Finding Lost Art How Much More Is Out There?
Finding Lost Fine art: Picasso Treasure Trove 'Came Out of Nowhere'
Technology, devoted art hunters scissure globe of lost and stolen fine art.
Nov. 29, 2010— -- The discovery of what is believed to be 271 works of art by Pablo Picasso has dropped jaws in the art world, where people had no idea such a trove was out at that place.
At present the race is on non only to figure out exactly where the art came from, merely where it goes at present.
"These came out of nowhere," said Christopher Marinello, executive manager and general counsel for the London-based Art Loss Register, which maintains the largest international database of lost and stolen works of art.
"We think that if these were to be placed in the market place today, given what we've seen recently, even in a downturned marketplace," Marinello said, "these could exist worth hundreds of millions of dollars, especially equally a group."
Merely whether the pieces will ever arrive to the open marketplace remains to be seen.
Soon later Pierre Le Guennec, a retired French electrician, and his wife showed some of the 271 pieces to Picasso's son, Claude Picasso, in September, The Associated Press reported, the late artist'due south estate, the Picasso Administration, filed suit.
Though Le Guennec and his wife merits the Picassos were given to them past the artist himself after Le Guennec did work for him, government in France are now investigating how Le Guennec and his wife came to own so many of the prized works.
Marinello said the Art Loss Register has the same question.
"Two hundred and seventy-i is a fairly sizeable trunk of work to be a gift," Marinello said. "It does look a little suspicious coming from someone who installed burglar alarms in a couple of Picasso backdrop."
Though the Art Loss Register keeps tabs on some 900 Picassos -- and 30 fakes -- Marinello said in that location is no style to tell how many more than may exist out there.
Co-ordinate to the ALR database, there are currently 72 missing Picassos and another 702 that take been reported stolen. Co-ordinate to an ALR historian, most of the stolen Picassos registered with them are out of the United States.
Picassos are considered loftier-contour targets, according to ALR, because thieves don't account for registries like ALR and don't realize they can't easily sell the stolen art without alerting watchdogs similar the ALR.
Marinello could not confirm or deny whether ALR was involved with French republic'southward investigation into the Le Guenneces, only noted cryptically that its president was in Paris today.
Fate of 271 Picassos Rests With French Court
A decision on the fate of the 271 Picasso pieces won't be a quick i, Marinello warned.
If the Picasso estate prevails in court, "they will probable retain the most important works and quietly/privately sell what they don't want," he wrote in an e-mail. "If [the] electrician prevails, look for big private sales and more people going into the infiltrator alarm installation business organisation."
The items are currently being held by police force post-obit a raid last month, according to the AP.
Danielle Le Guennec told The Associated Press in a phone interview that she and her husband kept the pieces in a trunk in the garage of their abode on the French Riviera. She insisted they were not thieves and that they contacted the Picasso Administration only to help verify their authenticity.
"He'south put a knife in our dorsum, taken us to court and accused us of theft," she told the AP. "He'll have to prove information technology."
Despite the years of distance betwixt the creation of the art and present mean solar day -- even centuries in the case of a Michelangelo or Leonardo -- Marinello said he expects to run across more and more lost works of fine art turning upwardly thanks to advances in technology that can verify authenticity in a mode that's never been possible before.
"They're looking at fingerprints at present on pieces or brush strokes or whether in that location'due south hair with the artist'due south DNA in the pigment," he said, likening the laboratories that do that kind of piece of work to "CSI for art."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/International/finding-lost-art-picasso-treasure-trove/story?id=12268538
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