Art forgery

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A work of art is considered to be a counterfeit if it was deliberately created as a work by a specific artist and / or presented to an interested party as an original work by an artist or art group, without this being the case.

Basics

Art forgeries can result from incorrect signing, subsequent signing, copying , pastiche , fining, overpainting, reworking a reproduction or by reproducing a work of art in the style of an artist. Art counterfeiting also includes art fraud through fraudulent manipulation with false statements and / or forged documents ( expert reports , provenance ).

Subsequent signing

A large number of the paintings still in existence were not signed by the artists or no longer have a signature . But signed pictures are easier to identify and promise greater profit on the art market. For this reason, attempts were made at all times to upgrade unsigned paintings by adding a forged signature to them. One finds:

  • Originally unsigned original works by an artist that were subsequently provided with his imitated (forged) signature,
  • Pictures by a less important artist, which were provided with the signature of a higher paid artist and thus “upgraded” in price, and
  • Pictures that have partially or completely lost their signature due to improper restoration and have been re-signed by the restorer.

Copy

A copy is the closest possible imitation of a work of art by an artist or layperson. If the original is lost or unknown to the buyer, any copy can become a forgery unconsciously or through deliberate art fraud.

If characteristic image parts from two or more paintings by one or more artists are copied together to form a new painting, one speaks of a pasticcio. The pasticcio is a copy in the broadest sense. But it is more difficult to expose as a fake art because there is no direct model for comparison.

Fining

If a work of art no longer corresponds to its original appearance due to extensive restoration or partial overpainting, one speaks of fining. If the restorations are easily recognizable, they are “normal” restorations. If, however, extensive repainting and “improvements” have been made, forms added or covered in order to simulate better quality and to make the work of art easier to sell, it is, depending on the size, a question of fining or overpainting. The boundaries between fining and overpainting are fluid.

Overpainting

If a work of art is covered extensively with one or more layers of paint by a hand other than that of the original artist, this is called overpainting. It is used, among other things, to hide the poor state of preservation of a painting and thereby enhance it. The overpainting was also often used by the artist himself if he was not satisfied with the result. For many older paintings this is often a decisive characteristic of originality, because the appropriate material such as canvas and wooden frames were not always available in sufficient quantities or were relatively expensive for the individual artist.

In order to simulate an original icon, the reproduction of an icon was glued to an old, worried wooden board and slightly reworked with paint. With a slight enlargement, the print raster of the reproduction can be clearly seen (figure on the right)

Reproductions produced by printing, photo technology or electronically were also used as the “basis” for counterfeit paintings, for example by relining them onto old picture carriers and then reworking them more or less thinly with color. However, such works are easy to debunk.

Imitation

If a work of art corresponds stylistically, technically and thematically to the work of an artist without having been painted by him, one speaks of an emulation. The really “good” counterfeits, which are usually not or only with difficulty verifiable, are incorrectly signed and / or provided with incorrect expert reports contemporary imitations. Such works often come from the artist's workshop and are attributed to him. This does not always mean a decrease in value.

proof

Proof that there is an art forgery is provided with the help of style criticism , the investigation of the manufacturing technique and with the help of scientific methods. For example, a painting examination also includes an examination of the painting technique . The reasons for the fact that art forgeries keep appearing on the art market and are sold at high prices are a lack of scientific studies, which were usually not carried out for cost reasons, and the lack of findability in relevant directories of known forgeries.

A database of critical works has existed since 2005 , which is operated by the Federal Association of German Art Auctioneers and can be found on the Internet. Scientific analyzes of critical works of art are carried out by the Doerner Institute in Munich and the Rathgen research laboratory in Berlin. You can also consult the Institute for Restoration and Conservation Sciences in Cologne , the International Foundation for Art Research in New York , Art Analysis & Research in London and Geneva Fine Art Analysis GmbH in Switzerland .

restoration

As long as the aim of the restoration was to apparently return a work of art to its first original state, the restorer's activity was always close to the art forgery . It was only released from this closeness when the principle of neutral retouching ( Tratteggio ), developed in Rome by the Istituto superiore per la conservazione ed il restauro under its long-time director Cesare Brandi , became more and more popular. Today it is part of the professional ethos of the restorer not to want to fake original authenticity.

Law

Art forgery is not expressly mentioned in German law. For a prosecution, § 107 UrhG (inadmissible application of the author's designation), § 263 ( fraud ) and § 267 StGB ( forgery of documents ) are relevant. Copying or imitation in itself is legally permissible; only fraudulent intent with the intention of making a profit is not permissible. Fraudulent intent distinguishes counterfeiting from all other forms of copying or imitation. Unknowingly copying is not considered a forgery by copyright , but insisting that a work has been identified as an imitation of intellectual property is considered a copyright infringement. Copying from a replica instead of the original may also be judged to be illegal under certain circumstances.

