Caravaggio to the Rescue?
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Two shows of paintings set to open to the public on Wednesday may make or break the legacy of both an Upper East Side art gallery known for its extensive Renaissance and Baroque art collection, Salander-O’Reilly, and its well-known owner, Lawrence Salander. Mr. Salander, who is also a private art dealer, faces mounting legal trouble with as many as seven suits filed against him and the gallery in New York alone in the last two months and as many as 15 in the last year.
At the center of one of the shows is a contested painting that Mr. Salander, 58, hopes to sell for $100 million. The Salander-O’Reilly Gallery is attributing the painting, “Apollo the Lute player” (c. 1599), to Caravaggio. When the painting was last sold in 2001 at Sotheby’s for $110,000, it was attributed to the “Circle of Caravaggio.” But following a painstaking restoration, the painting is now in “perfect condition like the day it was made,” Mr. Salander told The New York Sun.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to get for it, but $100 million is cheap. It’s the most important painting ever sold,” Mr. Salander said. It is the first time a Caravaggio will be for sale in public, he added.
A lawyer who has worked on high-profile art cases, Lawrence Weinstein, said the jump in prices is “absolutely staggering.”
The high asking price of “Apollo the Lute player” is in the range of other recent sales — in June 2006, a gold-flecked 1907 Gustav Klimt portrait sold for a record high of $135 million, and in 2004, a 1905 Picasso painting sold for $104.1 million. But what sets this piece apart is the contest over its authenticity.
“It’s a price for the truly greatest, rarest works as to which there isn’t even a ghost to a hint of questions about the authenticity,” Mr. Weinstein said.
To restore the painting, Mr. Salander hired a team of experts to study it and use x-ray technology to look through the layers of varnish for hints that it could be a genuine Caravaggio. The Baroque artist, most famous for creating a new way to paint light with oils, did not draw his images first but instead composed his paintings directly on the canvas, a process made visible through the reflectology techniques used in the restoration.
“There’s a lot of change underneath where you can’t see,” Mr. Salander said.
In addition, Mr. Salander relied on the appraisal of three leading art historians familiar with Caravaggio’s work — Sir Denis Mahon, Mina Gregori, and Dr. Claudio Strinati — to verify the painting’s authenticity.
Caravaggio once called the work the greatest picture he ever painted, according to a biography of Caravaggio, and it was displayed for years in the studiolo of a Roman cardinal, Francesco del Monte, who was the artist’s first great patron.
At the gallery, the painting is displayed in an office that Mr. Salander has set up to be an exact replica of the original studiolo, complete with a photograph of the elaborate ceiling in Italy and other works on loan from two private museums in Italy, Mr. Salander explained.
The two shows, “Caravaggio” and “Masterpieces of Art: Five Centuries of Painting and Sculpture,” which cost $1 million to mount and mark Mr. Salander’s 580th show in 31 years, focus on what he called an “all-star team” of Renaissance art. He will be selling at least 12 pieces of Renaissance art in the gallery but did not want to speculate as to how much he could earn in sales.
But it is what Mr. Salander plans to do with the returns from those sales, how the show goes in general, and how a variety of lawsuits filed against him are settled that may determine his immediate future and his legacy.
Seven civil lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan in the last two months. The suits are similar in charging that Mr. Salander had co-purchased art works for his gallery with business partners, but the returns he promised to share with them from the sale of the works rarely materialized.
Mr. Salander has called the various complaints simply “disputes between friends,” and maintains he has always paid everyone back in the three decades he has been in his art dealing business, “and the same thing’s going to happen now,” he said.
A spokeswoman with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Barbara Thompson, said the office has received complaints that they are investigating, but no criminal charges have been filed.
On October 3, Bank of America filed a suit against the gallery for defaulting a promissory note for $2 million. On October 11, American Express Centurion Bank filed a suit against Mr. Salander and the gallery to recover nearly $700,000 in unpaid credit card charges made by the gallery and its principal.
In August, an art collector and hedge fund manager, Roy Lennox, filed a suit against Mr. Salander for $14.6 million, for Mr. Salander’s failure to repay his investments. A suit filed on October 1 calls for nearly $18 million from a woman who agreed to store part of her “significant” art collection with Mr. Salander, according to the complaint, but before they could agree on a final contract for possible future sales, Mr. Salander had already sold some of the pieces.
“Every person suing me has made millions of dollars with me, millions,” Mr. Salander told the Sun. “It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever been involved in, and the people’s lust for money is beyond comprehension.”
“Your best friends will destroy you,” he added.
Mr. Salander was in state Supreme Court yesterday, settling one case, which he predicts is how they will all play out. “These things will get settled because they didn’t need to be brought in the first place,” he said.
With the proceeds, Mr. Salander said he will pay back his debts “to the extent that I have any” and “maybe buy some other art.”
An attorney for an Italian art gallery who filed a suit earlier in October against Mr. Salander and the gallery for an unspecified amount laughed and said if Mr. Salander sells the Caravaggio, “everybody will be happy.”
“If he makes $100 million, it’s a good result for him and probably for his creditors,” the attorney, Francesco Di Pietro, said. “I hope he sells 10 of those pieces.”
In retrospect, Mr. Salander maintains he has pursued his true love, fine art, and stood up for what he believes in. “I’ve tried to do the best thing I could with the art,” he said. “I’ve introduced art to people.”
But the lawsuits may have larger ramifications.
“Given that the business is so trust-oriented and if enough people lost trust in somebody, that at minimum impacts what kind of deals they do,” Mr. Weinstein, who is not directly involved in the cases against Mr. Salander but has significant experience with the legal side of selling valuable art, said.
Regarding the debts and legal battles looming ahead of him, would Mr. Salander consider shuttering his gallery? The dealer remained noncommital.
“I don’t know if the city would miss me if we closed down,” he said. “There’s not a lot left to do after a show like this. It’s going to be a hard act to follow.”