Forgery and ART

Art forgery

The Art Institute of Chicago has discovered that a ceramic sculpture, alleged to be a 19th Century work by Paul Gauguin "The Faun," which it bought in 1997, is a forgery. (Alan G. Artner Tribune art critic December 12, 2007). The museum purchased the sculpture from a private dealer in London, who had bought it at a Sotheby's auction in 1994. Forger, Shaun Greenhalgh confessed to authorities that "The Faun" was his handiwork and the family had consigned it to Sotheby's.

In words of Watie Moerani, head of the National Gallery Jakarta, "We feel like soldiers without weapons in fighting art forgery, because there are few trained and experienced conservators and restorers.”

A forgery is normally defined as a work of art presented to a buyer or audience with the intention to deceive. Usually a forger paints a work in the style of a famous artist and tries to sell it, often in collusion with an unscrupulous dealer, claiming it is from the hand of the famous artist. ( From the Encyclopedia of Hoaxes, edited by Gordon Stein (Detroit: Gale Research, 1993)).

Even the highly esteemed Michelangelo had forged an "antique" marble cupid for his patron, Lorenzo de' Medici. Young art students copy works of established painters as a way of learning painting techniques. Some people quite openly buy copies of original works, and there is even a gallery in Sydney which specialises in selling replicas of known artists such as Van Gogh and others.
The authenticity of visual art has always commanded the attention of experts, dealers, collectors, and the art-minded public. There is no simple strategy that will serve to prevent the problem of art fraud through faking.

Throughout the entire history of art, forgeries have been made whenever the creative works were desired for collection. The Romans copied and adapted Greek sculptures, many of which were believed to be originals in later centuries. Today these "copies" are in museums, valued for what they are - art - understood both by their imitative nature and Roman context.
The Italian artists Giovanni Cavino and Pirro Ligorio (c. 1500-83) were master coin counterfeiters of the 16th century. This form of forgery eventually led to the forging of works of art for profit and also exhibition. Perhaps the most prolific production of art forgeries has occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries during periods of avid collecting, when profits for forgers have proven astronomical.
French landscape artist, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) perhaps was the most forged painter in history.
The Louvre Museum in Paris bought its gold (tiare d'Odessa) Tiara of Saﴡphernes for 200,000 gold francs and declared it a genuine work of the third century B.C.E., although it had actually been made in 1880 by the goldsmith Israel Ruchomovsky of Odessa. Ruchomovsky was commissioned to execute a number of works in the antique manner by unscrupulous dealers, who then sold the objects as antiquities.
The Italian artist Giovanni Bastianini (1830-68), in the third quarter of the 19th century, executed in good faith a number of fine sculptures in the manner of Donatello, Verrocchio, Mino de Fiesole, and other Italian old masters. These sculptures were subsequently sold as genuine to reputable museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in Londo and the Louvre Museum. Perhaps the most famous master forger of all time was Alceo Dossena (1878-1936), who successfully produced sculptures of such high quality that they were accepted as genuine by many art critics, museum directors, and famous collectors.

Recent art auction in Australia have been exceptionally successful from the commercial point of view, with several works selling well above the $10,000 mark, with some above $100,000. It is precisely this success, of course, that creates the temptation for illegality. There are three major steps which lead to such an activity: (1) the theft of art; (2) the faking of art works; and (3) the illicit trade in antiquities.

The faking of art is hardly a new problem. Younger and lesser known artists over the centuries have found that there was money to be made if they could reproduce the works of better known artists. One of the more famous examples to prove this was the successful passing of fakes by a Dutch painter van Meegeren of his works as those of Vermeer in the 1930s and 1940s.

There is a chain of factors which will help gain successful entry of forged articles into the art market.

First, the person involved will need information and knowledge about how the art market works, what is valuable, how its value can be realised, and where goods can be sold with the least risk, among other things.

Second, there will be a need to access illegal goods, either through theft or through forgery.

Third, the individual should be in a right position that will provide entry into the art market, since the art market is not something that a stranger is able to enter. When it comes to valuable works of art in particular, individuals within the market are unwilling to deal with persons that do not have some location in the market itself.
Few dealers, for example, will buy “off the street”.

Fourth, it is highly likely, especially for valuable items, that some provenance will have to be provided for the works. For works to realize their maximum value, the purchasers are likely to expect that the work be accompanied by documentation that provides evidence that the work is what it appears to be, and that it has been legitimately acquired.

Drewe was able to do it over the years, using his notable negotiation
skills and money, to work his way inside of such organisations as the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Institute for Contemporary Art, and actually modified their records, including both computer and hard copy files, so that when a prospective buyer
would consult these files, apparent “proof” of the provenance of a painting could be found.

Fifth, the individuals involved will have to have an access point into the commercial market, that most likely consists of sale at an art auction or sale through a commercial gallery.

Recent data suggests that burgled goods move very rapidly from theft to point of sale, most often through highly informal networks consisting of friends, acquaintances or family, or perhaps local drug dealers.
Further, there is reason to believe that for a large percentage of the traffic of such goods, the ultimate purchasers are aware that they are engaged in what is probably or certainly an illegal enterprise (Stevenson and Forsythe, 1998).

Some of these fakes being amateurish their discovery is relatively easy for those who know the art trade. What the Drewe case in Great Britain and the Blundell case in Australia alert us to is the vulnerability of the art market to individuals who are able to assemble the knowledge about how the art market works, who can find a source of plausible fake works, and ways of systematically and effectively creating false provenances, and then create devices for gaining access for their faked works into the market.

How much art fraud is there? The actual number is unknowable.

Thus forgery of works and authorship are of utmost concern in this day and age of Internet and e-mail, which has increased the problem of validating the quality of a source or author.
As much as any other human enterprise, the art world today is fuelled by pride, greed, and ambition. Artists and art dealers hope for recognition and wealth, while art collectors often acquire works less for their intrinsic aesthetic merit than for their investment potential. In such a climate of values and desires, it is not surprising that poseurs and frauds will flourish