posted on September 27, 2000 05:56:22 PM
Bear with me for a minute, folks. I want to put this to rest as much as you do, but I think it's important for you to have an update. Things are getting a tad creepy.
Tonight I received an email (AOL email address) from a party who says "We are working on a subject of forgerys of famous people whos work has been plagerized" and asked for a copy of Ms. Rewald's email, adding that "in order to use the Old and Sold Rewald letter, we need absolute proof that it was not by him."
His writing style is identical to that of the lagoldie group.
I have asked for a business telephone number, his name (he uses a hilariously obvious pseudonum), and business address.
He has refused to provide any such information, so I have refused to forward the email to him.
Very shortly after my "no" to this character, I received another request for the email, this time from Mr. Haskins. I declined, pointing out that as he stated in his AW post that he both knew the results of the 1990 Rewald examination and must have seen the auction's "Rewald Letter," it was hardly necessary for him to read Ms. Rewald's email to me (a private person) to determine if the "Rewald Letter" was a forgery; all he had to do was compare his knowledge with the letter posted on OAS.
Ms. Rewald has received threatening phone calls from the owner of the painting - as, not coincidentally, has LACMA. (BTW, the owner did indeed write out a check to LACMA - for the x-ray performed at its facilities. The owner wrote another check payable to Twilley for the analysis itself.)
You can imagine that, given the owner's conduct so far regarding documents, that even with Ms. Rewald's permission I am loathe to distribute her email to parties unknown. I hope that you'll understand if I suspend my offer regarding her email, at least for the present.
posted on September 27, 2000 06:06:05 PM
HCQ, this is getting more and more strange. I would like to know, where this eventually goes. If any of these threads should fall by the wayside, would you consider emailing me with any new updates, as you have my email address from the other day.
I really believe there's a lot more here, than what anyone at AW has been able to uncover. In the end, we may not know all of it, but I sure would like to try.
posted on September 27, 2000 07:00:15 PM
I finally found the one thing that's been nagging at me. It's been nagging at me for days and there have been times that I thought I almost had it, but then it would vanish.
I know, I'm adding one more piece to the puzzle, one more unanswered questions, but here goes anyhow.
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn=US06017218__&s_detd=1#detd
Shows that this patent was filed Dec. 12, 1996. It states:
FIG. 3 is a portion 9 of Rock With Oak Tree, in the form described above generally in the area 2 and a portion 10 of an X-ray of a painting under investigation known as Sunflower and Oleander.
Jump forward now, to the sale of Sunflowers and Oleander on July 22, 1997 in:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/projects/vangogh/update072297.html
The new owner of Sunflowers and Oleander is quoted as saying:
"I didn't even know about this van Gogh when I had sold my van Gogh," he said, "so I didn't start out to replace one with the other."
We know, that the sale of YR did not go through, as Sunflowers and Oleanders was never paid for because of that.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/projects/vangogh/update072597.html He had been waiting for escrow to close on the sale of a van Gogh painting he already owned, and did not have access to that money until after 2 p.m.
The dates are wrong, something, at least in my mind, is even more fishy. The patent was filed in December of the previous year. He had to had known about Sunflowers and Oleanders when he filed the patent as all information has to be included when you file. In my opinion, escrow does not take 7 months to close.
Sorry everyone, but since I finally saw that, I just had to say something.
posted on September 27, 2000 10:13:28 PM
I really just wanted to turn on my email option ... I'm only 10 pages through that 25 page thread and I'm kicking myself for not catching it as it was happening.
El
"The customer may not always be right, but she is always the customer."
posted on September 28, 2000 05:00:17 AM
HCQ -
And that person/s thought you would just hand over the email? BTW - header analysis is easy
This is more fun than poking hornet nests with a short stick!
ROSIEBUD -
Thanks for that bit to the timeline. You are right about the patent, unless an amendment has been filed.
BTW - read the patent text. It's quite hilarious: basically you look all over the paintings for matching brush strokes, and discard all the ones that don't match, until you have proven to your satisfaction that the same brush/s were used on two paintings.
posted on September 28, 2000 05:28:12 AM
But doesn't an AOL email address basically dead-end you, like a Yahoo or Hotmail email addy (or Compuserve, for that matter)?
rosiebud - very, very good call. Bright didn't know about "Sunflowers and Oleanders" while he was doing the the brushstroke analysis on that very painting in preparation for his patent application? Uh....yeah.
posted on September 28, 2000 06:10:09 AM
Abacaxi, I'll amend my comment here, and take into consideration that an amendment could have been filed on the patent.
However, I will also add (once again, IMO ), that when you're amending something and you have several points which are numbered, you don't go back through and renumber everything. You add onto the bottom. For example, if you have points 1-10 and decided to add an entirely new example into there, you don't add it into position number 2, and end up renumbering the original 2-10, you simply add on number 11.
