Rembrandt Millennium Impressions – Article 3

(Please read Millennium Impressions Article #1 and Article #2 before this one.)

Park West and the Millennium Impressions/Edition

or
"You can fool all the people some of the time,
and some of the people all the time,
but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
(attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Park West responded to articles #1 and #2 in this series by building a whole new website in which they confess, after all these years, when they had no way out of it, that they have owned the eight copper plates which had been used to print the Millennium Impressions and Park West's later version, the Millennium edition all along. The question is, why have they pretended otherwise about this for so long? Why are they now, for the first time, calling them the "Millennium Impressions" after spending so much time and effort to change the name to Millennium editions (another point made in the earlier articles)? There are other questions...

by David Phillips, for Fine Art Registry®

Introduction

Very soon after we published Millennium Impressions Article #1 The Millennium Impressions - Recent Posthumous Etchings Made from Eight Rembrandt Copper Plates and Article # 2 Park West Gallery Buys Eight Rembrandt Copper Plates and Conceals their Ownership. Why the Secrecy? Park West Gallery put up an entire website devoted to the Rembrandt etchings which they sell. On this new website, for the first time, they admitted that they own the copper plates from which the etchings are pulled. Not much choice there - after all, we published documents which proved it. However, it produced quite a reaction amongst auctioneers who had been told for years that the plates were not owned by Park West Gallery who then passed this information on to auction attendees as part of their sales pitch.

Park West also quickly changed the name from Millennium edition, which is what they have been using since 2003, to Millennium Impressions, the trademark coined by Intaglio Etchings Ltd. when Intaglio Etchings Ltd. began marketing and selling the eight Rembrandt etchings in 1998.

While they may think that this neatly ties up all the loose ends and leaves Park West smelling like a rose, there are some very obvious questions which have been studiously ignored, and some less pleasant odors left hanging about in the air.

Lest anyone is coming in late on the scene and has missed some of the background, we thought it only fair to ask those questions here.

Question 1 - Why did Park West take such pains to hush up their purchase of the plates in 2003, to conceal and obscure their ownership for all the intervening five and a half years, and only admit that they own the plates now, in 2009, when they had no alternative?

To recap:

Around August 2003, Park West bought the eight copper plates from which the Millennium Impression Rembrandt etchings had been printed up to that point. There was no announcement of the purchase of the plates and those parties involved were bound by confidentiality agreements.

A 15 February 2004 document signed by Park West executive Bill Smith confirms that the eight copper plates are the property of Park West. We have other documents attesting to this fact.

In February 2004 a company by the name of Master Etching Plates Co. was incorporated in Nevada. Its sole officer was Nicolette Yanke, HR Director of Park West Gallery and stepdaughter of Albert Scaglione. Later in the year we see an agreement between Master Etching Plates and John McLaurin setting out prices. We have reports that Bill Smith of Park West persuaded John McLaurin to act as the "publisher" of the prints, keep his website open and inform representatives of the cruise lines and Park West customers that Intaglio was the publisher of the etchings and that Intaglio, as publisher and source of the etchings, sold the Millennium edition etchings to Park West. This is the opposite of what actually occurred.

Ex-auctioneers from Park West have explained what they were told about the Millennium edition Rembrandt etchings in their training and how they were instructed to represent these to the art auction going public aboard the cruise ships and wherever they were being sold.

Here is a report from one auctioneer:

[A Note on the Math

Reportedly Park West paid $2 million for eight plates and about 1,350 unsold etchings. They pay Marjorie Van Dyke between $15 and $25 per print to print them (informed guestimate based on reports). Perhaps 3,500 etchings had been sold when Park West bought the plates (generous estimate). Even if they limit the edition to the stipulated and promised 2500 of each, that gives a total of 20,000 minus 3,500 equals 16,500 etchings for Park West to sell. $2 million plus 15,000 x $25 (for the printing) equals $2,375,000 outlay divided by 16,500 equals about $143 per etching. Here are some of the Park West prices currently listed on their website:

Prices have changed over the years of course and they sell some wholesale. The Raising of Lazarus has reportedly sold out but was selling for $7,000 plus.

Let’s be generous and say the average price for an etching is $5,000. That would be total revenues of $5,000 x 16,500 equals $82,250,000.

