Throughout much of this year,there has been a disturbing controversy about the recent discovery of a group of 74 plasters allegedly made from wax and clay sculptures crafted by Edgar Degas.
The plasters, in turn, are being used to cast a set of bronzes that are being marketed and sold for around $20 million.
ARTKABINETT collectors of fine bronze sculpture always need to now the status of a work's cast.Is it created by the artist during their life or after death? In this particular case, we have a serious post-mortem reservation about a Degas rising from the dead!.
Surprisingly, A number of venues around the world -- including an obscure museum in Athens, the Herakleidon (pictured below left) -- have agreed to display the new bronzes in their galleries . One example is seen here.
This exhibition is giving them an imprimatur that no doubt has added to the price they can fetch in the market.
The two New York art dealers at the center of the discovery -- Gregory Hedberg at Hirschl & Adler and Walter Maibaum at the Degas Sculpture Project -- have have offered all sorts of theories about how the plasters may actually have been made during the artist's lifetime, even though Degas is generally thought to have exhibited only one wax sculpture during his life, his splendid "Little Dancer Aged 14, as represented above in the Greek exhibit".
This particular sculpture edition size by Degas has always been thought to number 110 works.
Some art historians who study Degas for a living are aghast over the selling of the newly cast bronzes. A group of them met secretly at the Metropolitan Museum in January to discuss the claims of the two dealers.
Gary Tinterow (seen here), chairman of the department of 19th-century, modern and contemporary art at the Met, said in May that he had reviewed the claims made by Hedberg and found that "there is nothing that demonstrates that Degas had a set of plaster casts made of his sculptures during his lifetime."
For his part, Hedberg has said of his discovery: "I was kind of naive. I thought people would be like, Oh, how exciting and wonderful. Joyous. Some people, in fact, are.
"But others are doubtful of a new theory. People hang on. There's still some people I know that are not sure about the Big Bang."
Hedberg may be proved correct in the end.
Still, much like the controversy over the Ansel Adams negatives {Please review AK Files 22 August 2010 which discusses this topic}, the debate about the Degas sculptures will continue and may spill over into courtrooms.
In the meantime, the artworks continue to be bought and sold, for large sums.
Edition status of a sculpture is critical to know. When buying from a living artist, be sure to ask how many of your work they intend to create. Have them sign a document holding the estate to that guarantee.
This is because, unlike Wall Street, which is now sorting through a new 2,200-page law that re-regulates it, the art market is utterly unregulated.
There are few rules, other than the basic ones of commerce and ethics. There is no Federal Reserve Board or Securities and Exchange Commission to pore over Degas plasters.
Nor should there be. There is no equating the carnage that the financial markets are capable of perpetrating on us with what the art market can do.
But that doesn't mean the integrity of this market is not damaged every time the authenticity of a high-profile work is reasonably challenged.
Even if buying art is a rich man's sport, there is still a need for some serious introspection among those who buy and sell art about putting an end to the questionable behavior of some dealers.
And if that means that the art market needs to fall under the purview of the Federal Reserve at the newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection -- which of course no one in the art market will like --then so be it.
