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Comment by crote | Hacker News Reader

Re-attributed, to be more accurate.

The painting wasn't exactly unknown: its existence was reasonably well-documented and it was included in a variety of Rembrandt catalogues. However, in 1960 it was decided that it wasn't a Rembrandt, so people mostly stopped caring about it.

This discovery is a re-analysis of the painting using modern methods, which revealed that the 1960 "not a Rembrandt" decision was a bit premature.

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> However, in 1960 it was decided that it wasn't a Rembrandt, so people mostly stopped caring about it.

I'll never understand this about the art scene. Like, if Rembrandt was a shit painter, his works wouldn't have been so valuable today. But then, suddenly, one random painting of his is only interesting if it was actually made by him? If we can judge his entire oeuvre on quality, why couldn't we do the same with this one painting? How is it possible that people stop caring about a painting just because it wasn't made by Rembrandt?

I mean, is it a good painting or not? If not, why do we suddenly care now? If it is, why didn't we before?

Works of art are the original NFTs? Pricing is meme-like, though over longer timescales.

How art is valued is entirely illogical and irrational. Like - that time an entire art installation was confused with trash and thrown out. https://i-d.co/article/museum-cleaners-thought-this-art-inst...

Similarly to why you can pay 7-digit prices for a watch.

At least that watch still tells the time.

Yeah, but mechanical watches are so much worse at telling time than cheap digital watches that it's not even worth discussing.

Even a broken mechanical luxury watch is right twice a day. A broken digital watch with a screen is useless when it’s broken.

(I’m just trolling at this point, let me know and we can stop this)

obviously digital watch needs an eink screen that shows something even when it's broken :)

It won’t be the time, it’ll be some scrensaver or an ad.

Your watch won't tell you the time unless you drink a verification can

I don't think it's illogical nor irrational. When you look at artworks below €5 000 then there should be correlation between artistic value and price in euros. Not exactly a linear function, but clear correlation. Above that you're not buying artwork - you're buying the prestige and social status of owning an expensive artwork. It's the rich people's equivalent of buying Supreme clothes just to impress the ladies.

Because part of the price of a work of art is its perceived historic / cultural importance. Autographs are taking this to the extreme, where only the mark of the author exists, on its own, and still gets a high price. On the other end, fakes and very accurate reproductions, would never be as valued even if the effect as a visual piece is practically the same.

NFTs are an attempt to recreate this dynamic in the digital world.

"It is a Rembrandt" carries heavy cache when rich men are trying to one-up each other.

As someone who likes to hang things on walls, I'm rather happy the art prices are as insane as they are. The antiques shop down the street sometimes sells reasonably interesting and/or nice original paintings for 10-20 eur. If it's someone unknown it's gonna be dirt cheap, no matter how good. Imagine if art prices were rational, what would I do?!

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