Italian auction house Casa d’Aste Della Rocca on Friday said a painting of flowers that was up for auction in 2012 is by Mario Nuzzi, not Paolo Porpora, as the organizer of an exhibition in Taiwan has said.
The oil painting of flowers in a vase gained worldwide attention last month when a boy stumbled and poked a hole in the painting at the The Face of Leonardo, Images of a Genius exhibition in Taipei. The painting was later restored.
The organizer and curator of the exhibition identified the damaged painting as Flowers by Porpora (1617-1673), and said it was worth more than NT$50 million (US$1.5 million).
Photo: CNA
“We would like to specify that the experts in our Antique Painting Department confirm that the painting we auctioned in May 2012, lot 540, called Mario de’ Fiori, is attributable to Mario Nuzzi, as from our catalogue,” the auction house wrote in an e-mail to the Central News Agency.
“We would like to know on which bases the painting is said to be by Paolo Porpora, considering that it is not signed,” the auction house said.
The organizer has since retracted its initial statement over the painting’s value, saying that NT$50 million was only an estimate.
Confusion over the artist occurred after it was discovered that Casa d’Aste Della Rocca put a painting up for auction in 2012 that looks the same as the one displayed in Taipei.
The work was identified as Composizione con vaso di fiori by Nuzzi (1603-1673), valued at between 25,000 euros and 30,000 euros (US$27,900 and US$33,500), according to Casa d’Aste Della Rocca’s catalog and art market Web sites such as artprice.com.
Exhibition curator Andrea Rossi insisted that the painting was done by Porpora and said it had been misidentified by the auction house.
Sun Chi-hsuan (孫紀璿), head of exhibition co-organizer TST Art of Discovery Co, was unavailable for comment at press time last night.
According to Artprice’s database, the highest hammer price for a Porpora painting is US$184,870. That painting, which also has a flower motif, was auctioned by Christie’s in 2004.
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