posted on September 26, 2000 02:42:55 PM
Seeing as how the main thread has now been locked, and seeing as how Pat Taylor said anybody who wanted to continue the discussion should start a new thread on the subject...
I just figured I'd start this thread so that all the supporters of the painting would have a place where they can come and apologize to the rest of us. After all, they repeatedly asked if we would apologize if the painting sold, so I'm sure they will all apologize now that the auction has been pulled. After all, fair is fair, right?
I also thought this would be a good thread to tie up any loose ends that might still be hanging around...
posted on September 26, 2000 02:53:27 PM
No doubt the supporters are way too busy filing lawsuits to apologize. Or maybe they are choking on their own words. Hard to tell.
posted on September 26, 2000 03:24:23 PM
Gee -- I guess I'd better turn on my e-mail notification as well [too bad you can't do that when you start a thread....]
After getting 100+ van Gogh related e-mails per day [or so it seemed], I'm about to go into withdrawal here!
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on September 26, 2000 03:46:38 PM
I would like to thank all the marvelous contributors to the Van Gogh thread who pointed out numerous discrepancies I would have missed on my own. But ESPECIALLY I want to thank the absolutely incredible HCQ, whose brilliant analysis, research, and writing left me utterly astounded day after day. You are amazing.
posted on September 26, 2000 03:47:23 PM
okay, may as well turn mine email on as well.....even though I didn't even read the now locked thread. Guess I'll have to now huh?
posted on September 26, 2000 03:56:28 PM
My first post on this topic-
I don't see the actions of the cybersleuths who discredited this auction as mean spirited (as has been implied) at all. They likely saved someone from being vicitmized by an apparent fraud.
And that's certainly what it looks like at this point. Documents don't forge themselves. I hope someone passed this episode along to the FBI and the appropriate state AG. Just because nobody got taken, doesn't mean there was no crime committed.
posted on September 26, 2000 03:59:21 PM
Cut it out, you guys. I didn't do anything anybody else stuck in bed couldn't do.
Which is why I guess I pursued it - you know, "Jeez, do these people really think we're that stupid?"
What annoys me the most is that it took me as long as it did to make certain connections - to track down Haskins's bio info, for example, and link him to Twilley and McCrone (Haskins took a course from McCrone), and to put together a timeline on the analyses - when I'd been staring at their dates for weeks! Duh. To find the Bright story and patent - and then forget to do the math on his age, making him just the right age to get his first apartment in 1957. And then obviously the Rewald letter was released on a Friday afternoon when businesses would be closed and nobody could be reached...except at their homes, of course
So many questions. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of certain California edifices today...
posted on September 26, 2000 04:16:03 PM
Thank you everyone for giving me a reason to wake up each morning for these last few weeks. HCQ...I applaud you. Not only for your determination, but when they started to besmirch Ramona's good name, I know I would have gone ballistic. LOL This was better than the Olympics. It was a tag team effort. I was biting my nails when I could see the house of cards falling around them and then to visit the moderator's corner to see that they requested that it be locked before all the cards had fallen....whew!!! It doesn't get any better than that.
[ edited by bootsnana on Sep 26, 2000 04:18 PM ]
posted on September 26, 2000 04:25:53 PM
Now abacaxi, I'm sure, would do just fine in some chichi Grace Kelley getup...
Let me tell you, when I didn't hear from Ms. Rewald yesterday I was a bit perplexed. I was typing my little "why this means something" manifesto (thanks guys for putting up with my interminable posts) and bink! An email. From Sabine Rewald. TWO emails from her. By the time I read 'em I was shaking pretty hard.
Incidentally, we never would have tracked Sabine down - or at least this fast - if it hadn't been for several of you posting excerpts of John Rewald's work. Through them I found a review, and through THAT I found out that his DIL was a curator at the Met, and then athena and noshill gave me a couple links to phone numbers of other people, and it just sort of went on from there.
Any hypotheses on who's the seller? And how many other links besides Bright and McCrone there are to "Sunflowers and Oleander"?
Incidentally, if you want a really good internet-mystery read and don't mind a little bondage , do pick up "As Francesca" by Martha Baer.
I noticed a brief, intriguing mention in it, to quote: " In 1990, when a Delta couple representing the Rudolphs took the painting to the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, they too came away with a firm no." (Regarding an attempt to authenticate the Rudolph painting as a van Gogh.) Isn't 1990 the very year one of the primary thread participants kept stating she and her husband had seen "Yellow Roses" in that museum? Likely a complete coincidence, I guess. At any rate, that URL has 8 selectable newspaper articles that make extremely interesting reading about that other painting and the greed and controversy that swirled around it, kudos for tracking it down! But of course maximo kudo for locating the Rewald relative for a reaction to that supposed letter from her father. Game, set, match right there, it would seem.
