was time to back up the guarantee.

At a cost of $9,500, the sculpture, accompanied by Fallon, was put on a plane from New York City to Dusseldorf, Germany, arriving on the morning of October 25. Fallon spent the next couple of days traveling between art warehouses in Dusseldorf and Cologne, meeting with Uecker, who disavowed the signature on the front (another signature on the back done in red marker was correct), but ultimately recognized the work as his own.

"Now the piece gets cataloged and the collector feels good," said Fallon.

The Uecker sculpture was one of 619 lots that were sold in the auction that drew 879 registered bidders and 1,315 absentee bids.

Experts reclassify painting as real Rembrandt after X-ray reveals outlines of a self-portrait

Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering inspects the small painting 'Old man with beard' during the presentation of an up to now unknown painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 02 December 2011. The painting is, after research, attributed to the famous painter. EPA/OLAF KRAAK.

AMSTERDAM — Experts have reclassified a painting as a Rembrandt after years of attributing it to one of the Dutch master's students.

Ernst van de Wetering of the Rembrandt Research Project said Friday that X-ray analysis of "Bearded Old Man" has revealed outlines of a self-portrait of Rembrandt as a young man underneath.

He also cited stylistic analysis and circumstantial evidence in support of the conclusion that the painting — showing a man with unkempt white hair, lost in thought with just a hint of sadness — is by the Dutch master.

Van de Wetering dates the small (15 x 20 cm, 6 x 8 inch) but emotive painting to 1630, when Rembrandt van Rijn would have been 24 years old. Rembrandt's reputation as a portraitist was rapidly growing and he was preparing to leave Leiden for Amsterdam, which at that time was enjoying its golden age as a major naval power.

Van de Wetering said that the style and quality of the painting itself provide the strongest arguments for its authenticity, but the existence of the underlying portrait was important too.

"The light is typically Rembrandt in that it is so totally convincing: you perceive it as if you are looking at reality and not at a painting," he said.

"That was one of Rembrandt's great, great interests and also where he was so extraordinarily gifted, at portraying light so convincingly."

Classifying the painting as an authentic Rembrandt fills a hole in his historical record — a 1633 painting exists with an inscription that says it is a copy of "Bearded Old Man" by the Dutch master.

"Bearded Old Man" belongs to an unidentified private collector. It will go on display May-July of next year at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, where the finding was announced Friday.

Van de Wetering collaborated with restorer Martin Bijl and technology professors Joris Dik of the Delft University of Technology and Koen Janssens of the University of Antwerp, among others in the reclassification.

Researchers used at least five different kinds of X-ray scans to analyze the chemical makeup of pigments in the painting and probe its hidden layers of paint. The scans were done at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and ESRF in Grenoble, France.

Rembrandt produced hundreds of paintings, etchings and drawings, but new finds are extremely rare. However, four works formerly attributed to his students — a talented group in their own right — have been reclassified as by Rembrandt since 2008, often with the help of new technology.