From: Jeffrey Epstein <[email protected]> To: Al seckel Subject: Re: Fw: Newton portrait Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:56:47 +0000 thanks.. do you have a name of the person at sothebys„ On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Al seckel Jeff, > wrote: It has been authenticated many times in person. I have never had a single expert in 17th century English portraiture question it, and that includes leading Kneller scholars, experts from both Christies and Sothebys, experts at the National Portrait Gallery, Huntington Art Collections, as well as leading art dealers, who specialize in this area. I had to go through this authentication process. When I first got this painting, this process had not been done at all. I started that authentication process well over two years ago, and it was during the authentication process, where we tracked down the provenance, the fact that it is not a copy, but a variant, etc. It was a fun journey. It specifically stated in the expert documentation, that it was NOT a studio copy, but in contrast to many works attributed to Kneller, which were done by his studio, that this portrait was done ENTIRELY in his hand. They can tell by brush strokes. My portrait was examined personally (and compared to the Portsmouth copy) by several people from Sotheby's, including by the head of their painting department in London. Furthermore, it was also personally examined side by side by London's leading Kneller expert at the Portsmouth estate. I was there. It was at this comparison that he (and others all share the same opinion) that it is impossible to know which variant is the first one. They are not identical, but called in the trade artist variants. The signature and title on the Portsmouth copy was added later. Because, it is a variant, and where Kneller was experimenting with some different shading, coloring, etc., it is difficult to tell which one came first. The experts could not tell. My copy was a previously unknown variant, and