In the case of this patent, Sunflower and Oleander is brought into consideration in Figure 3, and than it seems to end with Figure 5, which only states "a well known Van Gogh self portrait" (it does not state which one)
If it were an amendment, wouldn't it have been added on afterwards? I would have to assume, if it were an amendment, the orignal filing only talked about Rock with Oak Tree and Yellow Roses, in which case (if I"m reading this correctly)
Referring again to FIG. 2, this comparison is of two known paintings and is used to demonstrate validity of the method.
that statement becomes invalid because there was no original demonstration of the validity of the method using two known paintings, because the statement only talked about two paintings originally.
If you read through the figures that he gives, it would seem, IMO, this entire patent was written up to give validity to the authentication of Sunflower and Oleander.
It would appear, that if this filing was amended, it wasn't a simple job, as it seems the entire thing would have to have been re-written.
posted on September 28, 2000 06:38:36 AM
Rather than editing the post, I thought I'd post again, because I found one more point:
4. Search the painting under investigation for repeated brush marks. Select one (study brush mark) for study.
That's point number 4, before he starts talking about figures. In his examples and figures, he states that Rock with Oak Tree, Yellow Roses, and the unidentified self portrait are known Van Gogh's. Therefore, in order to have written this patent, he needed an example of a painting under investigation.
That painting, under investigation, was Sunflower and Oleanders. In my mind, I have no doubt, that it was mentioned in the original filing in December of '96, before he bid on that particular painting, and claimed he did not know of it's existance.
posted on September 28, 2000 06:59:31 AM
rosie -
You are probably right. As I recall (it's been a while since I had anything to do with patent applications or even seen one), an amendment to a patent is attached to the END of the patent. You can see the unchanged original application, and the amendment specifies what has changed. You don't get to edit the original and renumber things because it is a legal document.
Notably, the patent application talks about Yellow Roses as if it were already among the authenticated van Goghs ... and it does not appear on any list of known works that I have found.
"If you read through the figures that he gives, it would seem, IMO, this entire patent was written up to give validity to the authentication of Sunflower and Oleander. "
Or, so that later one could point to the use of YR in the patent as one of the supposedly genuine paintings as some sort of "proof" of its authenticity?
Or merely to give Bright a legal weapon to stop anyone else from using the method?
posted on September 28, 2000 07:08:15 AM
If I'm reading and recalling this right... remember, the statements about not being aware of "Oleanders' " existence were made to a reporter but certainly not under legal oath or anything. If inaccurate, possibly rationalized as a "bargaining technique" or "shrewd business." This might not sit well with the actual REPORTER, however, were this patent timeline transmitted to them, eh?
posted on September 28, 2000 07:30:49 AM
A bit off topic with this, but I recall near the end of the now-closed thread there were calls for the original auction description for "Yellow Roses."
My favorite search engine (google) cached what appears to me to be the original page - or close to it. It mentions the 3 wedding presents from the Chains to the Browns. "She gave three paintings to Molly Brown for her wedding to J. J. Brown in 1890; a Van Gogh, a Cezanne watercolor and an oil painting by Manet."
posted on September 28, 2000 07:43:19 AM
GAWD I LOVE the Internet and its time warps! I will NEVER cuss at an out of date search engine again!
That is either the very first or one of the very early ones, because it is before the Molly Brown museum letter was posted ... you could check the dates on the long discussion to see when that particular letter was waved to distract us from the hunt.
When I talked to the USPTO a couple of weeks ago, I was told that:
(A) The folks that review patents take the information in it as a given; i.e., Bright's statement regarding "Yellow Roses" being a "known Van Gogh" wouldn't have been investigated.
(B) Even if the data used to obtain a patent are flawed or patently false, the patent stands unless and until (1) somebody files suit for what I recollect being called "reconsideration" of the patent, or (2) the patent holder files suit for patent infringment. If the defendant can show that the methodology used in the patent application are flawed, the patent is unenforceable; the patent holder would lose his case, and probably his patent as well.
So not only was a $2M sale riding on the "Yellow Roses" auction; Bright's patent and credibility were - and are - on the line as well.
posted on September 28, 2000 07:49:59 AMBIG GOLD STAR to switch for finding this!!! Excellent. This is from the first week of the auction, because the "last two years of his life" phrase is still in there and the Brown Museum letter isn't.
Somebody "screenshot" it please, before it disappears, and make it available to all for "prosperity"!
(BTW, anybody know of any downloadable screenshot software?)
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Sep 28, 2000 07:51 AM ]
posted on September 28, 2000 08:04:08 AM
Gosh, in all that excitement I forgot what I was going to ask the class:
Who could have given Bright an "in" on "Sunflowers" in the first place? Who on God's green earth would have referred him? He hadn't even applied for his patent yet. The only people I've been able to pinpoint who were connected with both paintings were Twilley (whose boss at LACMA did extensive analysis of "Sunflowers" and discredited it), and McCrone (who did analyses of both paintings, and also taught Haskins back in the '80s.)
posted on September 28, 2000 08:04:18 AM
HCQ -
You can just do a "SAVE AS" from the file menu of your browser.
