Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
One might assume that if an art authenticator deems an artwork genuine, or if an art appraiser values a piece for a certain value, you can be fairly certain the work in question is both authentic and worth roughly what the report claims—but in practice, neither conclusion is guaranteed.
An art authenticator determines if a piece is genuinely by the artist to whom it is attributed, while an art appraiser assesses the monetary value of the artwork. Authentication focuses on verifying the artwork’s origin and authorship, while appraisal focuses on its current market value.
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But art appraisers and authenticators are increasingly inserting “caveats” into their appraisals or hedging authentication reports as “conditional,” seemingly to skirt the legal liability that certainty might incur. In speaking with relevant experts about two recent cases, it became clear that while appraisal and authentication have always been sticky issues, this line of work may be growing more complex.
An Appraisal, With a Caveat
In January, a Paris court secured 135 allegedly stolen paintings that were seized from Paris-based art authenticators ArtAnalysis in March of last year. ArtAnalysis had been holding the works for Israeli Russian collector Mozes Frisch. The pieces are part of a 1,778-work collection of paintings supposedly by heavyweight Russian modernists. Uthman Khatib, a Palestinian businessman from Israel, and his son, Prince Castro Ben Leon, claim the works were stolen from them by Frisch in 2019. The Khatibs are suing Frisch in Germany for either the return of the stolen works or $323 million (hundreds more paintings from the 1,778-work collection were seized in Frankfurt in 2023). Meanwhile, ArtAnalysis’s owner, Laurette Thomas, along with Frisch and art collector Olivia Amar, are suing Khatib for the return of the works held in Paris, along with an additional $30.5 million in damages (plus legal fees).
As part of the legal process, the Khatibs’ law firm, Dentons, hired UK-based Doerr Dallas Valuations to appraise the 135 disputed works for insurance purposes. Doerr Dallas assigned a valuation of $208 million. That appraisal, however, came with a “caveat,” Rachel Doerr, the company’s founder and managing director, told ARTnews in a phone call, though she would not discuss the content of that caveat.
It would be reasonable to think that caveat had something to do with the fact that many of the works were listed by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) on the Art Loss Register (ALR) in 2014 during an investigation into disgraced Israeli art dealer Itzhak Zarug. The BKA said at the time it believed several of the works were fake. (The ALR is the world’s largest database of lost and stolen art, but it also lists artworks with disputed provenance.)
Doerr declined to comment on the works’ connection to Zarug or their authenticity, and later declined to answer additional questions, citing a non-disclosure agreement. Dentons, too, would not discuss the Doerr report, nor would Prague-based litigation funder LitFin, which has backed the Khatibs’ case.
In an email, SFA Associates, the Khatibs’ PR representation, wrote to ARTnews, “The valuation was obtained by Dentons for the purposes of the legal claim and for insurance policies required by the court bailiffs who have physical possession of the paintings, not for any theoretical sale process.”
How Doerr Dallas conducted the valuation is just as unclear. When asked if Doerr Dallas had physical access to the works for the appraisal, SFA did not comment.
The lack of transparency around the 135 works, and the apparent caveat in the report, are likely intended to protect Doerr Dallas from additional litigation related to the case. US-based art authenticator Richard Polsky described such measures as necessary “precautions” for a firm with “so much money involved” in the case.
“Conditional” Authentication
Art authentication can be just as fraught and high-stakes for authenticators. Last year, ARTnews reported on American tech company Co2Bit Technologies’s apparent efforts—through an intermediary—to exhibit an unauthenticated Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York without the museum’s permission.
Thiago Piwowarczyk, CEO of Brooklyn-based art authentication lab New York Art Forensics, told ARTnews at the time that he was hired by the intermediary to authenticate and appraise the work, titled 200 Yen, in 2023. Press releases from New York–based PR firm Eminence Rise Media—since deleted—promoted the painting, claiming it had been appraised at $90 million and would soon be shown in “top museums across the United States.”
Piwowarczyk, however, stated that the authentication of 200 Yen was “conditional” on the intermediary providing provenance records. Those records never materialized, and the appraisal was never finalized. He declined to share any reports or documentation with ARTnews.
“Conditional” authentication would seem to be something of an oxymoron, at least according to Denis Moiseev, CEO of scientific art analysis firm ArtDiscovery. “Common sense tells us there’s no such thing as ‘conditional’ authenticity—it’s like lending someone an umbrella only to demand it back when it rains,” he told ARTnews.
According to Moiseev, “conditional” valuations or authenticity reports “typically signal incomplete research,” adding that ArtDiscovery combines “connoisseurship, scientific analysis, and provenance research” into its reports. Many authenticators and appraisers are experts in only one of those areas, he contended, which is why they “hedge their conclusions with disclaimers.”
Conditional or caveated reports, he went on, are usually “cheaper, and there’s fear of litigation, prompting experts to ‘loan’ their verdicts only for fair-weather scenarios.”
