“Sotheby’s respects and maintains the confidentiality of its senders and buyers, and does not comment on matters that are not in the publ...
“Sotheby’s respects and maintains the confidentiality of its senders and buyers, and does not comment on matters that are not in the public domain,” the statement said, adding, “This particular work was known to the market and traded multiple times prior to auction in 1994.
The Chagall hung for years on the wall of the bedroom Mrs Clegg shared with her husband, Alfred John Clegg, before being put into storage when she moved to a smaller house. That’s where it was, she said, when Sotheby’s suggested in early 2020 that if it was interested in selling items, its Chagall, among others, might do well. The work was then sent to the Marc Chagall Committee, a committee of experts founded in 1988 which decides on the authenticity of the works attributed to the artist.
At the end of 2020, the panel published its findings regarding its work. In a letter to Mrs Clegg, Meret Meyer, one of Chagall’s granddaughters and member of the jury, said she had unanimously concluded that the work was inauthentic, adding that it was an amalgam several other works including “Le couple au bouquet”. from around 1952, and “Lovers on Horseback” from 1961.
Ms Clegg’s painting included “recurring iconographic elements of Chagall’s work” including a bouquet, lovers, a horse profile, a rooster profile, a village silhouette and a crescent moon, the committee wrote, but these lacked “real presence”, according to a translation provided by Ms Clegg’s lawyer. The letter went on to say that Chagall’s heirs were asking for the “judicial seizure” of the painting “so that the work can be destroyed”.
In France, the courts have recognized the power of expert commissions to destroy works found to be infringing.
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