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Sunday, September 06, 2026

Another fake

 Fake Searles pop up on the art market with regularity but their deficiencies are glaringly obvious to the trained eye of a Searle aficionado. This poor copy of his Ian Fleming cartoon is on sale this month at Rosebery's Auctions.


The rear view:


It has previously passed through Abbott & Holder Auctions, whom I've previously alerted to a fake but they're too snooty to accept my concerns.


Here's the real drawing below. The superior draughtsmanship is obvious revealing the "copy" to be quite sloppy- look at the lazy rendering in the fur, the size of the facial features, the angle of the arm touching the ground etc.


Searle was meticulous in cataloguing his work. I found this clipping in his files at the Searle Archive in Hanover.


The archive also holds his rough sketch.


See more fake Searles here and here and here


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