Comments on: Titian at the Winter Sales

By: Matthias Wivel

Matthias Wivel — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 00:38:04 +0000

Those are, ahem, perceptive insights, but this here’s too upstanding a blog for such filthy scheming. I will have none of it… (er, PM me).

By: Li Se

Li Se — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:35:46 +0000

Here’s a proposition: we raise 800 grand and buy the painting. Then we add value to the picture: you write a new monograph on El Greco expounding how undervalued he is (high cultural capital)- I’ll write a Dan Brown-style best-seller detective novel which links El Greco with the Illuminati (Low cultural capital – just as important); we get Simon Schamer to give your book a glowing review (Lower cultural capital – even more important); We then sell the El Greco for ten times the price to a nouveau riche Russian/Chinese/Bahrainian who’s wife liked the novel. We split the difference (say, 3 million each) and use the profits to move crystal meth into the UK on an industrial scale (as you know, unlike the US, there is a large, untapped market here)

So are you in, or are you in?

By: Matthias Wivel

Matthias Wivel — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:35:37 +0000

Haha, well, point taken 🙂

But really, El Greco is generally remarkably cheap when cosidered in the heavyweight class to which he so absolutely belongs. He fetches nowhere near the sums of, say, Rubens, Poussin or Rembrandt.

By: Li Se

Li Se — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:28:56 +0000

“a terrific El Greco St. Francis estimated at what seemed to me a steal (Â£600,000 – Â£800,000; I’d rather own it than the Poussin)”

…I now have my one-liner for the dinner party I’ll be attending this weekend. Thanks!