They almost look like two different Montici mosaics.
But they’re the same artwork.
Blame the wild color difference on the internet.
We don’t have the time or money to physically attend Montici auctions and personally view the artworks. Instead, we mostly view them as Web jpegs. The mosaic photos are posted online by sellers; auction tracking services; Pinterest and Facebook posters; and in digital publications.
How color accurate are these public jpegs?
Were they manipulated before posting to increase color, light, clarity, contrast? We don’t know. How accurate is the color display on our own computer screen? We’re not sure. We’ve never calibrated it.
So if we come across two photos of the same mosaic, which one is closest to true color?
We came across this “Mosaic Fish” jpeg first (above). We downloaded it from the website of an auction sales tracking service. The fish looks colorful enough, but a bit muted, dark. It was sold by Rago in 2011 for $1,240. Did the tracking service get an original jpeg from Rago, or simply copy it from the Web? Whatever the case, we in turn downloaded the image from the tracking service and saved it to our Society database. With no known competing image, it became our accepted standard for the correct color.
Two weeks ago, I came across a second image (above). Bonhams auctioned it off in January 2021. It fetched $5,731. At first, I thought it might be a variant. The Montici studio commonly produced 5-6 different versions of the same design, with small detail changes. But studying it closely, I conclude it is the Rago mosaic, returned to market. The only difference I can find is the colors.
But the color shift is substantial, from cool to warm. And the fish eye moves from flat white to pearlescent, highlighting the mosaic’s true beauty
I’m guessing this second Mosaic Fish is a closer, more accurate color rendering of the original mosaic. Why? Because I got this jpeg straight off the Bonhams website, no intermediary. Established auction houses use professional photographers to digitize their offered artwork. One of the unsung but important benefits of the recent, blockbuster Edelman auction at Wright is their accompanying catalogue. It provides what should be true colors for 86 different Montici mosaics, since the gallery has access to the original mosaics and a professional photographer. (Incorrect spatial orientation is another problem. Sometimes an image is accidentally flipped left/right; or even upside down in the case of one Blow artwork we tesearched.)
We have now updated our Master Catalogue with this new photo; and continue to contrast and compare any duplicate jpegs we discover of the same work.
Our long-term goal? Convince auction houses to share with the Society a copy of their original, high-res jpegs.
Until then, take our colors with a grain of salt.
Michael Schmicker