Auction Houses NOT the place to buy? I beg to differ! Item Number: 100050 $0.00

DescriptionIt would be very easy to sit here, be self-serving and agree with a recent article we read. But mama always told me “honesty is the best policy” (along with something about life and a box of chocolates…) so we’ll go that route. The article comes from a blog by an attorney specializing in cultural patrimony, Kimberly Alderman, who writes on The Cultural Property and Archaeology Law Blog. Normally, I find Kimberly’s blogs to be very informative and rather neutral. But one she wrote last week entitled “Should New Collectors Buy Antiquities through Auction Houses?” struck me as being off base. Let me explain.

Ms. Alderman’s contention is that auction houses exist for the seller, more so than the buyer. They are in effect, the seller’s agent, and the buyer is responsible for exercising their own due diligence for any purchase they may wish to make. She goes on to say it is the buyer who must check out if an item is in the Art Loss Register, investigate an object’s history and review any documentation supporting an item’s legality. While her arguments may be legally accurate, from personal experience I can’t see how the auction houses can do much more than they are currently doing.

Over the last six weeks Artemis Gallery has submitted perhaps a dozen items to both Sotheby’s and Christie’s for possible inclusion in their summer NYC auctions. This is a rather common occurrence by art dealers as a way of helping clients, as well as smoothing out cash flow. Quite frankly, auction houses, as of late, are realizing tremendous prices on good examples of ancient art and the gambler in Teresa and me makes this rather exciting. We can tell you, in no uncertain terms, both auction houses care very deeply about protecting their buyers from any future repercussions related to cultural patrimony. With the lots that have been accepted (and there are perhaps a half dozen slated for June), each piece required a signed, notarized statement of provenance and documentation from us outlining prior ownership. Neither auction house will offer anything for sale in the Antiquities category, without this documentation.

While I can’t guarantee that the motives behind this sudden interest in cultural patrimony is due solely to caring about their buyers’ interests – hey, let’s face it, it is very expensive for major auction houses to schedule auctions only to have the feds and foreign governments come in and shut them down due to questionable provenance – the major auction houses are doing all they can to protect the buyer and themselves. Ms. Alderman points out that as many as 97% of all antiquities bought and sold in this country lack documentation proving they entered the country legally. We have been down this road before. Prior to the 1970s, goods moved freely between originating country and the US (and Europe), and an export license was virtually unheard of. How do you possibly prove an item was imported legally when no paperwork attesting to its importation was ever created… or required to be created? The answer is simple – you can’t! But this does not prove in the least that 97% of all antiquities are sold illegally, nor, to my mind, does it mean Sotheby’s or Christie’s or even Artemis Gallery Live! should be forced to sell only items that have clear, documented provenance. Even our local Customs Agent agrees with us on that one!

Happy and Legal Shopping!
Bob