CHICAGO, March 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The challenge of finding an authentic Modigliani may finally be over as new authentication projects, powered by advanced technologies, will provide provenance to many previously unverifiable pieces, potentially opening the floodgates to realization of new record market highs. Modigliani’s authenticated 1917 painting “Nu Couche,” for example, sold at auction for $170.4 million dollars, and a set a new bar for the artist’s work.
Forensic historian Daniel Voelker, who worked on the histories behind the Black Sox scandal, the real inspiration for James Bond, and the Christopher Columbus lawsuits, has unearthed all the existing evidence on authenticated Modigliani’s and finds that the oversupply of “authenticated” fakes drove up value and interest in the few rare examples that have hit the market, creating a hockey stick demand curve.
“The demand was always there, now we may have reliable product,” says Voelker, who documented the checkered Modigliani market in his just published new work: Modigliani: New Authentication Projects May Explode Global Collecting Market.
Because the artist’s work is infamous for numerous cases of forgery within the highest circles of the art world, coupled with poor documentation, there were previously believed to be only 337 authentic Modigliani’s in existence. But this is about to change. “Several parties have been quietly working on new catalogues and new validating technologies to shake up the global Modigliani collecting market, which may result in a king’s ransom of works being authenticated and brought to market,” says Voelker.
In a drive to bring new research methods into the equation, a Paris based research team started imaging previously authenticated Modigliani’s yielding new validating metrics. Marc Restillini, one the world's leading experts on Modigliani’s, plans to publish his catalogue raisonné in 2020. Collectively these initiatives will offer a new inter-referenceable database.
“I anticipate that new research hitting the market this year will drive up value on some long-questioned pieces and send some collectors over the edge, as they contemplate the fake that has been hanging on their wall for decades,” adds Voelker.
Business attorney Daniel J. Voelker has practiced commercial litigation for over 35 years and is the founder of the boutique Voelker Litigation Group. Voelker has written several articles of historical significance that have received accolades both domestically and internationally. He has been recently involved in the authentication and sale of one of world’s most fabulous paintings and draws his knowledge from that experience.
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