131
not available or was simply not there. The same
goes for the distinction between real and fake.
“Early collections”—including some of those
established in the early twentieth century that
are now part of various museums around the
world—have proven not to have been immune
to fraud.
As much as our knowledge has grown and public
as well as private collections have expanded
over the past generations, allowing for better-informed
evaluations of both quality and authenticity,
our tastes regarding certain areas of artistic
production have also changed considerably.
What was considered to be good or real at one
point in time is not necessarily assessed in similar
terms today. The advent of technological means
to analyze objects in a way that normal observation
does not allow (including the application of
scientifi c methods to date objects in a manner that
was previously impossible) has also contributed
to changing opinions. Moreover, what is favored
by American collectors is not necessarily preferred
by Europeans, which further makes quality
assessment a subjective endeavor.
FIG. 21 (above): Sketch by
Frans M. Olbrechts of the
ex-Heenen, ex-Delenne
Luba bowl-bearing fi gure
currently in the Cleveland
Museum of Art.
MAS | Museum aan de Stroom,
Antwerp.
© Collectiebeleid Musea en Erfgoed,
Antwerp.
INSCRIPTIONS
In the case of collectors who also act as dealers—
long a common practice in the fi eld of African
art—a different set of criteria for the evaluation
of works is applied to those that are retained
for a personal collection and those that are made
available for sale. While not always the case, simply
stated, a dealer who also collects for his own
aesthetic pleasure may make available to clients
only material he would consider to be of lesser
value and signifi cance and keep the better works
for himself. This creates a dichotomy in quality
between his personal collection and his merchandise,
and thus his name, however famous, in association
with an object does not necessarily speak
to the quality of that object.
The case of the African collection of the Barnes
Foundation in Philadelphia, which was recently
described in a comprehensive publication edited
by Christa Clarke (2015), is a useful example of
the complexity of the issues we are discussing.
As I tried to demonstrate in my contributions to
that book, there are serious questions raised by
the wide variety of central African works in that
collection. Although all were acquired by Albert
Barnes from the infl uential Parisian dealer Paul
Guillaume in the fi rst decades of the twentieth
century, many of the works are of poor aesthetic
quality and some are of dubious or at least questionable
authenticity. Even in the art market at
the time that Barnes was acquiring the works,
the preeminent attention given to collection histories
and notable names unfortunately often
blinded potential clients to the inherent weakness
or defi ciency of an object in qualitative terms.
Moreover, the emphasis on provenance at times
enhances the undeserved celebration of what in
truth are inferior objects and the concurrent inappropriate
infl ation of their monetary value.
Regardless of the historical merits that the
provenance data relating to the Barnes Foundation
and other near-mythical “old” collections
may have, these do not per se validate the authenticity
of the works, nor do they confi rm any
aesthetic distinction. That said, the inscriptions
and sketches relating to the landmark Kongokunst
exhibition in Antwerp in 1937–38 confi rm
a direct relationship with Frans M. Olbrechts,
the founder of the morphological study of African
art. First and foremost, and for better or
worse, they illuminate a moment in history that