Plus thanx to the moderators for seeing to it that much of the main thread was caught like a trapped bug in amber before certain parties could edit their contributions into oblivion.
posted on September 26, 2000 05:03:16 PMAhem, everyone,
Some of the posts in this thread are insulting, not toward an individual poster but rather a nonspecific group. Please keep in mind that those (some of) you disagreed with in the other thread are still members of AuctionWatch and have the right to expect courteous treatment. That includes posting about them as well as to them.
posted on September 26, 2000 05:11:54 PM
Pat's right, kids. Val's rugby team T-shirts read "Fierce in battle, generous in victory, gracious in defeat." Not bad advice, although damn! It's hard
Actually, it was noshill who uncovered the Maine Antiques Digest article mentioning Bright, which in turn led to the Sacramento Bee series that you mention, pyth00n. But a good call. One of the articles in the series actually mentions the couple's names. They showed up at the Van Gogh when it was closed and the director let them in anyway (so much for museums not wanting to do authentications); then he showed them all the reasons it couldn't be a Van Gogh. Well, Bright still believes it is. His brush-stroke analysis says so, even if he can't get any museums to accept it.
Did I tell you guys that because I thought it might give 'em a good har, I've emailed the SacBee reporters who covered the "Sunflowers" story to tell them about "Yellow Roses," since it figured into "Sunflowers"?
Edited to add: - switch- Duh. I need a nap. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Of course you're right; Ms. R would know, wouldn't she.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Sep 26, 2000 05:15 PM ]
posted on September 26, 2000 05:20:30 PM
Well, if we're doing a movie, I want Jane Fonda to play me!
HCQ -
It's not unusual for everybody to have eventually studied or worked with everybody else in a small industry. I would put the blame on the seller for letting what he wanted the painting to be get in the way of what the facts could prove.
And it is not unknown for persons who know how the lab process works try to make it difficult for the lab to give good results, or for things to show up on a second analysis that were not there the frst time.
posted on September 26, 2000 06:49:28 PM
Oh, I concur, abacaxi. Paths cross a lot in professional communities. I (and Barry, I'm sure) can attest to the tangled interrelationships of New England law firms. Which means, of course, that a person's history is nearly impossible to erase; too many people know people who know people who can point you to the right source, etc. etc.
I have no reason to doubt the 1980s lab reports of Haskins and Twilley, despite their very close association. I do find Haskins's 2000 addendum rather odd, given his (literally) microscopic evaluation of the piece a dozen years earlier. I wish he'd cleared that up...But it's immaterial at this point, and we'll probably never know anyway.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Sep 26, 2000 06:51 PM ]
posted on September 27, 2000 05:43:41 AM
I have to stick my 2 cents in here. The original thread was absolutely fascinating - like a serialized mystery. I couldn't WAIT to read new developments from day to day. Now I sit here shaking my head thinking about the scope and drama of this whole episode. Whew!
HCQ: Fantastic! You are one hell of an analyst! All the messages in the thread should be compiled and published. Hmmm... I wonder...
posted on September 27, 2000 07:56:36 AM
I think starvnartst called "dibs" on that some time back. He said he had a meeting today with a film studio to go over the script (which took him 3 days to write). And everybody posting to the thread is going to get a big cut of the take.
posted on September 27, 2000 08:10:51 AM
I see the problem. When the original Van Gogh thread was locked they failed to put a wooden stake through it's heart.
posted on September 27, 2000 08:14:20 AM
Totally impressive detective/research work, neat demonstration of what several persistent researchers can accomplish and a nice workout for the Internet. HCQ, your "confined to bed" research is worthy of the two best "detective confined to bed solves an old mystery" books I've ever read. First, of course, is the all-time classic, The Daughter of Time, in which Josephine Tey's detective "clears" Richard III. Also, Colin Dexter wrote a really fine "Morse," in which Morse solves a century-old murder mystery. I think it was called "The Riddle of the Last Mile" or something like that. Two fine mysteries, and another one demonstrated here for our enjoyment and education.
posted on September 27, 2000 09:35:05 AM
Just an update:
Two separate, reliable and disinterested parties confirm - one by email, one by phone - that they have personal, firsthand knowledge that our earlier suspicions regarding the owner's identity are correct.
Does that follow CGs?
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Sep 27, 2000 09:37 AM ]
posted on September 27, 2000 12:55:24 PM
Bravo, Bravo!! I'm just now catching up on all the big doins and I also want to praise the detectives for their persistence and diligence in getting the "facts" out into the open. No doubt we haven't heard the last of YR or OAS around here. I just hope all the sock puppets can figure out how to walk with their tails between their legs.
And if anyone doesn't think NetCops have a place in online auctions, let them read through 25 pages and be convinced otherwise!
