A Victorian pine tool chest, decorated on the inside of the lid with a brigantine leaving Hayle harbour in the manner of Alfred Wallis. It had been pitched at £20,000-40,000.
Fakes are an occupational hazard for dealers and auctioneers, writes Roland Arkell. But the nub of this case is not that the items turned out to be wrong: it was a question of due diligence. Duke’s decision not to seek a second opinion, the court decided, amounted to a failure in an obligation “to take reasonable steps to ensure that the claims and descriptions applied to items they are selling are true”.