Answers to the Friday AFternoon Challenge: the back story!

[CTyankee]

If you missed the Challenge yesterday and would like to try your luck, stop here and go to: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1909263

Here are the answers and back stories:

1.
Storm in the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, stolen in the Gardner Museum great art heist of 1990, along with Vermeer’s “The Concert.” It has never been recovered.

2.
David Stein’s faked Chagall. His wife, Anne-Marie Stein, wrote about his forgeries in “Three Picassos Before Breakfast. Memoirs of an Art Forger's Wife,” published in 1973.

3.
Matisse. Drawing of woman. La Colombe d’or restaurant, Provence. Like many of his fellow artists, Matisse traded for his meals there with his art. Read about this marvelous place here http://ninasaville.suite101.com/la-colombe-dor-restaurant-south-of-france-a84795. Daurade (sea bream) is a specialty of the restaurant.

4.
Joan Miro’s “World Trade Center” tapestry commissioned in 1974 and destroyed on September 11, 2001.

5.
Raphael Colonna Altarpiece. This work was part of the Morgan Collection, which J.P. Morgan had installed in London. Morgan wanted to bring it to the U.S. but the 20% tariff on importing it here would have been hugely expensive (given what he had paid for it). Senator Nelson Aldrich (R-RI) put a provision in the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act that would exempt all works of art more than twenty years old from a tariff, with the express purpose of helping get the Collection to the U.S. Morgan subsequently brought it to New York. His son later donated the Colonna Altarpiece to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it can be seen today.

6.
Hans van Meeregen demonstrating how he faked Vermeer to avoid being prosecuted for treason in Holland after WWII. This fascinating story, which includes Van Meergen’s sale of one of his fakes to a gullible Goering (who was still alive when he learned he’d been “had”) is the subject of “The Forger’s Spell” by Edward Dolnick and "The Man Who Made Vermeers," by Jonathan Lopez.

Many thanks to all who participated! You were all so good!

Please visit the Challenge again next Friday...

[pinboy3niner]

1. I tracked down the Miro but discounted it, lol

iirc the work was large--about 20 feet by 30 feet--and this scrap looked too small to be part of it. So I spent more time looking for other works damaged or destroyed on 9/11.

Foiled again! :rofl:

This isn't over yet, CTyankee. We shall meet again in your next dastardly Challenge!

[CTyankee]

2. Next week the Challenge won't be so complicated...but fun!

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[Brickbat]

4. Ah, I had the wrong forger for the Chagall!

Thanks for the challenge. I love this stuff!

[CTyankee]

7. Next week will be a hoot! Hope you stop by to join in...it oughta be

a nice ride...

[Generic Other]

5. OK CT here is an example of my forger's art...

This is the famous lost Picasso. Which I found in one of my Photoshop files. LOL.

All parts came from Picasso.

[CTyankee]

6. It's kinda like what van Meeregan did. At least at first.

He did a "spitting image" of a couple of "Vermeers" that were immediately suspected. Then he significantly changed to the "other" Vermeer, weaving this tale that the artist had had a religious conversion later in life and these were his "lost" paintings (funny how so many of them turned up all of a sudden!). To make the paint as hard as it would have to be in order to be several hundred years old, he mixed his paint with Bakelite (a precursor of plastic) and literally baked them in a large oven.

So did you put this "Picasso" together yourself?

BTW, Picasso didn't mind people "doing" his paintings. He said some of them he would probably sign...

[Generic Other]

8. je l'avoue

Painting With Picasso

unfinished painting. "Le peintre et son modele" Pablo Picasso, Musee Nationale, Paris. 1914.
foot. "Les deux freres," 1906.
buildings out the window. "Paysage (Etude pour "Le Tricorne"),1919.
bowl of pears, red cloth. "Nature morte sur la commode," 1919.
coat, eyes. "La danse villageoise," 1922.
painting on easel. "Homme a la mandoline" 1911.
hand, pants. "La lecture de la lettre," 1921.

[CTyankee]

9. Ah, so it is YOURS, Monsieur!!

You are unmasked as the master forger of Picasso!

And now I must confess to only knowing a few of those...

I doff my cap...