May 9, 2025

RKD and Collections Trust Spoliation Reports: Antoine Seilern

Antoine Seilern and the Princess Gates Bequest appear in many provenances. This post gathers together information from the RKD and the UK Collections Trusts.

May 5, 2025

How to create a false provenance for a forgery, IKEA-style satirical instruction manual from ChatGPT

Here's a satirical IKEA-style instruction guide for assembling a false provenance for a forged artwork. It’s entirely fictional and intended to educate through humor—exposing how shady art dealings might look if they came with assembly instructions. (author: ChatGPT4o)


🖼️ FAKEVÄRDE

False Provenance Kit – Discreetly elevate your garage painting to gallery prestige!

📦 Contents:

  • 1x Faded Auction Catalogue (pre-yellowed)

  • 3x Invented Collectors (with vaguely European surnames)

  • 1x Retired Art Historian (missing credentials)

  • 2x “Private Collection, Switzerland” Labels

  • 1x Forged Gallery Sticker

  • 1x Typewriter (w/ misaligned keys for “authenticity”)

  • 1x Bottle of Coffee (for artificial aging)

May 1, 2025

RKD Speelman

The RKD is an important source of art provenance information. The RKD cuts across data silos to bring together provenance and other information from numerous museums. Below is a search (via Sparql query) for "Speelman", an important art dealing dynasty. Click on the urls to see the complete RKD information as well as, in certain cases, links to the current collection.

(If a link doesn't work, use the RKD ID to find the artwork. Or replace "https://data.rkd.nl/images/" with "https://research.rkd.nl/en/detail/https%3A%2F%2Fdata.rkd.nl%2Fimages%2F" or with the permalink url "https://rkd.nl/images/" )

For more on Speelman, see also posts on The Legacy of Edward Speelman and Edward Speelman and the Toledo Museum of Art and Edward Speelman in America.

Apr 23, 2025

Galerie Moos: tracing history through public auctions

 The Moos art dealing dynasty has placed an important role. This post focuses on artworks that passed through Moos and Christie's.

Apr 21, 2025

Can ChatGPT find the Knoedler forgery lawsuits?

 rundate: April 21; 2025

AI tool: ChatGPT4O "DeepResearch"

author: AI ChatGPT

Known Lawsuits Against Knoedler Gallery (Forgery Scandal)

Below is a comprehensive list of all known lawsuits filed against Knoedler Gallery (d/b/a Knoedler & Co.) in connection with the sale of forged artworks. Each entry includes the plaintiff(s), filing date (or year), docket number if available, a summary of the claim (e.g. purchase of a fake painting with allegations of fraud/misrepresentation), and the outcome or settlement details: