A London dealer disagrees with Artcurial on a painting he bought last year, for which he claims the Paris auction house was unwilling to provide the provenance information required to comply with anti-money laundering rules (AML ). Artcurial insists it has always met all of its obligations and canceled the sale last month.
Patrick Matthiesen bought Narcissus (circa 1640), a work recently reallocated to the French Baroque painter Laurent de la Hyre, for €918,400 (estimated between €200,000 and €300,000) on November 9, 2022. The large canvas had no other provenance than a “anonymous sale” of 1929 at Christie’s in London. She had then disappeared but is mentioned by Pierre Rosenberg and Jacques Thuillier in their 1988 monograph on the artist. For a long time, the painting was mistakenly considered by the neoclassical French painter Robert Lefèvre.
Specialists at the Matthiesen Gallery discovered that in 1929 the painting had been sold as is by Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Granville to a London merchant family, the Vokins, for 49 guineas (about £4,300 today). “We also discovered that the painting was almost certainly part of the collection of Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, at Strawberry Hill House. [in London]“, explains Matthiesen.
A month after the Artcurial sale in November, the French state issued an export certificate. But Matthiesen says he could not transfer the painting to the UK because he had no information about its provenance after 1929. It’s about an agent, finding the ultimate beneficiary,” says Matthiesen. “Similar rules apply in America and there’s no way to sell the painting in the United States without any whereabouts information for almost 10 years. ‘a century. Unfortunately, Artcurial could not provide any useful information.
The dealer claims that it took ten weeks to learn that the painting would come from “a Belgian bourgeois family”. Asked by Matthiesen for more information, Artcurial said it was “in fact sold by a British company, which bought it last summer from the Belgian family for €30,000 as a work by Lefèvre”, says he, adding that he “could not access any information on any of these sources”.
Former master of Artcurial and specialist in 19th century art, Matthieu Fournier declares: “Artcurial is required by French law to protect the anonymity of its clients. We have no historical record of the painting after 1929, but Patrick Matthiesen was aware of it when he purchased the lot. Fournier adds that the Belgian family has been informed of the change in attribution and value.
After solemnly demanding payment twice, the auction house canceled the sale on April 10 “at the request of the seller”. Artcurial indicates that it reserves the right to seek compensation for its loss.
Meanwhile, Matthiesen reported the matter to several bodies, including the European Commission’s Financial Crimes Unit, which confirmed that “the AML Directive obliges auction houses to carry out effective due diligence to customers and to file suspicious transaction reports” if there were any. The unit, however, does not comment on specific cases.
Matthiesen was concerned by an inscription on the frame reading “R. LeFevre, scuola francesa”, suggesting that the work was in Italy at some point. Furthermore, the dealer claims that Artcurial did not produce an export license from Belgium. Artcurial’s response was that “an export license was not required to transfer the work from Belgium to France, but of course we have all the necessary shipping documents”.
Matthiesen also reported the matter to AML agencies in France and the UK, and lodged a complaint with the magistrate linked to the French art market authority. The body declined to comment. But Artcurial says it has provided all the necessary documents and affirms that “many elements given to these institutions were erroneous, even defamatory”.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had this kind of problem in France,” says Matthiesen. “In other cases too, we had to reconstruct the history of the lot ourselves, without the help of the auctioneers. If some French auctioneers do not accept the need to be more transparent, British and American merchants will not continue to buy from them.
