The head of John the Baptist presented to Salome Detail
Parisian art dealer Charles Bailly has probably been the greatest discoverer of major old master paintings since the early 1980's notably with two incredible finds in the space of one year. A former psychiatrist, Charles Bailly, now 48, inaugurated his new US $ 8 million premises on Quai Voltaire, a plush area for galleries and antique dealers, some eight years ago. Working with the help of assistants and a 16,000 book library, Bailly has been dominating the Paris market scene for several years. He has notably been accustomed to buying most 19th century paintings at Drouot which have been sold back with considerable profits through Sotheby's in New York and London. Known as «crazy Bailly» this indefatigable dealer has been scurrying the Paris flea market every friday morning at 5 A.M and haunting all French salesrooms for over 20 years making some incredible discoveries. In June 1990, Bailly thought he had made the biggest discovery of his career after buying at Drouot a 17th century Immaculate Conception for some US $ 4 million after bidding started at US $ 50,000. Claiming it was a lost work by Spanish master Diego Velazquez, he entrusted the painting with Sotheby's which issued for its July 6th 1994 sale a special catalogue for it but a few days before that date Spanish experts in Madrid went against his opinion and said the work was probably by Sanchez Coello worth no more than $ 500,000 compared with the Sotheby's estimate of US $ 8-10 million. At that time Bailly went near bankrupcy since he had to pay huge interest fees for the money he borrowed from banks to acquire that painting.
Undeterred Bailly was back on his feet in the space of three years and managed to find some interesting pieces to make up for his losses. At the end of 1996 he was tipped off by an amateur that a painting representing a view of Brazil was being sold in Nancy, Eastern France. He sent his nephew to attend the sale and bought the painting for a mere US $ 10,000. It reappeared in a Sotheby's sale on January 30th 1997 as a 1638 work by Dutch painter Frans Post. The painting fetched US $ 4, 512,500 but Bailly faced new worries as the painting had been in the collection of King Louis XIV and was considered as national treasure. All the more, he had bought it through a Swiss screen company and had apparently not applied for the necessary export autorisation consequently facing problems with French customs and museums
The head of John the Baptist presented to Salome Detail
Parisian art dealer Charles Bailly has probably been the greatest discoverer of major old master paintings since the early 1980's notably with two incredible finds in the space of one year. A former psychiatrist, Charles Bailly, now 48, inaugurated his new US $ 8 million premises on Quai Voltaire, a plush area for galleries and antique dealers, some eight years ago. Working with the help of assistants and a 16,000 book library, Bailly has been dominating the Paris market scene for several years. He has notably been accustomed to buying most 19th century paintings at Drouot which have been sold back with considerable profits through Sotheby's in New York and London. Known as «crazy Bailly» this indefatigable dealer has been scurrying the Paris flea market every friday morning at 5 A.M and haunting all French salesrooms for over 20 years making some incredible discoveries. In June 1990, Bailly thought he had made the biggest discovery of his career after buying at Drouot a 17th century Immaculate Conception for some US $ 4 million after bidding started at US $ 50,000. Claiming it was a lost work by Spanish master Diego Velazquez, he entrusted the painting with Sotheby's which issued for its July 6th 1994 sale a special catalogue for it but a few days before that date Spanish experts in Madrid went against his opinion and said the work was probably by Sanchez Coello worth no more than $ 500,000 compared with the Sotheby's estimate of US $ 8-10 million. At that time Bailly went near bankrupcy since he had to pay huge interest fees for the money he borrowed from banks to acquire that painting.
Undeterred Bailly was back on his feet in the space of three years and managed to find some interesting pieces to make up for his losses. At the end of 1996 he was tipped off by an amateur that a painting representing a view of Brazil was being sold in Nancy, Eastern France. He sent his nephew to attend the sale and bought the painting for a mere US $ 10,000. It reappeared in a Sotheby's sale on January 30th 1997 as a 1638 work by Dutch painter Frans Post. The painting fetched US $ 4, 512,500 but Bailly faced new worries as the painting had been in the collection of King Louis XIV and was considered as national treasure. All the more, he had bought it through a Swiss screen company and had apparently not applied for the necessary export autorisation consequently facing problems with French customs and museums
However, Bailly did not appear destabilised and continued his treasure-hunting quest touching gold again a few months later with a painting he had bought previously (in 1987) in an auction sale at Fontainebleau, south of Paris.
This time, the 94 x 101.8 cm painting, estimated US $ 3,500 and representing the head of John the Baptist presented to Salome, was sold as a work from the studio of Peter Paul Rubens. It went for US $ 200,000 to Bailly who gathered all possible documents regarding this painting and waited the legal period of three years to obtain an export licence from French authorities after determining that it was a genuine work by Rubens. Despite declaring its value at $ 10 million, the painting was sold on January 30th 1998 by Sotheby's in New York for US $ 6,602,500 leaving Bailly with a huge profit of some US $ 6 million.
The head of John the Baptist presented to Salome was one of Ruben's earliest pictures painted after his return from Italy around 1609 and reflected the artist's contact with the antique and the latest Roman artistic developments, notably the influence of Caravaggio. It then appeared in the Spanish royal inventories as early as 1666 and such provenance suggests that it must have been bought in Antwerp by one of the many Spaniards who came through this city, perhaps an agent of King Philip III.
The subject painted by Rubens was meant to recall to the viewer a vigilance and warning regarding the folly of men who submit to the caprices of women like in the painting Samson and Delilah painted by Rubens now exhibited at the National gallery in London. In addition to the two paintings of paintings depicting the subjugation of men of intellect or strength by beautiful and alluring women is a third painting also dating from 1609- the now lost Judith and Holofernes known through a reproductive print. The head of John the Baptist painting occasioned a number of copies, notably by Hyeronimus Francken in 1609 and by other artists in Ruben's studio as well as his immediate circle. That Bailly managed to prove that the painting he bought in Fontainebleau was the original work by Rubens was no surprise to those who know him well as his documentation is for him like a gold mine.
Still, his dream has been to get hold of the 20,000 book library of 73-year-old dealer François Heim, another great discoverer who bought the famous «Verrou» by Fragonard later bought from him by the Louvre museum for just under US $ 1 million some 30 years ago.
Heim, who disappeared from the Paris scene 10 years ago after a series of financial and fiscal problems, has managed to hide his books, among them thousands of sales catalogues of the 18th century, in a safe place and threfore away from Bailly ‘s gluttony.
To be in possession of these rare books is like having the key that will open the safe containing many treasures as several masterpieces lay dormant in many places in Europe only to reappear from time to time in some auction sales. Many dealers are jealous of Bailly's luck but the latter, completely absorbed by his passion, really does not care about his ennemies. Like Muhammad Ali he feels he is the greatest and at the moment he surely is. Adrian Darmon
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