Federal Prosecutors Doubt Pollock Painted Stolen Canvas
Federal prosecutors admit inability to confirm authenticity of a painting stolen from Scranton Everhart Museum.
Federal prosecutors have recently admitted their inability to confirm once and for all that a painting, allegedly attributed to Jackson Pollock, which was stolen from Scranton Everhart Museum in 2005 is authentic. The work, known as Winter in Springs or Springs Winter, has been surrounded with mystery since then, and its origins have been the topic of numerous discussions. The statement of Assistant U.S. Attorney James Buchanan was made during the court hearing, and the official confirmed the difficulty of proving that the abstract expressionist in fact painted the stolen canvas.
Therefore, the question of the work’s authenticity now becomes just another turn of the intricate case of the theft of art and memorabilia from various institutions across the past twenty years by ring of thieves. At the moment, the case is still ongoing, and findings are made that influence the situation about defendants and the stolen objects that were made over the past ten months. In my opinion, it is entirely possible to argue that this case unveils to people both evident and hidden flaws of the art verification system and how hard it is to trace a high-value work’s history and then to confirm its authenticity in some of the darkest corners of the world.