Cases of unauthorized replicas of furniture classics such as the Rietveld chair represent a borderline case between art forgery and product piracy . If the art forgery does not serve the immediate enrichment, but the professional reputation (e.g. finds in archeology), then this is counted as forgery in science .

Forgery of the signature, attribution

In addition to the copy of works per se, the term forgery also includes the copy of an artist's signature by another hand, regardless of whether it is affixed to a work actually by the artist in question, a copy, an imitation or the like. This type of counterfeiting is particularly common because it is low-cost, requires no artistic skills, and appeals to a large target audience, namely anyone who knows the prices paid for the artist in question. This group is considerably larger than the group of those who can artistically assess works by the artist in question. An artist whose work has been provided with a forged signature can demand that this be removed from the forged works, since according to § 12 BGB there is a violation of his right to a name.

Sometimes there is a concatenation: the first seller describes a work as “in the style of”, the next seller describes it on the back, and finally it is signed. Especially with artists from the second row, there are hardly any experts who know a work, so that even crude attributions can circulate on the auction market; Due to the lower value of such pieces, it is usually not worthwhile to consult appropriate experts or even to conduct a scientific investigation.

Total forgery

It is far more difficult to create a completely new copy or imitation. It requires certain artistic skills and knowledge of the use of techniques and materials of the time in question. There are big differences in the quality of the forgery, although well-crafted forgeries are shown to a certain extent by the public even after they have been exposed.

The invention of a corresponding context is often connected with such total forgeries: the alleged history of the forged object is "documented" with the help of likewise forged documents.

Print graphics

The copying of prints is also easy if the forger is in possession of the original plates. The forgery here consists in reworking the plates and adding handwritten names. Copying with the help of photocopiers and printers is easier, but easier to recognize.

The fame of some artists leads to images in books. These can be removed, handwritten notes added and then sold as signed prints by the artist. Some artist books are only supposed to be so expensive because there are enough book pages to cannibalize. If a signature is visible on the sheet, it says “signed on the plate”. The separated image is initially not a forgery, just the change through the imitated signature of the artist.

However, with advances in reproduction technology, it is becoming increasingly difficult to detect a counterfeit.

cases

Convicted forgers, unlike other criminals, enjoy a certain amount of public attention and are sometimes portrayed as victims of the art market. Some convicted forgers have used the fame they have gained to sell their works under their own name or have used their life stories for journalistic purposes.

However, it can be assumed that there is a large number of unreported cases in the area of ​​art forgery , as art dealers and private collectors may not want to admit to having fallen for a forgery for fear of their good reputation. The possible financial damage (a work of art acquired for a lot of money could suddenly become worthless) may tempt you not to investigate a suspicion of forgery, but to sell the object in question quickly and without closer examination.

Some counterfeiters and fraudsters whose cases received more media attention:

20th century cases

  • the Dutchman Han van Meegeren , who attracted attention after 1945 with forgeries by the painter Jan Vermeer ,
  • the Hungarian Elmyr de Hory , who, after his forgery career became known in the late 1960s, boasted of having created and circulated hundreds of works in the manner of Derain , van Dongen , Matisse , Modigliani and especially Picasso , later turned Orson Welles the film F like fake about him,
  • Lothar Malskat , who, as a restorer, installed false Gothic wall paintings in the Schleswig Cathedral and in the Marienkirche in Lübeck ,
  • so-called Cycladic idols appeared en masse from 1965 and were finally exposed as fakes by the archaeologist Jürgen Thimme .
  • the Aachen goldsmith Reinhold Vasters , who in 1979 is to be regarded as a master forger of Renaissance art due to the discovery of 1047 original drawings in the Victoria & Albert Museum ,
  • Tony Tetro in the US in the 1970s with the mid-1980s, who primarily forged contemporary art and is considered one of the greatest art forgers in the US in his day.
  • Christian Goller , who has repeatedly been accused of forging old master paintings since the 1970s. An alleged Grünewald painting purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art in the 1970s has proven to be a forgery by Goller, as has the lovers with a view of Wasserburg on display in Augsburg at the same time . In the fall of 2014, the Passau public prosecutor initiated an investigation against him for at least 40 forged old master paintings.
  • Konrad Kujau not only forged paintings. He sold his forged Hitler diaries for 9.3 million DM to the magazine stern , which published it in April 1983. Kujau became famous after the forgery (and the filming of the material in the film Schtonk! ) Was discovered. So-called original Kujau forgeries , which in addition to a false artist's signature also bear the Kujau lettering , became so popular with collectors that they were again forged.
  • The cases of the forgers Tom Keating , John Myatt and Eric Hebborn also caused a sensation in Great Britain , in the USA (a preferred sales market for many counterfeiters) for example David Stein (alias Henri Haddad).
  • Wolfgang Lämmle and Edgar Mrugalla , who were both known in 1988 with extensive bundles of graphic and painting forgeries and later sentenced to suspended sentences.
  • Shaun Greenhalgh produced a large number of counterfeit sculptures, paintings and drawings, allegedly including a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci , over a period of 17 years, between 1989 and 2006 .

