Steven Litt explains that the Cleveland Museum is selling 32 works through Sotheby’s Old Master sale in New York later this month:
Sotheby’s estimates the total value of the Cleveland works to range from $706,000 to $1,022,000. The auction could attract bargain hunters; out of the 30 lots, 21 are priced with low-end estimates of $10,000 or less. […] More than three quarters of the works to be sold were gifts. Of the six bought by the museum, all are considered less than important, and two have been downgraded in their attributions, or authorship.
In 1949 the museum bought a pair of paintings it believed were by the important 18th century Italian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, depicting an ancient Roman battle. Experts have since concluded that the works were by a follower of Tiepolo, not the master himself. The pair, last exhibited in 2005, are expected to bring $200,000 to $300,000 at the auction. They’re the two most valuable paintings in the sale.
Cleveland Museum of Art to auction 32 old master paintings at Sotheby’s (Cleveland Plain Dealer)