Qualifications
Michael Parsons
Principal and Founder, Parsons Fine Art Advisory, LLC. Prepared for counsel and fiduciaries who need a record of qualifications for a file. A print version is available on request.
Practice
Independent appraisal and provenance research
Parsons Fine Art Advisory, LLC
61 Douglas Road, Rochester, New York 14610
(585) 750-0167
michael@parsonsfineartadvisory.com
The practice prepares appraisals of fine art, decorative arts and personal property for insurance, estate settlement, charitable contribution, gift tax, equitable distribution and loss, and undertakes provenance and attribution research. It does not buy or sell property, does not accept consignments, and holds no financial interest in the property it appraises.
Experience
Fifteen years in the fine and decorative arts trade
Principal and Founder, Parsons Fine Art Advisory, LLC
2026 to date
Independent appraisal, provenance research and collecting advisory for private collectors, executors, trusts-and-estates and matrimonial counsel, accountants, trust officers, insurers and institutions.
Specialist in Research, Cataloguing and Press, Cottone Auctions
2011 to date
Object research and attribution, catalogue writing, provenance research, appraisal, photography and press relations. Estimates set continuously against live property across every category a regional auction house handles, with the results tested at public sale.
Categories
Property appraised
- Fine art. American and European paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture.
- Furniture and decorative arts. American and English furniture, silver and metalwork, ceramics and glass.
- Horology. Clocks and wristwatches, including archive-extract authentication and complication references.
- Estate jewelry. Period and signed pieces, valued on maker, period and design.
- Household contents. General contents and antiques, valued as lots or individually as the assignment requires.
Appraisal work
Representative assignments
- Estate and date-of-death appraisals of art, antiques and household contents for estate tax filing, probate inventory and stepped-up basis, on instruction from trusts-and-estates counsel and executors.
- A charitable contribution appraisal of a sculpture bequeathed to a museum in Central New York, valued in excess of $100,000.
- Insurance scheduling appraisals for private clients and their brokers, and appraisal review of a carrier-flagged fine arts schedule, principally horology, with revised opinions of value and the reasoning for each.
- Provenance and attribution research for collectors, dealers and institutions, including archive work that established an attribution subsequently realised at auction for $1.475 million.
Client names and property details are confidential. References available on request.
Research
The Houdon busts, 2019
Asked to catalogue a pair of marble busts recorded as copies in an estate already appraised by a leading New York auction house. Research located the record in the Frick Art Reference Library that tied them to Jean-Antoine Houdon: signed portraits of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Comte de Buffon, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1789 and long counted among the sculptor's lost works. Ownership history was established from the buyer's papers at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. The pair sold at auction for $1.475 million, and the rediscovery was reported in the international art and trade press.
Standards
Standards, independence and conflicts
- Appraisals are prepared in accordance with the principles of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP).
- Accreditation in progress with the Appraisers Association of America; International Society of Appraisers to follow.
- Michael Parsons is a qualified appraiser for federal tax purposes under Treasury Regulation §1.170A-17(b)(2)(i), which is satisfied by completed coursework in valuing the type of property together with at least two years of experience valuing it.
- The coursework was a structured four-year apprenticeship at Cottone Auctions under the firm's founder, Sam Cottone, beginning in 2011 and concluding in 2015, covering fine art, decorative art, American and European furniture and horology, with continued mentorship since. A signed letter from Sam Cottone confirming the program, its duration and its content is available on request.
- Experience valuing property of the types appraised has been continuous from 2011 to the present. Qualified-appraiser status is assessed by type of property and is stated in each report as the regulation requires.
- Fees are charged by the hour or by the item, and are never contingent on the value of the property appraised.
- Professional liability coverage is in place. A certificate of insurance can be supplied for an engagement on request.
- Michael Parsons is employed as a research and cataloguing specialist at Cottone Auctions. The practice is separate and independent of that role. Where an assignment touches property that employer has handled or may handle, it is disclosed in writing before the engagement is accepted; where independence cannot be assured, the assignment is declined and referred.
Professional
Affiliations, press and market
- Member, Convergence Council, Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
- Museum memberships: the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Memorial Art Gallery, the George Eastman Museum and the Everson Museum of Art.
- Press work published in Antiques Trade Gazette and Antiques and The Arts Weekly.
- Attends TEFAF Maastricht and New York, Frieze New York, The Armory Show and The Winter Show, and maintains an international network of dealers, specialists and collectors consulted where an assignment requires an opinion beyond the practice's own.
- Studied at Canisius University, Buffalo, New York.
Retaining the practice
The purpose, the effective date and the deadline are enough to say whether the practice can help, and what it will cost.