Sotheby’s did not respond to queries about whether the heirs of Count de Brouckhoven de Bergeyck were compensated, but a source close to the family says they got about €250,000 ($395,000). In general, though, it’s the buyers, not the consignors, who receive the best protection against misattributions. Sotheby’s and Christie’s guarantee some autographed works for five years from the date of purchase. Buyers can challenge the attribution—potentially forcing the houses to make a refund of the hammer price, plus the buyer’s premium—if they meet certain conditions, spelled out in the catalogue’s fine print. The guarantee is inapplicable, however, if the printed description of the work is generally endorsed by scholars or indicates that there are differing opinions, or if the method used by the buyer to establish alternate authorship is widely unavailable or unaccepted, prohibitively expensive or impractical.

Some cynics might think inflated attributions are fairly common, because of market pressure, but auction houses would be foolhardy to identify a work without sufficient scholarly support. The potential for collateral damage is simply too great, in terms of both money and prestige. “There’s a huge amount at stake,” says Goldner, “and there’s an overemphasis on trying to achieve absolute certainty in an area where it’s very hard to do that.” For that reason, too-cautious identifications are much more common, attracting buyers who aren’t afraid to gamble. They can purchase something, says  Hall, “clean it and do a little more research, and perhaps the person who dissented originally on its authenticity changes his mind.”

Naumann did just that in January 2005 at Swann Auction Galleries, in New York. He bought a postcard-size watercolor and pen-and-ink work on paper depicting a harbor scene with sailboats, estimated at just $700 to $1,000. The catalogue attributed it vaguely to the Flemish school, 17th century, but Naumann had a hunch it was by the Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp, even though he is known more for his snow-covered scenes. Naumann won it for $2,200. Two years later, at the Otto Naumann Ltd. Gallery sale at Sotheby’s New York, the work, upgraded to an Avercamp, fetched $132,000 (est. $100–150,000).

Sometimes, though, the houses are correct, and the gamblers, much to their chagrin, get it wrong. When a rare painting by Antonello da Messina, Christ at the Column, circa 1475, was offered as the cover lot at Christie’s London in April 1989, it was bought in at a phantom bid of £3.6 million ($6.1 million). “Christie’s did a good job cataloguing it, but nobody thought it was right,” recalls Ian Kennedy, the curator of European painting and sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in Kansas City, and the former head of Old Master paintings at Christie’s New York. The picture now hangs in the Louvre, which acquired it from the firm three years later for £4.5 million ($8.6 million). “That was the biggest boo-boo made by the trade that I can remember,” says Kennedy. “This picture was worth a bloody fortune, and everybody regretted it.”

The moral: For those not averse to risk, betting on attributions in the Old Masters trade can be exciting and even profitable. “You’ve got to go after the ones that aren’t fully found out,” says the Mayfair dealer Johns. “It’s like turning Aladdin’s lamp into gold.”

"What's in a Name?" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.