One of the most important basic books on the topic of ?Posthume Güsse? just came out: on September 8th 2008 an important symposium ?Posthume Güsse? took place. Now the working group Bildhauermuseen und Skulpturensammlungen e.V. and the Arp Museum railway station Rolandseck have finished their project with the publication of ?Posthume Güsse. Bilanz und Perspektive?.
The topic of posthume affusions is heavily discussed among museums, artists, collectors, art dealers, art historians, administratrixes of will and attorneys. In this book it has been tried for the first time to tackle the various problems and different aspects and discuss it with a different point of view.
Designated experts from everywhere in the world discuss this matter with the help of several case studies of sculpturing in the 20th century.
Artists like Arp, Barlach, Giacometto, Kollwitz, Lehmbruck, Maillol and Moore are discussed.
The discussion about posthume affusions is heavily discussed by the public during passed decades. The question, which bronzes should get made during lifetime and which after death, came up a few decades ago. Therefore hardly any differences in price occur. Posthume bronze affusions close to the original still is a common method and is up to the offspring?s. The discussion if originals and posthume affusions should be valued the same started in Germany at the end of the 80?s, when the posthume production of Barlach sculptures was publicly criticised.
The discussion is so controversial since there is no labelling between the both. For instance if an art dealer, collector or museum director wants to value a sculpture he can not make out a difference, even if there are markings on edition and affusion.
In order to correctly interpret the given markings you have to be an expert. Sometimes markings on editions are deceptive. For example Barlachs ?Singing Man? came out in a series of 10; however 50 where made so there are 5 different series out there.
If you want to buy a Maillol-Bronze affusion Nr. 3/6, you should consider that affusion 3/6 can be from different foundries.
It is not surprising, that there was a massive bust of 1000 fake Giacometti sculptures shortly after this book was published. Elucidation, knowledge and expertise are needed more than ever.
