Caravaggio’s Cardsharps on Trial: Thwaytes v. Sotheby’s

Vividly written and handsomely illustrated, this account of Thwaytes v. Sotheby’s - one of the major art trials of recent times - will be of interest to dealers, conservators and lawyers as well as all admirers of Caravaggio.In 2006 the late Sir Denis Mahon, a renowned Caravaggio scholar then aged ninety-six, bought at Sotheby’s in London for just £50,400 a version of the painter’s famous Cardsharps in the Kimbell Art Museum, Texas. He then announced that the canvas was not by a ‘follower’ of the artist, as Sotheby’s had stated, but was in fact Caravaggio’s first version of the Kimbell masterpiece. When the story broke, the press announced that the painting ‘may be worth up to £50m’. Shocked by the news, Lancelot Thwaytes, who had consigned the painting to Sotheby’s, sued the auction house for negligence.The case came to trial at the High Court in London in 2014. The verdict had far-reaching implications for the way experts at auction houses catalogue paintings, for understanding the r