Sleepers

“Sleepers.” That’s what art market professionals call works of art dozing away, forgotten, in attics and dining rooms: overlooked masterpieces awaiting the eagle-eyed recognition of a Connoisseur. For lifetimes on end, no one deigns to look at them. After the attribution, our desire for them is insatiable. These once-neglected artworks are catapulted into something resembling a society novel, with excruciating quests for status, skyrocketing rises and sickening falls, crucial pivots in auction halls, and vast sums of money. The cases described here by Simone Facchinetti – a rare few out of a thousand others – involve works by Rembrandt, Sebastiano Ricci, and Andrea Pozzo, and a cast of characters that includes unsuspecting owners, antiquarians, and the author of the article himself, in his role as a collector.