The drawings bought for the French BNP-Finacor fund nine years ago were sold well under their previous purchase prices at Christie's New York on January 28th 1999. For example, a loss of US $ 1 million was registered on some twenty drawings by Frederico Zuccaro, which had been bought by a group of French experts on behalf of the fund.
Another failure occurred for two drawings which had been bought for Finacor in an auction sale Strasbourg ten years ago by the expert in charge of that sale.
The portrait of the member of the French revolutionary by Jacques-Louis David which had then been bought US $ 607,000 by Finacor only fetched US US $ 340,000 in New York while the portrait of a man by Chassériau, sold for US $ 339,000 ten years ago went for the ridiculous price of US $ 52,000 !
A landscape with Saint Philip by Claude Gellée was auctioned for $ 130,000 whereas its previous owner, Agnew from London, was asking US $ 200,000 for it in 1982.
Two other drawings by Cézanne and Goya were sold between 15 and 20% below their estimates while a work by Barocci, Christ and Madgdalena, presented last September in Paris as a masterpiece and estimated some US $ 650,000 did not appear in the Christie's sale probably because some specialists had expressed doubts about its authenticity.
The experts acting for Finacor finally showed too much haste and no discernment in spending so much for these drawings with the view of making a considerable profit. A very bad operation thus and a lot of damage for the reputation of French experts.
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