******
Even more strange provenances:
From the court documents on the provenance of Oleanders and Roses: "When his son was a lad, the senior Dobson had George Romney paint a portrait of young Miles and his two sisters."
Considering that George Romney (English, 1734-1802) died in 1802, this Dobson was born before 1802. As the supposed owner of O&R was cavorting in Europe with opera dancers and buying paintings between 1905 and 1908 .... what was he taking! For a 100+ year old man to be able to cavort boggles the mind.
There are no other painters of that name in the big art databases, but it is possible that there was a Romney, JR active in the mid to late 1800s.
posted on September 28, 2000 08:04:35 AM
Since it is showing 1472 hits, perhaps Honesty knows which date that particular number was reached. They probably couldn't share that information, but it would be there for legal purposes, I assume.
Edited to add: The counter is still counting! How odd. I thought it would have been frozen. I just noticed that my screen shot was at 1472, but I had seen it at 1470, and now it is at 1478. So it may not be possible to date it by that number after all.
[ edited by switch on Sep 28, 2000 08:16 AM ]
[ edited by switch on Sep 28, 2000 08:59 AM ]
posted on September 28, 2000 08:38:57 AM
This could turn into a large economy size can of worms. I think you guys have hit the jackpot when you combine this fraudulent auction with the patent process, et al.
The poster who claimed to be from the Netherlands made a good point in that the "crowd" that could afford to drop $1 million+ on a piece of artwork is a tight community. The fact that all the same names popping up in itself wouldn't raise any red flags. But the fact that they are all showing up on fraudulent paintings doesn't look too good.
I hope Mrs. Rewald takes these threats and the fraudulent letter to the FBI. This could be a huge conspiracy in the art world involving what some would consider fairly reliable sources.
And I really have to laugh that OAS would be so gullible as to have accepted and been excited about this listing. They must have felt this was going to be a great coup in the online auction world. Well it appears that OAS is SOL on this one.
********************
That's Flunky Gerbiltush to you!
posted on September 28, 2000 08:46:40 AM
This gets curiouser and curiouser, doesn't it?
BTW, does anyone know if any of the appropriate law enforcement agencies have become involved?
HCQ -- hang in there, kid, and keep your wits about you.
It's simply breathtaking that a handful of *mere* (tho extraordinarily talented) internet surfers/researchers have foiled what surely looks to be an incredible scam. Equally breathtaking is the power of the internet.
posted on September 28, 2000 08:50:54 AM
Not sure how this applies, but it makes me question even further:
http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/court.htm Mr. Bright compared the bush marks found on the subject painting with brush marks found on Vincent van Gogh's self portrait of the Harvard Fogg Museum and with brush marks found on the painting known as "Rocks with Oak Trees' at the Houston Museum and the brush marks found on the "Plaster Statuette of a Female Torso" at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam ("comparison paintings".
That is in reference to Sunflower and Oleander, yet his patent information failes to mention anything about "Plaster Statuette of a Female Torso" and the court document failes to mention anything about Yellow Roses.
Since the patent information clearly states that YR was a known Van Gogh, why wasn't that stated in the court document? Instead he compares it to something at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Guess he forgot to write that part up for his patent and the whoever wrote the court document forgot to mention it too.. huh.
posted on September 28, 2000 10:08:21 AM
I really want to thank and congratulate all of you who are researching this event. I haven't participated because I know nothing about art or how to do search the way you are. Even if I did I wouldn't be able to put everything together after I found it. LOL
Also, you write in plain English so I can understand.
posted on September 28, 2000 10:30:01 AM
There are a whole lot of things in life that I can't do and that I don't really understand the process of thinking that others use to accomplish them but, in the end, I can still admire. (Composing a symphony and much of astronomy come to mind.)
I just wanted to add my thank you and admiration for the opportunity to watch this unfold.
posted on September 28, 2000 11:06:31 AM
figmente: regarding the URL you posted,
https://www.ifccfbi.gov/
Yep. Very early this morning I phoned an individual whose name I had at the National Consumers' League and was given that URL as the best single place to file a report of suspicious internet activity. It's a direct line into the FBI.
posted on September 28, 2000 11:54:50 AM
I would also like to take the time to tell you good folks how much I admire the job you have done. This was the best mystery story that I have read in a long time!
), that when you're amending something and you have several points which are numbered, you don't go back through and renumber everything. You add onto the bottom. For example, if you have points 1-10 and decided to add an entirely new example into there, you don't add it into position number 2, and end up renumbering the original 2-10, you simply add on number 11.
.