Great Canadian Fake Victorian Paintings

Acquired at a recent Toronto fine art auction, was the picture left, a pastel and watercolour painting advertised as "Lighthouse by the Seashore."

Unfortunately, like so many old paintings one finds at auctions, this one was not signed or titled.

The curator with no background - or less - in Canadian art or Canadian places - gave it a silly title.

So you end up with what everybody hates at art auctions, an anonymous painting without a name or location.

Lighthouses by the seashore were not popular at this auction. Probably somewhere in France, or the south coast of England most dealers thought.

As a result it aroused no bidding interest...

It happens hundreds of times at auctions every year.

The painting has a wonderfully evocative mood created by a talented artist. It was probably painted in the late Victorian or Edwardian eras. But you think you recognize the place, and you buy it to check for sure... What do you do next. Find the lighthouse; find Henry, that's what!

Go to Henry Sweet

A Fortified Town

Another throwaway by a Toronto fine art auction house, whose curator called this A Fortified Town, probably more aptly describing the state she was in when she catalogued it, having no clue as to what it might be, or where...

In fact it is a wonderful watercolour painted by R.B. Wood, dated 1830, of Montreal from Ile Ste.- Hélène

The dead giveaway should have been the lumber raft, a sure Canadian clue, as is the York boat in the foreground.

The soldier is on garrison duty at Ste. Helen's Island and the hill and town are similar to other paintings of the period done from this spot.

From now on the painting will be much more desirable, and valuable, with its proper name: "Montreal, from Ste. Helen's Island, 1830, R.B. Wood."

Mystery at Ile Ste.- Hélène - A fascinating sidelight of this old watercolour is that it strongly mimics the Sproule/Bourne engraving of 1830. But in one significant way it is different.

Whereas Bourne cheated, by depicting Notre Dame Cathedral, from plans he saw of the way it would look when completed with two towers, later, in the early 1840s, on this watercolour dated 1830, Notre Dame really looks like it was in 1830, with only one stumpy north tower that was under construction then.

If this original watercolour was painted from the engraving, why select the church for such special attention, and bother to change its towers so drastically, and draw them accurate to the way they (one) really looked at the time? Who, indeed, would ever know, or care?

A French Farm

Cast on the trash heap of history by a Toronto fine art auction with a throwaway title sure to arouse no bidding interest from anyone.

Good for the smart buyer.

It's not a French farm at all, but a Belgian one...

La Haye Sainte farm, of course, is recognized by all those who paid attention in history class as the centre point of one of the greatest battles in history, the Battle of Waterloo, which brought down Napoleon, in Belgium in 1815, .

The farm saw the dreadful slaughter during the high point of the battle as masses of French troops charged to dislodge the British and Prussians holding the farm.

It is a watercolour painted, again, probably by a British officer revisiting the site a few years after the battle. The cannon ball holes in the house, and on the walls, should have been a dead giveaway but were missed by both the curator and bidders at the auction.

Many British officers and men who fought at Waterloo later settled in Canada, and built the "Regency Cottages" that dot the southern Ontario landscape today.

One of them brought this souvenir from the most momentous battle of the 19th century to Canada, and now, properly identified as "La Haye Saint Farm: Battle of Waterloo, 1815" will have a much more valuable provenance.

Alcatraz

The high end Toronto auction house that sold off this original watercolour entitled it Alcatraz, all based on their art expert's research. Alcatraz is the historic prison island in San Francisco Bay.

The art expert took one look, and said, "Let's see... an island, a long building and a tower... That's it... It's Alcatraz!" Even a cursory comparison to Alcatraz shows a fit so poor, a blind man could have done as well in assessing the painting.

Which is why, when buying auction items, and even - especially - paintings from high end auction houses, you better know what you're buying yourself, before you throw good money after bad art...

Go to Fake Krieghoff

Go to Fake Bronzes

There are, of course, many island headlands with lighthouses on them...

Clearly the ship is the clue, not the island! This is obviously an American war ship of the Spanish-American War era.

An Unknown Gentleman

A truly fabulous large and ultra rare piece of historical art.

But who is it?

It turned up at a high end Toronto fine art auction dismissed by the art expert merely as an "unknown man." It came from a Rhode Island estate.

The frame is fitted around an oil painting on a wooden slab which is heavily lacquered and framed with sea shells, two of which have fallen off, and two are damaged.

But then the piece is ancient, well over 100 years old. The portrait has a split behind the ear caused by the wood drying out through time. We originally thought it Spanish-American War (1898) in origin, but the age burn throughout, is considerably older than that...

The portrait is obviously of an American officer, wearing a uniform - epaulettes, collar, and buttons as worn by naval and army officers from the Civil War 1861 to around 1910.

The sash is noteworthy and should be a defining clue as to the man's identity.

Go to General Phil Sheridan