Authenticity decisions

A portrait sold as "attributed to" an eighteenth-century painter turned out, after appraisal, to be a nineteenth-century pastiche. The buyer sought annulment. The tribunal held that the mention "attributed to" binds only as an opinion, but that the seller had omitted a decisive piece of information: the heavy restoration of the work.

Outcome: price reduction of 35%, on grounds of failure to inform. Lesson: the attribution does not relieve the seller of the duty to disclose major restorations.

A sculpture sold as a "period cast" turned out to come from a posthumous edition. The warranty related to a period cast. The expert dated the casting to 1960. The tribunal annulled the sale, with return of the price and reimbursement of the appraisal costs.

Lesson: where the warranty specifically concerns the date of casting, it applies without any need to prove fraud. Buyers must take care over the exact wording of the warranty.

In a third case, the buyer of a drawing challenged the attribution on the basis of a single contrary expert opinion. The tribunal dismissed the claim: a disagreement between specialists, without material evidence, does not prove inauthenticity where the contract contained only a simple attribution.

In a fourth, mediation succeeded after the appraisal report was filed: the work stayed with the buyer in return for a price reduction and a corrective entry in the Registry. This outcome, impossible to obtain from a judge, satisfied each party.

The case law is moving towards a heightened requirement of transparency about the state of conservation, restorations and history of a work. Arbitrators also rely more on scientific analyses and reference databases, such as the OIMAP Registry.

This development encourages operators to document their works, which reduces the number of disputes and speeds up proceedings.