Memoirs of London - 11

11.

 Our quiet Oxford Street daily’s life  was sometimes broken by the sudden and almost fleeting appearance of the "smugglers".

These were lurking people from the  East London less wicked and dishonest than their nickname could allow to presume, who were capable of improvising a street sales of genuine false brand names best suited for a Goldoni’s comedy.

They usually acted in groups of four, each one of them with a definite role.

They arrived to Oxfors street  in a peak hour (between 11.30 a.m and 16 p.m.) after parking  their van in one of the inner streets. They usually occupied a sidewalk segment between two crossbars; two of them acted as poles in each of the two intersections, so it could never happen that a patrol bobbies came unexpectedly  and the other two arranged the box with the merchandise in the center of the pavement (perfumes, wallets, scarves, lighters, watches, jewelry, which varied according to the days, but they were  always fake trademarks).

 One of them, the speaker, sitting on one of the cardboard boxes, overturned as a  seat, while on the other higher the objects were exposed for sale, boasted the quality and price of their goods,  extolled in that incomprehensible London dialect, which itself was an unmissable show.

The other, the provocateur, was placed behind the crowd who regularly stopped around the show, attracted by that improvised show and pushing against people with the elbows, showing  the money between his fingers, shouted "... I buy  three of them! "," I want two! "," I take four of those! "dragging behind him dozens of buyers who sometimes gave the money without even knowing what they were buying.

Once one of the two poles, aware of the arrival of a couple of bobbies, gave the alarm. Within a matter of five seconds, without having previously reassured the occasional customers on their honest intentions, goods, money and boxes had already disappeared swallowed from the alley opposite to the policemen 's arrival direction. And after these, completely ignorant, had disappeared from the acute view of the poles, at the same point they were reforming the sales desk. And it should be added that the interruption did not do much to the affairs of the band.

As a matter of fact the fear of the police the band showed, whether true or false it might have been, convinced people that the proposed deal had to be very profitable.

What a blessed naivety of British people and London tourists!

I remember  that my father used to count about Neapolitan scoundrels selling to naïve buyers fake gold watches since the endo of Second World War,  pretending they were booty of  the last robbery of the century. Though everybody knows  the Neapolitan Theatre , is somewhat different from the English comedy.

 I also remember that Bob once confessed to me that he had earned his way of living in that style , for some time,  and he  knew those who practiced it,  to be all very good guys.

11. to be continued...

Nepro Mailliw

Who was he? The answer leads to a real spy-story, set in the First World War.
First of all the portrait: it was believed to be a fake, until the experts, arguing from its signature, which is the exact anagram of Orpen William, the Irish artist who realized the original one, hung in a major national museum.
Now the portrait has been valued £ 250,000, more than the house where it has been hanging for the past decades.
In the next days all the truth will be said over the astonishing story.

To know more:
By Paul Sims link below on the DM on line

Sometimes it pays to take a second look at a work of art.
When this 'copy' of a painting by wartime artist Sir William Orpen was first taken to the Antiques Roadshow, it was judged to be nothing special.
After experts from the long-running BBC programme did further research, however, they were astonished to find it was an original - and it was valued at an incredible £250,000.
The real deal: The owner of an original Sir William Orpen painting was shocked to discover it is worth £250,000

Irish portrait painter William Orpen created his artwork The Spy - of his mistress Yvonne Aubicque - as an escape from the daily trials of covering WWI.
The name of the painting aroused suspicions of the censor, Lieutenant-Colonel Lee, according to expert Rupert Maas.

'The idea of a spy was extremely tricky because the English spy Edith Cavell had just been executed and Mata Hari had also been executed,' Mr Maas said.

'Orpen was summoned back to London to explain himself and he tried to bluff it by creating a story. He said that the woman was a German spy who was to be shot by the French and he had been allowed just an hour to paint her.

'He said that she had been given the greatcoat to wear by one of the guards and she was hoping that when she took it off her simple beauty would astonish the firing squad and they wouldn't be able to pull the trigger.

Orpen then came clean and admitted the painting was of his lover. He was facing a court martial, but charmed Lft Col Lee with the help of Lord Beaverbrook. The painting was renamed The Refugee.

In a further twist, Ms Aubicque became involved with Orpen's chauffeur after the artist left France - and the pair both spied for Britain during WWII.

Grover-Williams was caught and shot and Yvonne returned to Britain, where she became a judge at dog show Crufts.
This not only made it worth more than the owner's house, but also the most valuable artwork ever to appear on the show.

The incredible story behind the painting will be revealed to viewers tomorrow.
The owner, who after learning the value of the painting now wishes to remain anonymous, was left 'completely gobsmacked' after discovering the truth about his heirloom.

