Pseudo-Neill…Again

I've been negligent with my blogging lately, but in the past I’ve shown a couple fake John R. Neill drawings. These have all been offered at auction by Rhyton Gallery, through LiveAuctioneers.com. It seems these forgeries are going to continue being sold, so I think it’s worthwhile to keep an ongoing record of what has been offered!

 

The last one showed up this past August, but now another has surfaced, bringing the total up to 5 drawings in the past year. Clearly, this isn’t something that’s going away any time soon!

This time is a little different, as the drawing being offered is not a piece that's known to survive. In each of the previous cases, I've known the location of the authentic drawings, and been fairly certain of the various online sources used by the forger to create the fake drawings. This latest example could only have been drawn from a published version of the original.  

The Whirlpool, originally published in The Scarecrow of Oz (1915), would be a stunning Neill drawing in its original form. What's being offered is a reduced version, only 8” x 11”, and it has the same fake signature that has been used on all the Rhyton offerings.