Appraisal ≠ Authentication
Further complicating matters is that appraisal and authentication are typically two separate processes handled by two different experts.
Appraisers generally follow guidelines set out by the US-based Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) or the UK’s Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Both of those bodies provide guidance on qualified conclusions—but only in narrowly defined cases and with explicit disclosure.
USPAP defines a “hypothetical condition” as a condition contrary to known facts but used for analysis purposes, and an “extraordinary assumption” as something uncertain that, if later proven false, could affect the appraiser’s conclusions. A USPAP spokesperson explained: “Hypothetical conditions are contrary to known facts about physical, legal, or economic characteristics of the subject property; or about conditions external to the property, such as market conditions or trends; or about the integrity of data used in an analysis.”
“Uncertain information might include physical, legal, or economic characteristics of the subject property,” they added, “or conditions external to the property, such as market conditions or the integrity of data.”
But not all appraisers in the US follow USPAP guidelines. It depends on the nature of the assignment, their role, and whether they’ve agreed to adhere to them. But when they do, according to the spokesperson, such conditions must be clearly identified in the report.
RICS, the UK equivalent, offers similar guidance. A spokesperson said that while RICS’s Red Book, which dictates valuation standards, doesn’t contain clauses that exactly mirror USPAP’s definitions, the principles are embedded in the standards. “RICS member art valuers are expected to clearly state the basis of value and any assumptions or special assumptions made in their reports,” the spokesperson told ARTnews. “These are crucial when the valuation is contingent on certain conditions or when facts differ from what is typically assumed.”
For instance, a RICS valuer assessing an artwork whose authenticity is not firmly established would need to declare that uncertainty as a “material uncertainty” and make a special assumption—stating, for example, that the valuation assumes the work is authentic. Similarly, if a damaged artwork is valued “as if it were in perfect condition,” that assumption must be explicitly noted.
Izabela Grocholski, an art advisor and the ex-head of Christie’s Russian Department New York, told ARTnews that up until five years ago, auction house specialists did not always provide valuations that were compliant with USPAP. Now, it is typically mandatory.
“It’s a good trend toward trying to control the appraisal measures and procedures,” she said.
Authenticators, meanwhile, do not have a governing body or set of standards to adhere to, according to Elizabeth von Habsburg, managing director of US-based art appraiser Winston Art Group. That makes authentication “a difficult and sometimes contentious aspect of the market,” she told ARTnews.
“Sadly, appraisal conclusions are not black or white,” she said, adding that appraisals should contain information that allows users to understand the methodology, conclusions, and limitations of the appraisal.
“For example, appraisers are not authenticators, so an assumption may be made in some cases that the works are authentic, based on information provided about provenance, literature citations and exhibition history, (as well, of course, as stylistic composition and other factors that the specialist takes into account),” von Habsburg wrote in an email. “Appraisers should indicate in their limiting conditions if there is any gap in provenance or incorrect literature or exhibition citations, but for artists without up-to-date catalogues raisonné or current authentication committees, assumptions on authenticity need to be identified in the appraisal.”
But for some appraisers, like Moira McKee, a Canada-based senior appraisal specialist at global consulting firm J.S. Held, “conditional authenticity”—even if it is allowed by professional guidelines—is “antithetical to the appraiser’s responsibility to correctly identify the property we are appraising.”
The water is muddied further when authentication and appraisal become conflated. Just a few weeks ago, ARTnews reported on a $1 million lawsuit involving Pace Gallery after its founder Arne Glimcher deemed a Louise Nevelson work inauthentic—after appraising the work decades earlier as part of a group of sculptures. Commenting on the case, with which he is not involved, art lawyer Judd Grossman told ARTnews, “Our courts have made clear that an appraisal is an opinion of value, not of authenticity.”
There have been numerous cases involving liability incurred after a work was deemed inauthentic, further complicating matters for authenticators. That’s why both the Andy Warhol estate and the Jean-Michel Basquiat estate famously disbanded their authentication boards in 2012.
In 2022, it became abundantly clear why experts put in caveats or conditions when art history professor Jordana Moore Saggese disputed that her report on Basquiat works in an Orlando Museum of Art show established the works as authentic. According to Saggese, her report established that 7 of 27 evaluated works “may be” Basquiats, with the “caveat” that she only saw the works in photographs and was relying on evidence provided by other experts hired by the works’ owner. The FBI ended up seizing the works, which it determined were fake.
But if authentication reports and appraisals come with so many conditions and caveats, it begs the question of how much stock dealers or collectors should put in them. Ultimately, it seems, one has to value each appraisal or authentication individually.
“The due diligence that an authenticator who adheres to the highest ethical standards applies to their practice is carried forth by our professional responsibility to demonstrate that every reasonable effort was made to authenticate the property in question,” McKee, the Canada-based appraiser, told ARTnews. “Sufficient and substantive evidence is imperative to a sound value conclusion.”