Of course there is the framing and the commissions and the marketing to add in. But even so....]

The following is from another auctioneer.

This manual was published well after Park West bought the plates.

The following is from another Park West auctioneer:

And yet another auctioneer, who wrote the following on finding out that Park West had owned the eight copper plates all along:

It seems very clear. From the time they bought the plates in August 2003, Park West have been misinforming and misleading their own auctioneers, and through them their customers, about the provenance of the Rembrandt Millennium etchings. After our articles on the Millennium Impressions were published in early April of this year in which the purchase of the plates by Park West Gallery in 2003 was revealed, Park West tried to cover their tracks by admitting that they bought and own the copper plates. This, however, is unlikely to sit very well with the auctioneers and the public whom they have been misleading for all these years.

How many customers have bought Park West's Rembrandt Millennium edition etchings since 2003? How many auctioneers and other employees have been told point blank by Park West that the copper plates were owned by someone else? How many of the cruise lines have been erroneously led to believe that Intaglio and not Park West was the publisher of the Rembrandt etchings?

These are questions that are very likely to come up as soon as word gets out, which it inevitably will.

Question 2 - Why did Park West change the name of the Rembrandt etchings from Millennium Impressions to Millennium edition, and why are they now changing it back?

The facts are quite plain.

Here is the name of the edition of etchings as originally used by Intaglio Etchings Ltd. from the start.

The following is taken from the original Intaglio Etchings website where the Millennium Impressions were offered for sale.

To confirm what we are told by the auctioneers who were specifically briefed not to use the name “Millennium Impressions” but instead to refer to "Millennium edition", here is a copy of a Park West certificate of authenticity issued with the etchings. The first page is shown here. It talks about the 'Millennium' edition.

And this is from the existing Park West website - highlight added.

And yet, on the new Rembrandt website put up by Park West shortly after Millennium Impressions Articles #1 and #2 were published, we see a shift in terminology.

Why the change? That's a question for Park West to answer. But the point was made in the earlier articles that there is a distinction between the Millennium Impressions, published and sold by Intaglio Etchings, Ltd., each one of which was accompanied by a numbered and signed (by the printer) certificate of authenticity, and Park West's Millennium edition, where there is no numbering or signed certificate, just the Park West template-based certificate of authenticity signed by Albert Scaglione or Morris Shapiro.

That distinction still exists, very clearly, and changing the name back to Millennium Impressions is not going to dispel it.

As a further note, the certificate of authenticity and the website description of the Millennium edition etchings both claim that these are "A 20th Century impression printed by Marjorie Van Dyke..." This is impossible and is negated in Park West's own new website where they now explain that Marjorie Van Dyke printed these etchings over a ten-year period. The majority of the etchings were printed in the 21st Century, not the 20th Century.

Question 3 - What about the photomechanical reproductions of the Millennium edition reportedly offered for sale by Park West Gallery as etchings?

We received the following report from a Park West employee regarding the Millennium edition Rembrandt etchings for sale at cruise ship auctions. This was not the typical sales person untrained in art but someone well versed in the subject.

As a note. Every genuine etching has a plate mark on the paper. This is simply the result of the process for printing etchings, where a metal plate is pressed firmly into the moistened paper and the pressure involved leaves this mark. It is possible, and has certainly been done, to create a false plate mark on a photomechanical reproduction to make people think it is a genuine etching. The rules are therefore:

1. A genuine etching always leaves a plate mark in the paper, all around the etched image. The image area is slightly sunken into the surrounding paper.
2. Not every print that has a plate mark is a genuine etching, since it is possible to take a photomechanical image and create a "plate mark" around the image by pressing a flat sheet of metal into the paper.

Examples of plate marks on etchings.

Question 4 - What are you buying or what did you buy and what is it worth?

In answer to the many, many questions we have had about the market value of the Millennium Impressions from Intaglio Etchings Ltd., and the Millennium edition from Park West, we will be publishing a full length article on this aspect of the Rembrandt etchings. It will be Millennium Impressions Article #4 and is well under way and will follow shortly.

Read Part 4: Survey of the Market and Values of Rembrandt Etchings With Emphasis on the Millennium Impressions

Read all articles in the series: Rembrandt Millennium Impressions

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