It was not the seller of a painting that acted wrongly, as the court of Zutphen ruled in December of 2021, but the art dealership that tried to buy the work, Simonis & Buunk from Ede. The Court of Appeal in Arnhem ruled this week on appeal.
Simonis & Buunk, the largest art dealer in the Netherlands, has “deliberately provided misleading information” in a matter that has attracted a lot of attention, including on TV, at Undercover in the Netherlands (SBS6). Not directly to the seller, the Australian Dutchman Daan van Seventer who lives in Appingedam in Groningen, but to another potential buyer, the former cyclist and journalist Herbert Dijkstra. Because of this misleading information, Dijkstra decided against the purchase and the seller accepted an anonymous offer for the painting.
It’s about The haymakers from 1925 by Jan Altink, painter of the Groningen art collective de Ploeg. The anonymous bid on an auction site, of 27,000 euros, was made on November 2, 2020 under the name ‘Slim’. Dijkstra, who was visiting Van Seventer at the time, advised him to accept the offer. This was minutes after a telephone conversation that Dijkstra had with Simonis & Buunk. Dijkstra had asked the art dealer about the value of the painting for a fee. The answer: 15,000 euros at the most.
Only after acceptance of the offer did Dijkstra and Van Seventer learn that behind the name ‘Slim’ art dealership Simonis & Buunk was hidden. So the same trader of the low appraisal. And the same dealer who stated that he could sell the painting for 80,000 euros.
Also read this interview with Frank Buunk: ‘Why threats? It was only a fair warning’
Repay everything
Van Seventer believed he had been misled and refused to deliver the painting. The art dealer then instituted proceedings on the merits and won: Van Seventer had simply accepted the offer. The court disagrees. The art dealer had let him wander. “That is why Simonis & Buunk is still wrong in this case.”
The result: Buunk has to pay back everything that Van Seventer previously had to pay to him (46,700 euros), and Van Seventer’s legal and legal costs are also borne by the art dealer. Martin Schüring, Van Seventer’s lawyer, speaks of “an error by the court” which fortunately has been “rectified”.
Frank Buunk, director-owner of Buunk & Simonis, does not yet know whether he will go to the Supreme Court. “I can take a loss,” he says. At the same time, he calls the arrest a gruesome work of art. Buunk: “Altink’s work is considerably more beautiful.”
Previously, disciplinary tribunals of two trade associations convicted Buunk for valuing a painting that he himself (secretly) bids for. The Federation TMV, an organization of appraisers, ruled that Buunk had violated fundamental principles of professional conduct, integrity, objectivity, independence, due care and transparency.