Cases from around 2000

Attributed to Frans Hals in 2008 , sold by Sotheby’s in New York for USD 10.8 million in 2011 , identified as a modern forgery in 2016
  • In 2005 an edition of Galileo Galilei's Sidereus Nuncius appeared, which contained previously unknown ink drawings. This sensational discovery, which was found to be genuine by international experts, turned out to be a forgery in 2012, which was allegedly brought into the antique trade by the Italian antiquarian Marino Massimo De Caro .
  • Wolfgang Beltracchi : The 2011 trial against him, his wife and two other people caused a sensation. The group had sold re-painted and falsely signed works by prominent artists for around 16 million euros; they were sentenced to various prison terms; Beltracchi received a six-year prison sentence. See also the Werner Jägers collection .
  • Tom Sack , who invented several artist identities in order to sell hundreds of self-painted pictures for inflated prices on the art market between 2005 and 2009. Sack, who appeared outwardly as the “gallery owner” of the artists he had “discovered”, had, with the help of Strohmen, generated corresponding entries in common art price databases such as Artprice , so that collectors had to create false values. In 2009, he was charged with commercial forgery and commercial fraud in at least 201 cases, with the trial ending without a verdict in 2011 after Sack had been sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence in another trial shortly before for the sale of counterfeit works by famous artists .
  • A namesake of the forger Konrad Kujau and her partner sold a large number of so-called original Kujau forgeries through a specially established gallery in the noughties of the 21st century . The two were sentenced to probation and community service by the Dresden Regional Court in 2010. The investigators initially put the damage at more than 550,000 euros, but only 40 of the 301 individual offenses accused could be proven in court.
  • The so-called “ Spanish Master ”, a forger who has not been exposed to this day and who specialized in antique bronze sculptures.

scope

Counterfeit Ranking

Almost everything that achieves high prices on the market is counterfeited, old masters as well as modern classics. Experts assume that 40–60% of the works offered in the art trade could be counterfeit. The front runner in the counterfeit ranking is Salvador Dalí . Robert Descharnes , Dalí's last secretary, said that around 90 percent of all Dalí graphics on offer did not come from the master himself. The artist made it easy for potential forgers by placing his signature generously under blank sheets of paper in his later years. His wife Gala and the private secretary Peter Moore increased the number of questionable Dalí works through dubious authorizations. For the time being, the last act in the matter of Dalí forgeries: After the art historian Lutz Löpsinger, in collaboration with the gallery owner Ralf Michler, had compiled a critical catalog raisonné of the graphic works in 1994 and thus tried to stem the flood of falsified works, Michler was convicted in 2006 because he was Dalí- Had commissioned and signed work.

Bohumil Samuel Kečíř's pictures represent the opposite case : the paintings as such are not forgeries, but the painter as a person probably never existed. A similar case happened in the 1960s when it became known that the author and publicist Max Aub had invented the existence of the painter Jusep Torres Campalans. Aub had not only come up with this figure for his novel of the same name; he also painted many pictures, which then found attention as Campalan's works.

In 2011, the Berlin Rathgen Research Laboratory was instrumental in uncovering the so-called Jäger collection through its archaeometric investigations and was able to identify the images presented to it by the criminal police as forgeries. Counterfeits can also be identified with less elaborate methods: In England, three welfare recipients falsified missing sculptures on a large scale. The fraud was only discovered when they tried to sell an Assyrian stone frieze to the British Museum in London. The frieze inscription contained spelling mistakes. Thereupon the Art Institute of Chicago also examined a supposed Gauguin - also a fake from the English garage workshop.

The Prix ​​Annette Giacometti pour le droit des œuvres et des artistes is a prize of 10,000 euros donated by the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti , Paris, in 2011. Every year it honors exhibitions and publications from all over the world that are committed to protecting the copyright for works of art and artists and that are directed against art counterfeiting.

