Couple Sues Gallery Over Fake Norman Rockwell
- January 05, 2015 22:43
A Manhattan art gallery passed off a MobilOil advertisement as a "guaranteed" Norman Rockwell, for which it charged $347,437, a couple claims in court, reports Courthouse News Service. The story continues:
Barry and Isabel Knispel, of Saddle River, N.J., filed the complaint in Bergen County Superior Court against Gallery 63 Antiques and the owners of that Midtown East shop.
The Knispels say the now-deceased Laurence Casper examined the painting, holding "himself out to the public as 'an art historian by academic training at the graduate school of New York University.'"
"A purported 'Certified Appraiser by the Appraisers Association of America,'" Casper also held himself out as "a specialist in American painting of the 19th and 20th century," the complaint states.
An appraiser's recent review of the work for insurance purposes came to the conclusion that the Rockwell was in fact "an illustration for a MobilOil advertisement by Harold Anderson, titled 'Patching Pants,'" according to the complaint.
