Buying fraudulent paintings
Since Goya`s paintings are worth tens of
millions of dollars, anyone being offered the opportunity to purchase A City on a Rock for as little as half a
million dollars would jump at the opportunity if they really believed it was the
original of Goya`s painting. Unfortunately, many copies of that painting are
being sold but most people are aware that the copies are fakes. Unfortunately,
no one knows where the original painting is. It would be really funny if
someone selling what they believed was a fake was in fact the original painting
of A City on a Rock.
There was a watercolour drawing on paper
that supposedly replicated The Bridges at Asnieres
by van Gogh which was presented as part of an antique letter. The paining depicts
a bridge over a river, painted in a loose style and is inscribed and signed
with the name of Vincent. Incidentally, many artists sign only their first
names. I drew in chalk and later in painted a portrait picture of a child, his
father, grandfather and great grandfather and signed the picture with only my
first name.
The paper on which the watercolour is
painted is folded several times to form the shape of an envelope as an antique
letter would have been sent in the time Goya was painting and cleverly bears an
address and post mark inferring that this letter was posted to the recipient,
'Paul Gaugin,' in Paris who was a great friend of Van Gogh. This fake letter is actually a facsimile copied by someone
else of an original known to have been painted by Vincent Van Gogh in the year
1887.
International
art authentication experts, the Freemanart Consultancy with bases in the USA,
Canada, the UK, Italy, France, Spain and Germany, examine thousands of works of
art each year, including a myriad of limited edition prints and naturally, all
are purportedly originals, printed by and of course hand signed by the artist
himself. Many of them are later determined to be fakes.
It
has to be said that in many cases, the ink of the print itself has hardly
had time to dry at the time when the print is bought by an unknowing investor
who has been duped by the seller. And having certificates of authenticity
attached to the back of the prints is no guarantee that the prints have the
artist’s original signature on them. Incidentally, signatures just below the
prints are always signed with a pencil. That way, the buyer knows that the
signature isn’t printed. Of course, it is easy to forge a signature.
Fake
Dali, Miro, Chagall and Picasso limited edition prints come in all shapes and
guises and are in most cases claimed as being authentic and legitimate Dali's
and Picasso's by believable, flowery certificates of authenticity, presented to
you by highly qualified individuals who are far more qualified in cleverly
deceiving you than you think.
In one
particular case, the Certificate of Authenticity claimed the authenticity of a
Salvador Dali art print purchased by an unsuspecting buyer who is a highly
regarded American medical doctor who invested heavily in works of art
purportedly by Dali, Chagall and Miro back in the 1980's.
Those so
called authentic Salvador Dali limited edition prints were purchased from an
art investment company that the victim believed were both reputable and
responsible (The art investment company in question hailed from Quebec)
Clearly, they were neither reputable nor responsible art advisors. They were however
responsible for defrauding hundreds of unknowing individuals out of countless
thousands of dollars and got away with it.
Bogus
limited edition prints, if bought at a presentation are often seemingly
supported in an ambiguous way. They may be offered on board a principal
Caribbean holiday cruise line or a major hotel chain where these 'investment
opportunity presentations' often take place. The cruise lines and the hotel
people have no idea that fakes are being sold.
Prints
may also be sold through what is seemingly a 'reputable gallery' or through a
convincing and promising mail order firm. As you can see, it is easy to see how
thousands of highly intelligent people made and still persist in making
gigantic errors of judgments and in the process lose millions between them to
these scams.
Works
of art still appear regularly at auctions, both on line and through auction
houses in major cities. Just because a work of art is sold at a reputable
auction house doesn’t mean that the art of work is authentic. Even the auction
house can be fooled. But if the work of art you purchased from an auction house
or a reputable dealer is a fake, they will pay you back what you paid for the
work of art. That is why you should make sure that the auction house or art
dealer has a long and excellent reputation.
What follows are kinds of paintings that are sold.
Abstract paintings are where an artist either exaggerates or simplifies
the form of the subject to attach emotion or other meaning to it.
Art deco paintings are forms of abstract art, celebrates technical
advances of the 1920s and 1930s. Art deco paintings have a slick, metallic look,
include jarring angles, and use colors of machinery.
Gouache watercolors are types of watercolors that include white pigments that
make them thicker and more opaque than other watercolors.
Impressionist paintings are when during the era of the late 19th century,
painters such as Monet and Renoir
altered their strokes to approximate the effects of changes in lighting on a
subject. Impressionism remains a popular style for modern-day painters,
collectors, and art enthusiasts.
Pop art depicts contemporary, common objects in a way
that makes a statement about modern culture. The pop art movement is most often
associated with Andy
Warhol and Jasper Johns.
Realist paintings portray faithful and realistic depictions of
subjects, arising from the idea that any subject in and of itself is worthy of
being painted.
