When I was a child more than 60 years ago, before garage sales and yard sales became popular, an effective way for us to dispose of household clutter was to take unwanted items to our annual church auction. One year, our culls included a small brown glass vase with a curious and unappealing iridescent finish, bequeathed to us by my great-grandparents.
It went on the block in our churchyard that summer for an opening amount of 25 cents, judged fair and reasonable by the auctioneer. No one would agree to that amount, so he quickly lowered the suggested value to 5 cents. At that moment, my mother happened by and — perhaps just to save face — called out, “10 cents.” Without inviting another bid, the auctioneer cried “Sold!” and we got our ugly little vase back.
Some 40 years later, my wife and I took the vase to Sotheby’s auction house in New York City, where it fetched $2,500. Of course, there was the distinct advantage of the letters “LCT” etched on the bottom — the signature of Louis Comfort Tiffany.
I also recall having found an oil painting in our cluttered attic a short time after the church auction, presumably also left by my great-grandparents.
It was painted in subtle colors and featured a man wearing a blue jacket and sitting in a small boat under a half-dead old tree. Its swampy feeling appealed to me and I hung it inconspicuously in our dining room. Some time later, someone discovered a nearly indistinguishable signature — “TH Rousseau” — at the lower left of the scene, denoting acclaimed 19th century artist Theodore Rousseau, noted for his dead trees and little boatmen in blue jackets.
When I took that piece to Sotheby’s a few years ago, they were ecstatic. It had been painted on a dark wood panel from an old carton of French oil paints — a logical choice for a hard-up artist of the 19th century. As further evidence of its artistic authenticity, it also bore on its back side several auction stickers suggesting a provenance which, unfortunately, we could not trace.
Sotheby’s recommended that we put a reserve (or minimum bid) of $60,000 on the piece, and might expect considerably more if several avid Rousseau collectors attended the auction.
My wife and I ordered a new Mercedes, and began planning trips abroad.
About a week later, though, my Sotheby’s contact telephoned to announce with utmost regret that they “could not authenticate attribution” — a polite way of saying my painting likely was, as he subsequently put it, “a fake.”
Fortunately, my wife and I were able to cancel our Mercedes order without penalty, and we learned not to count on household clutter converting to cash until after the auctioneer’s gavel has fallen.
But I have told my daughter that in 40 years or so she might consider pulling that old painting out of storage and offering it for sale again. It is just possible that some future art expert might feel inclined to “authenticate attribution” and deem the piece genuine. After all, the second offering of our Tiffany vase worked out very well.
Stuart Clark Rogers (srogers@du.edu) is a retired clinical professor of marketing at the University of Denver.
