Mon Dieu! Be On The Lookout Mes Amis! Lone Thief Makes Off With $600 MillionUS In Paintings

Police and prosecutors say a lone thief has stolen five paintings worth a total of EURO500 million ($613 million), including works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight theft from a Paris modern art museum.

"Pastoral," by H. Matisse, 1905

The paintings were reported missing early Thursday from the Paris Museum of Modern Art, across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower, according to Paris police. Investigators have cordoned off the museum in one of the French capital's most tourist-frequented neighborhoods.

A single masked intruder was caught on a video surveillance camera entering the museum by a window and taking the paintings away, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.

Their collective worth is estimated at EURO500 million, the prosecutor's office said.

The paintings were "Le pigeon aux petits-pois" by Pablo Picasso, "Pastoral" by Henri Matisse, "Olive Tree near Estaque" by Georges Braque, "Woman with a Fan" by Amedeo Modigliani and "Still Life with Chandeliers" by Fernand Leger.

The Associated Press

Since When Is A 1972 Impala "Antique?"

Another example of the disconnect people have when it comes to old things is this story, which appeared in a Chicago area newspaper recently:

"A man driving an antique Chevrolet with custom rims crashed it into a parked car when he was shot at a Gresham neighborhood intersection Sunday night on the South Side.

"At 8:55 p.m. the 29-year-old man was driving his 1972 Chevrolet Impala with 22-inch rims south on South Justine Avenue when the incident occurred, according to Gresham District police."

Antique? Anyone actually on the copy desk these days?

Antique vs. Collectible - Anyone Know The Difference?

Anyone in this hobby/business of ours has encountered people convinced that their gramma's Singer sewing machine is worth thousands - simply because it's "really old."

We get it all the time: "Well, you obviously don't know what you're talking about," they'll sniff. "This (insert one: tape deck, Power Rangers lunchbox, or Star Wars light saber) is really old."

And we moan, inwardly of course.

You have only to go to the local Internet sales forums to get an idea of the disconnect. In the antiques category, typically items 100 years old or more, we've found:

"Polaroid 360 Camera. Really OLd!!!. $100 for all 3 polaroid 360 electronic flash! One of a kind!!!"

A hint, folks. Anytime someone posts an offering for a piece of junk they want to gussie up with !!!!!! it's time to run away... fast.

"Antique Bronze Fountain..there is one of these on ebay for $5000 buy it now."

Made in China, probably about six months ago...

"Antique Time Life Books. The Old West. Set of 3 books: Pioneers, Gunfighters, and Cowboys. Fair to excellent condition. Leather-bound hard cover."

Made to look old, of course... but circa 1975.

Anyone else?

Antiqueswest "Guest Columnist" I.M. Chait - "The Internet and the World of Art"

by
I.M.CHAIT

How has the Internet affected the world of art, antiques and jewelry? The real question is how has it not?

We can all agree that in the 21st Century, things move at a rate exponentially faster then they did in the past. It becomes commonplace for inventions and innovations to be so ingrained and so part of normal operating bases as to be taken for granted.

One of the most radical and progressive inventions of humankind was the printing press. It probably took one or two hundred years (or even longer) for most of the world to become "matter-of-fact" about printed books. Another such monumental invention, in more recent times, was the World Wide Web and Internet. This is an invention that has radically changed most all of our lives, most all of our businesses and has created the greatest number of opportunities as well as pitfalls for human kind since the invention of fire.

Just last night at the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles, there was an event celebrating 25 years of the Gem & Mineral Council, a membership group connected with the museum. About 150 people were in attendance who were involved in the buying, selling and collecting of minerals, gems and jewelry. At our table was a world famous jewelry designer and various mineral experts as well as an "old time" miner.

The conversation turned to how things have changed and I boldly proclaimed to all that the Internet has changed completely how gems, minerals and jewels are bought and sold or learned about. What I said literally was that "the Internet" has totally changed the playing field.

There isn't anything you can't find on the Internet. If you want to know how much a pair of 1 carat diamond studs might cost for your wife's birthday, you have hundreds to choose from online. If you want to know about the recent mining of a mineral in Tanzania, all the data is available. If your grandmother passed away and left you an Art Deco platinum and diamond bracelet, you can shop it online. Literally there is hardly anything that can’t be done online that needed to be done in the old days through personal contact in a store, through glossy photographs, and through various and sundry antique shows, etc.

If a client wants to see pictures of a piece of jewelry, your "megapixel high definition camera" will download the image and you can email it and it will arrive in moments. If you are looking to buy that pair of earrings for your wife but want to see the GIA report, it can be scanned and sent to you immediately. If you want a three-dimensional view of the mineral specimen, there are cameras and programs now that can do this rapidly and cheaply. I could go on and on but you all know what I am talking about.

Each and every day, there are millions of items related to antiques, jewelry and gems being sold online and millions and millions of viewers looking. Let’s go one step further. Where are these viewers located? Where are these sellers located? The answer is "anywhere and everywhere" on planet Earth. And even in what you might call "Third World" countries or countries with restrictive governments, there are public Internet cafes. And even where there are now high speed or Wi-Fi connections, there are still modems and on my many travels I have seen people hook their laptops up to their cell phones for dial-up connections. It truly is a World-Wide-Web.

In my own business of antique auctions, our client base has become fully international and you might say, more Web-based than the norm for auctions in the past. Inquiries come from all over the world when people view our online catalogues. With our online bidding platform, we have clients all over Asia, Europe, Canada, South America, Australia, South Africa and even one in a weather station near the North Pole who can sit and relax, with a cup of coffee, in his pajamas, watch the auction and bid just by clicking the mouse.

The most interesting part of all this is that now-a-days we all consider this "the norm."

ISADORE M.CHAIT, owner of the I.M. Chait Gallery in Beverly Hills, has been a dealer of Asian and Fine art for more than forty years, is an appraiser, and auctioneer of Asian and Fine arts.

New Record For Artwork - Picasso Sells For $106.5 Million

A painting that Picasso created in a single day in March 1932, "Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust)," sold for $106.5 million, a world record auction price for a work of art, at Christie's Tuesday night. Bidding for the Picasso lasted 8 minutes and 6 seconds; there were six bidders.


New York Times

Into Fresh-Baked Sourdough Bread? How 'Bout An Antique Starter?

Yeah, we're into food here at Antiqueswest.com and, as fourth generation Californians, we like our old San Francisco sourdough recipes and treasure them.

The Wall Street Journal food editor did some experimenting with a venerable starter, recently, and here are the results:

Now, we come from a family that makes its own vinegar, grows its own vegetables and before the sheriff closed in - used to shoot its own venison. So this time-honored approach to making bread strikes home. There's nothing like the smell of fresh-baked bread and, yeah, you have to have butter to go with it.

Anyone hungry?