Which one?
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:02 pm
An art gallery manager sold a customer’s £5,000 painting to somebody else by mistake – before commissioning an ‘ugly copy’ to try to con its owner.
The Envie d’art gallery, in South Kensington, London, had been asked to look after the painting while the home of the customer who purchased it was undergoing renovations. But when the art lover asked for it to be delivered three years later, the gallery gave him an apparent imitation - and then tried to convince him it was his original. The Evening Standard reports that gallery manager Geraldine Hassler had mistakenly sold the painting while they were storing it for the customer.
The newspaper quotes a source as saying that the gallery initially said it was having trouble locating the painting and asked the customer whether he had a picture of the artwork to help them trace it. He did not have an image – but weeks later he was informed it had been found in Envie d’art’s Paris gallery. Once it had been picked up in London, the customer spotted differences and asked if the artist had carried out any extra work on the painting.
After being told this had not happened, he took his purchase home, only to find that the artist’s signature was dated three years after he bought it. The Evening Standard quotes the source as saying that the customer eventually found an email picture of his original and saw that he had been given a ‘rather ugly copy’
But which is which?
