Fakes: An investment tip
Michael Hall, Friday, 2nd May 2008
Jeremy Broadway, an amateur potter based in Dorset, has been convicted of obtaining money for deception after passing off his ceramics as works by Bernard Leach and Lucy Rie, according to a report in today’s Guardian newspaper. As forgers go, Broadway was a big success: Bonham’s sold two pots by him for £10,000 believing they were by Leach and Rie. Buyers in Denmark and the US as well as the UK are thought by police to have fallen for the scam, which was carried on for at least four years. But perhaps those buyers would be well advised to hang on to those works once they have reclaimed their money (if they can). There is plenty of evidence that work by well-known fakers acquires its own market value. A Jeremy Broadway imitation Leach will never be worth as much as the real thing, but it may well be worth more than its owners think. In January, for example, a fake Monet by the notorious forger Tom Keating was sold at auction in Northamptonshire (as a Keating) for £15,000. And even if you were one of those duped by Broadway, you have the consolation that most people who see his pots on your sideboard will assume they are the real thing – and you don’t have to pay those huge insurance premiums either.
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Comments
Ben Williams
May 12th, 2008 10:27amI think that the writer misses the point spectacularly here. This was a criminal deception, an honest replica made in the course of study or in appreciation of another artist's work is one thing but a direct copy, made with the intention of selling for financial gain is completely different. Especially when false provenances are manufactured to help aid the deception. I doubt very much that Mr Broadway's fakes will ever have any real value. However, the potential damage that he may have caused to the market and the consequent reduction in value of some people's collections is the real issue. I would have thought that Apollo would have rather concentrated on these aspects of the story rather than the predictable line that it chose to report.
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