Plenty of counterfeit certificates have been coming from Russia since the 1990s. In June 2013, the BKA hit an international art forgery ring. Around 1,000 paintings by Russian avant-garde artists such as Kandinsky , Malevich , Jawlensky and others were seized. The main culprits were Russians, Israelis and German-Tunisians.

Consequences for pricing

For pricing on the art market , not only the authenticity of a work of art but also the surcharges achieved so far for works by the respective artist in traditional art auction houses are important . Providers such as the French company ARTPRICE SA and the German artnet AG operate databases with corresponding price collections, which can be viewed by everyone (for a fee).

However, the entries in databases often do not contain any information about the circumstances under which the price was incurred. Therefore, the pure price indication can lead to wrong conclusions on the part of the interested party. Even the fact that a renowned auction house is offering or has offered the work of art does not offer a guarantee, as some spectacular cases show.

The role of the internet and digitization

Offers on the Internet pose an additional risk. It is known, for example, that the artists invented by the art dealer Tom Sack had several database entries with unrealistically high hammer prices that were presented to the interested public on the Internet (especially on eBay ) as screenshots . As a result, hundreds of collectors around the world allowed themselves to be tempted to pay prices of several thousand euros for the pictures, which were in themselves worthless and made with cheapest materials.

Nowadays, thanks to advances in digital technologies (see Digital Revolution ), better and better art forgeries can be made and sold in markets and on the Internet. Counterfeiting of this kind, which was only occasionally reported in the media until a few years ago, can in total lead to considerable economic damage. Several cases are now known from the USA.

See also

literature

  • Hubertus Butin : Art forgery - The deceptive object of desire , Suhrkamp / Insel 2020 ISBN 978-3-518-42911-2
  • Joachim Goll : Art forger. EASeemann Verlag Leipzig, 1st edition 1962 (with bibliography).
  • Lord Kilbracken: Forger or Master? The van Meegeren case. Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna / Hamburg 1968.
  • Exhibition catalog: Falsification and research. Ed .: Museum Folkwang, Essen, and Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-7759-0201-5 .
  • Andreas Beck : Original - fake? Imaging procedures in the diagnosis of works of art . Schnetztor-Verlag GmbH, Konstanz 1990, ISBN 3-87018-080-3 .
  • Klaus Ahrens, Günter Handlögten: Real money for fake art . Remchingen 1992, ISBN 3-929007-13-4 .
  • Eric Hebborn : The Art Forger . DuMont, Cologne 1999 (forgery techniques).
  • Stefan Römer : Artistic Strategies of Fake: Critique of Original and Fake . DuMont, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5532-7 .
  • Susanna Partsch : Tatort art. About fakes, fraudsters and dupes . CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60621-2 .
  • Christian Müller-Straten: Counterfeit detection. Volume 1. Verlag Müller-Straten, series Wunderkammer Volume 9, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-932704-83-3 ; Volume 2, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-932704-85-7 .
  • Stefan Koldehoff , Tobias Timm : Wrong pictures, real money . Galiani, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86971-057-0 .
  • RG Reisner: Fakes and Forgeries in the Fine Arts , New York 1950
  • Malte Sprenger: Winding paths of beautiful pictures. Selected cases of art forgery and looted art . Edition Minerva, Neu-Isenburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-943964-08-0 .
  • Edward Dolnick: The Nazi and the Art Forger . Parthas, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86964-082-2 .
  • Falsification - plagiarism - copy. Artistic Practices of the Premodern . Edited by Birgit Ulrike Münch, Andreas Tacke , Markwart Herzog, Sylvia Heudecker (Kunsthistorisches Forum Irsee; 1). Petersberg 2014.
  • Henry Keazor , Tina Öcal (ed.): The Beltracchi case and the consequences. Interdisciplinary forgery research today . de Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-031589-9 .
  • Henry Keazor: Deceptively real! A history of art forgery. Darmstadt 2015, ISBN 978-3-8062-3032-1 .
  • Henry Keazor, Maria Effinger (Hrsg.): FAKE - forgeries as they are in the book (including exhibition catalog ). Winter, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8253-6621-6 .

