Portrait of Louis Jouvet. Esche one difficult case

[ранжер]

Already mentioned that the portrait, along with other property, the daughter of L. Jouvet came up for auction after her death. Regular sale, without a directory, whom the French daily occur dozens if not hundreds. However, the local auctioneers, especially the old batch, experienced people who have a keen eye.
When they launched a crumpled roll of old linen, then immediately saw that they were not trivial scribble theatrical prop, and an extraordinary work of art.

The question came up evaluation. If you sell this picture just as the work of an unknown artist, you have to declare a thousand and a half euros.

Among the assets of the deceased were two landscapes Pozhedaeva and some of his theatrical designs. At this time the French market has already started "Russian Rush. To attract buyers from this sector, etude "appointed" by the author of this picture G. Pozhedaeva and place more spectacular picture in the weekly newspapers Drouot ". Score was now already 3 /5000 euros. This trick worked. At banal bidding escheat property buyers flocked many, many more signed up to purchase by phone, and, for the most part these were not serious players Russian art market.
As you can see, the calculation of Commissioner-winners and the price was justified, compared with the lower estimate has increased by 25 times!

By the way, before selling the portrait auctioneer warned that they do not claim that the author of G. Pozhedaev, but he may be, as in this meeting were signed by the works of this Russian artist. Ie thus, he will secure sketch of the potential buyer later claims about the authorship.