Surreal paintings which are fantastic approaches to art, features objects
that look or act unnaturally or are depicted together unexpectedly, as in a
dream.
All of these kinds of paintings have been passed
off as originals when in fact they were fakes.
How a fake is determined
1.
Do your homework. Research
the piece, know the artist's work, look at many of his pieces, compare
signatures and photograph close-ups of the signature.
2.
Visit museums study the paintings. If you ask to see the back of a painting, the staff may
show you. Examine the feel and look of old art works. Study the depth and
number of layers of paint needed to achieve the color desired by the artist.
3.
Examine the painting itself
for dirt and dust that may have accumulated through the ages, and look at the
texture of the brush strokes and also look at the colour to see if it faded
since if it has, it may very well be the original. Also, it the canvas has been
stapled to the frame of a painting that is alleged to have been painted
sometime prior to the 1900s, you know that something is wrong.
4.
Look at the painting or varnishing of the wooden frame to determine whether the wood is old. Determine how the frame is put together, considering
what kind of nails and wires to hang the picture are used.
5.
Look
for bristles if the seller tells you that it was painted more than 100
years earlier. Painted copies sometimes will have hairs from the cheap
paint brush still in the paint on the canvas.
6.
When you
do get your hands on the painting, smell it. It takes oil a while to dry and
years to completely lose the smell of oil. If you can smell the oil in the
paint, you know that it was painted recently.
7.
Get the work appraised. If it is
something you really are prepared to pay a great deal of money to obtain the
painting, you need a third party to independently review it—someone who is an
authority on paintings. How do you know if the appraiser is reliable? He or she
should have a certificate from one or more of the professional associations of
art appraisers, have a history of work with the particular artist or medium or
period, and preferably not be a dealer or broker of art himself. Research the
market history of the artist.
8.
Note that some dealers, perhaps including those on cruise ships, may
attempt to confuse the buyer with sizes and periods, even mediums to sell a
lesser piece at inflated prices. Look for
signatures and numbers. For prints they must be signed, and numbered.
9.
Many
pieces will have gallery stickers or information written on the back. Research
that gallery to learn whether it ever existed. Look for signs of wear. There
should be some signs of wear, on the frame, even the canvas sometimes. Wooden
edges not quite as sharp after 50, 100 years, and drier.
10.
Research
the artist for reputation. Some artists are known to have signed blank papers,
which later have prints drawn on/from them, which means that the artists did
not even supervise the authentication of their paintings. These paintings would
be of significantly lesser value. Salvador Dali was known to have done this so
that unlimited copies of his work could be supposedly authenticated by him.
11. Watch for a
scam where the print is not numbered but another document is. This is
meaningless as any signed representing one painting can be used in place of the
real item.
Before I finish this article, I want to tell you an interesting story
about one of the most famous forgers of art in history. He was a Dutchman and his name was Han van Meegeren
.
During World War II, wealthy
Dutchmen, wanting to prevent a sellout of Dutch art to Adolf Hitler
and the Nazi Party, avidly bought van Meegeren’s forgeries. Nevertheless,
a falsified “Vermeer” ended up in the
possession of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. Following the war, the
forgery was discovered in Göring’s possession, and van Meegeren was arrested on
May 29, 1945 as a collaborator, as officials believed that he had
sold Dutch cultural property to the Nazis. This would have been an act of
treason, the punishment for which was death, so van Meegeren fearfully
confessed to the forgery. He wasn’t believed
.
Thereupon, he decided to prove his
talent to the critics by forging paintings of some of the world’s most famous
artists, including Johannes Vermeer. He so well replicated the styles and
colours of the artists that the best art critics and experts of the time
regarded his paintings as if they were genuine.
His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while he was living in the south of
France. This painting was hailed by some of the world’s foremost art experts as
the finest Vermeer they had ever seen.
On November 12, 1947, after a brief
but highly publicized trial, he was convicted of falsification and fraud
charges, and was sentenced to a modest punishment of one year in prison. He
never served his sentence, because before he could be incarcerated, he suffered
a heart attack and died on December 30, 1947. It is estimated that van Meegeren
duped buyers, including the government of the Netherlands, out of the
equivalent of more than thirty million dollars in today’s money.
I hope you have enjoyed this article. Remember that paintings are
created so that people can enjoy them. If you think you can enjoy having an
expensive painting in your home, by all means buy it. But if you are buying a so-called original
painting as an investment, be wary as it may be one of hundreds of similar originals being sold by crooked
salesmen.
If you end up buying one of my paintings, look for my thumb print at the
lower right-hand corner. If it isn’t
there, then it is not an original. If there is a thumb print in that corner, it
could be someone else’s thumb print. Forgers will do anything to sell you a
fake original painting. In any case, I
doubt that any of my paintings will be forged—copied perhaps but definitely not
forged as I hardly think they are worth the trouble—after all, I was never one
of the masters.
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