A 1930s Agfa Film Wallet in art-deco design by Mackenzie Sports Co. Shanghai. Mackenzie Sports was a mid-1930s sports store in Shanghai, offering a wide range of sports equipment such as for tennis and boxing, and seemingly also offered photo development services. The shop was owned by R. Nymphius, an active tennis player in the local leagues of the time himself.
Beijing-based art collector Tong Bingxue today voiced his concerns on Twitter over the authenticity of a piece currently on auction at Sotheby's. We love ourselves a good old China mystery (especially when it possibly is around false advertising) and were quickly able to not only confirm suspicions over the provenance of "the earliest known dated photograph by a Chinese photographer" but uncover a shocking lack of research and fact-checking across reputable auction houses such as Christie's,...