Web links

Commons : Art forgery  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ^ Frank Arnau: Art of the forger, forger of the art . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1964.
  2. ↑ Knut Nicolaus: DuMont's picture lexicon for determining paintings . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1982, p. 202 ff .
  3. ↑ http://www.kunstversteigerer.de/datenbank-kritischer-werke
  4. ^ Hubertus Butin: Art forgery - The deceptive object of desire. P. 191
  5. ^ Hinnerk Scheper : Restoration and professional ethics. In: German art and monument preservation. Born in 1955, page 109 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  6. ↑ See also: A changing job description. Restoring does not mean doing again. Catalog published by Ralf Buchholz and Hannes Homann, Hanover (Schäferart), 1994, 1997, traveling exhibition 1994ff in museums in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
  7. ↑ Stefan Römer: The concept of fake , dissertation Berlin 1998. With references. ( Memento from June 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.3 MB).
  8. ^ Art, the market and law. Gerhard Pfennig, p. 106
  9. ↑ E. Schöller (Ed.): Wa (h) re Lügen: Original and forgery in dialogue. Münster 2008.
  10. ↑ S. Schüller: Wrong or Real? The van Meegeren case. Bonn 1953.
  11. ^ Ernst Roßmann: Scientific investigation of the wall paintings in the Chorobergaden of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, on the occasion of the Lübeck picture forgery process. In: German art and monument preservation. Born in 1955, page 99 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  12. ^ K. Wehlte: What was going on in Lübeck? . In: Painting technique. 61/1955, p. 11.
  13. ↑ Peter Hirschmann: What should become of the forged murals in St. Marien zu Lübeck? In: German art and monument preservation. Born in 1955, page 106 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  14. ↑ Josef Riederer, Forgeries of marble idols and vessels of the Cycladic culture , in: Art and Culture of the Cyclades Islands , 1976, pp. 94–96.
  15. ↑ See article in the Bild newspaper from April 9, 2010, http://www.bild.de/regional/dresden/faelscht-konrad-kujaus-faelschungen-und-verdiente-daran-300000-euro-13851958.bild. html , accessed October 3, 2015.
  16. ↑ Eric Hebborn: Drawn to Trouble. an autobiography by Eric Hebborn, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 1994, ISBN 1-85158-369-6 .
  17. ↑ Will Gompertz : Sotheby's declares 'Frans Hals' work a forgery , on BBC , October 6, 2016.
  18. ↑ Art forger has to be imprisoned for six years . In: Spiegel Online . October 27, 2011, accessed November 30, 2013.
  19. ↑ See http://www.art.org/
  20. ↑ Susanna Partsch : Tatort Kunst , CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60621-2 , p. 166 f.
  21. ^ Saskia Hufnagel: Art Fraud in Germany: Lessons Learned or the Fast Falling into Oblivion? In: Cultural Property Crime - An Overview and Analysis of Contemporary Perspectives and Trends , Brill, Leiden / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-90-04-28053-3 , p. 111 ff.
  22. ↑ Mild verdict: Kujau now has to work in the day care center ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Sächsische Zeitung from September 10, 2010, accessed on October 24, 2019.
  23. ↑ Basellandschaftliche Zeitung - Empress and Goddess should only be antique junk. May 9, 2014, accessed May 9, 2014 .
  24. ↑ CULTurMAG: Literature, Music & Positions, February 26, 2004, Max Aub: Jusep Torres Campalans - An exquisite picaresque piece by Karsten Herrmann, accessed on September 7, 2013.
  25. ↑ Albrecht Buschmann: The bull in the labyrinth. Max Aub in Spain and Mexico. ( Memento of October 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), 1997. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
  26. ↑ Spelling mistakes on ancient friezes . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 17, 2010, accessed November 30, 2013.
  27. ↑ Prix Annette Giacometti , lejournaldesarts.fr, accessed on 30 May 2012 found.
  28. ↑ Wolfgang Degen, BKA snaps art forgers, arrests, two Wiesbadeners are considered to be the masterminds of an international fraud group, Wiesbadener Kurier, Friday, June 14, 2013, p. 1; Wolfgang Degen, imitation as a million dollar business, art forgery process, the indictment could be read out on the third day of the hearing, application of bias against the judges, Wiesbadener Kurier, Tuesday, February 17, 2015, p. 11.
  29. ^ Federal Criminal Police Office smashes art counterfeiting ring In: Zeit-online from June 13, 2013.
  30. ↑ Four hundred false images and a raid In: FAZ-online from June 16, 2013.
  31. ↑ On pricing on the art market in detail: Katja Blomberg: How art values ​​arise. Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-938017-24-4 .
  32. ↑ zeit.de
  33. ↑ Martina Dlugaiczyk: H-Net review of the conference forgery, plagiarism and copy: Artistic Practices in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (Schwabenakademie Irsee, March 15-17, 2013), in: H-Soz-u-Kult , July 2013.
  34. ^ Nils Graefe: Die Landeskriminaler. Expert for art forgeries from the LKA. (Welzheimer Zeitung, June 16, 2014. (online) .)
  35. ↑ Broadcast on Arte on March 30, 2019: Leonardo da Vinci: The Secret of the Beautiful Princess ( Memento of the original from April 1, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv