Previously Unknown Painting Discovered Very Valuable Artwork

The above painting Starry Night Predator has become a very highly desired piece of art by collectors and dealers alike.

But, how does anybody know if indeed, they are in possession of a very valuable piece of art?

Everyone loves a rags to riches story, but for some unsuspecting people, proverbial “rags” actually ended up being worth millions — and they almost didn’t realise it.

The dream did come true for one particular guy according to “Fake or Fortune,” a show that sets out to establish whether a piece of art is a masterpiece or a fake.

The art market is a high-risk industry in which authentication is the sina qua non of merchantability.

In an era of increasing market valuations and ever-growing demand for fine art—either for the status it confers on its owners or its investment value—authentication is the art collector’s most frequent stumbling block.

Recently, authentication technology has become incredibly sophisticated, enabling scientists and historians to authenticate works based on minutiae as discrete as the lead in white paint or the weave of an individual bolt of canvas.

Simultaneously however, savvy art forgers are developing new ways to evade detection, through both artificial intelligence and already-present weaknesses in the market.

Nevertheless, American law has lagged behind in providing adequate protections for buyers.

Existing protections—a patchwork of contract, tort, and state statutory provisions—are incomplete and leave buyers bearing the risk of purchasing a forgery.

After many months of doing exhaustive forensic work – X-raying the painting, putting ultraviolet light on it, taking microscopic samples of paint from it and following the paper trail of this almost back, not quite but almost back to the moment it left the brush – we managed to establish it was genuine, “Fake or Fortune’s” presenter Fiona Bruce told BBC Radio.

“Fake or Fortune” determined that the painting it was scrutinizing was by the French Impressionist painter Édouard Vuillard, and worth about $410,000.

Keith Tutt, a lifelong Vuillard fan, saw the painting for sale at a local auction and was convinced it was a genuine Vuillard.

It was always thought to be by Édouard Vuillard but did not appear on the historical lists and was never a proven example of his work. Despite the lack of proof, Tutt gambled his life savings on buying the picture. It paid off big time.

But this is not the end of the story.

This painting was sold by art dealer Robert Warren, but it was not the first Vuillard he had sold – the painting was one of a pair. The other was sold on ebay in 2005 for £3000, or $4,930 at today’s exchange rate.

Yes, you read that right: A picture worth $410,000 was sold for less than $5,000 on ebay eight years ago. That’s an an 83-fold profit for the unknown buyer.

Sadly, Warren knew he had something good, and he spent years trying to prove the authenticity of the painting but could not get the evidence he needed to sell the painting at its correct value.

Eventually, he decided to put the painting up for auction, where it was purchased by its present owner, Keith Tutt.

The hunt is no longer on for the artist but for the buyer who purchased it on eBay in 2005.

Warren said he sold the painting so long ago that he could no longer identify the buyer, who might not know how valuable the painting is.

“Whoever bought this painting thinking it looks nice, they have a jolly good eye,” said “Fake or Fortune’s” Bruce.

But the painting would be hard to mistake: It is oval, 4 feet tall and colorfully portrays a man and a woman in a restaurant eating oysters, likely in France.

If that reminds anyone of a painting bought almost a decade ago, the first round of drinks is on you.

Blockchain is currently used by the company Verisart, which provides a website and application for artists and collectors to create certificates of authenticity for works. 

The process for creating and later verifying a certificate of authenticity is as follows: “[t]he artist takes a picture of the work, adds its title and dimensions, the materials used and year of production and signs off like a normal certificate.” 

Thereafter, “[t]he certificate is then given a URL allowing verification of provenance, as well as a cryptographically secure registry, which is time-stamped.” 

The provenance of the piece is ultimately tracked through blockchain technology, making use of a decentralized, protected database. 

Technology company Chronicled, Inc. has also developed “tamper-evident CryptoSeals” which can affix to an artwork and create a direct link to the artwork’s digital identity on a blockchain. 

In theory, “[i]f someone comes into possession of an artwork with a Cryptoseal in 20 years, that person will still be able to verify it on a website backed by Chronicled’s infrastructure.”