$30 Drawing Could Be a Renaissance Work Worth Millions | Hacker News Reader

$30 Drawing Could Be a Renaissance Work Worth Millions

nytimes.com

48 pointssamclemens38 comments

I don't really understand why any drawing of the virgin mary could be worth millions regardless of whom it's by. There's so many renditions. At this point it feels like biblical fan art and the Louvre is filled with it.

I'd rather see art that hasn't been repeated ad infinitum like stuff by osman bey or charles curran or something else. I guess it's just taste? I probably don't know anything, just talking.

I understand you may not like the theme, but really, the possibility of uncovering a 600 years-old drawing of a major artist is certainly worth mentioning in an article.

Things are worth what the highest bidder is willing to pay. There are no other reasons involved. Taste doesn't matter, history doesn't matter, material doesn't matter, the creator doesn't matter.

The highest bidder does have his reasons, but they can be very different from person to person.

Things are worth at least as much as the second-highest bidder is willing to pay. If everyone has a completely unique reasons then there would be noone to bid against.

And a very important aspect for most buyers is the perceived market value. And that ties in with whatever the market values, and if the market supposedly doesn't care for taste/history/material/creator - then what does it care for?

"then what does it care for"

Wel most of the time it's an investment. So for those bidders the perceived market value is very important.

But you can also imagine this scenario: someone has a ring from a great great grantparent. The market value of the ring is $10. But the owner would only sell it for $100000. Then their would noone to bid against.

The ring example is interesting: if nobody actually buys it for $100000 (the best anyone else would pay is $10), then what is the 'real' value of the ring?

The only logically consistent answer is that value is always relative and subjective; 'objective' economic value is only an abstraction.

It seems to be more about the artist, and not the subject.

Fits the Zeitgeist (of today)

the art market has nothing to do with taste. Albrecht Dürer was an important 15th/16th century artist, and everything of his that we know exists is part of a permanent collection private or public by now. That makes the appearance of an unknown work a rare event and it makes this a rare and valuable thing.

>At this point it feels like biblical fan art

Snorted.

Thanks for that.

No, it’s not really fan art. It just happened one of the largest art patrons was the church. They wanted art to “educate” (i.e. evangelize) a largely illiterate population. And there was no internet back then, so every religious site would need art illustrating the same themes.

99.9% probability it's a forgery. But many people stand to make a lot of money if it's sold so they'll try to find enough experts to say it's legit and everyone wins.

There's an interesting application of the "greater fool" theory too. Even if the original buyer finds out it was forged, they potentially stand more to gain by continuing the charade and selling it to the next person. It becomes "real" by sheer collective distortion of reality.

This is a great explanation of the NFT market

How so? The analogy breaks down immediately. You're not trying to sell forgery?

With NFTs you're trying to sell something worthless too.

This is an endless debate which I won't get myself into.

Define worthless

I'm actually not sure how. What makes a forgery worth less than the original?

Worth less and worthless are two very different things.

But they aren't they related? There's clearly some dilution of value between an original and a forgery. I'm positing that NFTs are even more divorced from "originality" than forgeries – by a factor terrible enough to make them worthless.

But I'm not good enough to disentangle the mystery of originality and put the problem in concrete terms.

> I'm positing that NFTs are even more divorced from "originality" than forgeries – by a factor terrible enough to make them worthless.

But what does “worthless” actually mean? Does it mean something you happen to personally dislike? Does it mean something else?

When I say "worthless", I mean "close to 0 on the extension of the scale that stretches from an original to forgery".

You realise a ton of NFT’s are selling stolen art or breaching someone’s copyright, right?

I don't keep track of that, but I'll take your word for it. It doesn't invalidate what I said though. NFTs have more purposes than selling "stolen" art.

wait, genius idea, scan this and put it inside of an NFT along with the video of you burning the original! So much money!

> 99.9% probability it's a forgery. But many people stand to make a lot of money if it's sold so they'll try to find enough experts to say it's legit and everyone wins.

If only there was a NFT assuring it's provenance.

How would a digital NFT prove physical provenance?

It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, playing with the absurdity of NFTs being used as certificates of authenticity in art scams.

The most expensive painting ever sold turned out to be a ridiculously obvious forgery, so I concur with your statement.

The interactive piece on Dürer found hyperlinked in the article was an awesome read.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/25/arts/durer-se...

> Mr. Schorer has traveled the world to learn about art, but he remains astonished that the greatest piece he helped discover was found, as he put it, “in my backyard.”

> “Life is downhill from that moment forward,” he said. “I’ll never have an experience like that again.”

Statistically, he's probably right... but what a depressing outlook on life. And a strange way to end this piece.

unpaywalled: https://archive.fo/AnGYX

Sweet.

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