Antiques Roadshow's Rupert Maas said: 'His uncle bought the painting because he loved it and the owner kept it and hung it in his home all these years because he loved it.
'Both men had no idea it was by Orpen himself and the current owner was staggered that is was worth so much money. He is a modest man of modest means,' Mr Maas added.

The man had inherited the picture, of Yvonne Aubicque, Sir William's beautiful young mistress, and hung it in his living room before taking it to a recording of the programme in Greenwich.
Orpen - an official war artist - was in France recording the horrors of the First World War trenches when he found time to paint his lover - the daughter of the Mayor of Lille.

His work shows the attractive young lady with red cheeks wearing an Army greatcoat.

The artist was threatened with court martial when his superiors learned he had taken time out for the private portrait, but he escaped punishment after the intervention of his friend Lord Beaverbrook.
As a thank you, Orpen painted a near-identical version of the portrait in 1920 and gave it to the aristocrat.
It was later bought by the current owner's uncle. The original is in the Imperial War Museum.

Mr Maas said he found references to the copy in a letter from Orpen to Lord Beaverbrook.


An inscription on the picture reads 'copy by person unknown' but Mr Maas suspected the painting was by Orpen after discovering his trademark signature Nepro Mailliw - his name spelled backwards - had been inscribed on the work.

Mr Maas said the second version was warmer and perhaps more desirable' than the original.
'It makes you wonder just how many people there are out there sitting on national treasures like this.'
The story behind the painting will be told on Sunday's episode of Antiques Roadshow ."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1274294/Owner-fake-painting-gobsmacked-sets-Antiques-Roadshow-record-250-000.html#ixzz0nJfIHDzx

Pittsburgh beats London 1-0

It seems true that the copy of Francesco Francia's Virgin and Child with Angel, held by London's National Gallery it's only a 19th's century fake made by an anonymous while the original renaissance's masterpiece is shown at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum.

How many fakes are still shown in the major museums of the world?

To know more read on DM on line by Dalya Alberge

The National Gallery has discovered an impostor among its great Old Master pictures, a 19th-century forgery of a 15th-century painting.
The Virgin and Child with an Angel has been a highly-prized painting by the Renaissance artist Francesco Francia since it was acquired as a gift almost 100 years ago. It was thought to have been painted around 1490.
Now it has been unmasked as a fake, painted as recently as the second half of the 19th century. It is a dramatic occurrence for a national collection to find a forgery.
The Virgin and Child with an Angel was thought to be painted around 1490. Now it is thought to have been painted in the second half of the 19th century
Experts at the gallery found the damning evidence recently when they used routine scientific tests to look through the painting’s layers for the first time.
Scientific analysis exposed the deception, revealing that the forger used pigments that were not available before the 19th century and coated the top layer with a natural resin to simulate the appearance of age.
To their astonishment, they discovered a preliminary drawing beneath the painting drawn with a graphite pencil - an implement that did not exist at that time.
'This proved the painting could not be an authentic Francesco Francia,' says Betsy Wieseman of the gallery.


The style of the under-drawing was 19th-century rather than 16th, she adds, pointing out that the forger also simulated the natural pattern of cracks that develop in old paintings.
If not for the scientific tests, the forgery would not have been uncovered. 'It is a lovely, very attractive painting otherwise', Ms Wieseman says.
The oil-on-wood painting, which measures 58.5 by 44.5 cm, was described as a Francia when it was bought by the collector Ludwig Mond in 1893.
In 1924, his £500m-collection of Renaissance masterpieces, including Raphael, Titian and this 'Francia', was left to the nation.
The Francia Virgin took pride of place in the National Gallery until 1954 when another version, now in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh , surfaced.

Its quality was superior, but experts still believed that the National Gallery’s painting was a Francia.
The gallery now realises that its version is a precise copy of the Pittsburgh one.
Francia was an important artist in his day, but he has since been overshadowed by his Renaissance contemporaries. The National Gallery has four other genuine works by him.
The Gallery’s Renaissance expert Luke Syson says: 'Francia is no longer prized to quite the same degree as he was in the middle of the 19th century, when this fake was made.

'Yet as an artist, Francia remains very important because he was both a painter and a goldsmith.
'Before it was discovered to be a fake, The Virgin and Child was highly prized by art historians, particularly because the chalice held by the angel appeared to provide a very rare example of Francia’s work as a goldsmith.'
Asked whether they fear they may discover more fakes, the Gallery says it is unlikely.
The fake will have one last outing in a gallery show before being disgraced to a storeroom. It will be included in the National Gallery’s major exhibition Fakes,