Lecturer: Lorna Moloney

Basis for Standard aquisitions1. On seeing a new image, write down

the first words or phrases that come to mind.

2. Make a deliberate and pedantic description of what you see.

3. Describe the condition of the image, noting every mark or label

4. Ask what the image depicting?

Basis for scrutiny

5. Determine if the condition of the image backs up how it was used

6. Describe the style of the work, Is there a single, homogenous style or both

7. Establish if the supposed date and style are in accord

8. Assemble all the documentary information

Basis for scrutiny

9. Gather all published references, exhibitions, collections, etc, do these make sense? Does this image have a provenance, one that can be proven.

10. Subject the image to scientific examination, ranging from Carbon 14, thermoluminescence, ultraviolet X-ray, autoradiography, the common magnifying glass

11. Assess the market place for its opinions if possible

Ancient world

Old as mankind itself Phoenicians, earliest recorded

forger’s around the Meditteranean in the sixth century b.c.

‘Pious frauds’ – dating from pagan times. In early Christian times, accelerated

Ancient Egypt – 1922, craze for Egyptian artefacts

Greeks

Ancient greek word for fakes is nothoi Extensive sections of the Old

Testament Book of Daniel which relate to detailed prophesies,supposedly written in the sixth century b.c. Found in the third century a.d to be second century b.c.

Porphyry reasoned that Daniel was able to foretell four hundred years in advance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Greeks.

The story of Susanna

Bible translabed from Hebrew into Greek in the second century b.c.

Temple relics routinely faked Rhetoric schools of ancient greece

trained their pupils to create fakes of the works of earlier writers, particularly private letters.

Ancient city of Rome

Art forgeries prolific in the 212 b.c. Demand for Greek art, silver and

jewellery Owning a prime greek work was a

status symbol Horace ‘ He who knows a thousand

works knows a thousand frauds’ Forging of documents carried severe

documents, not so for Art

The Middle Ages

Christian fakes intended to denigrate pagans

Scriptores historiae Augustae ‘Writings on the histories of the emperors’ – fourth century A.D. tales of degradation and cruelty, exposed as fake in the sixteenth century

Letters faked around A.D. 300 Christ exchanged with King Abgar of Edessa

The Dark Ages

Fifth to eight centuries, to the time of Charlemagne

Manuscripts and documents Believed that over half are fakes Donations of Constantine, - Proving

that Rome not Byzantium was the seat of the church. Lorenzo Valla disproved this document .

Age of Relics

Fashionable and economically viable to possess holy evidence

Reliquaries & shrines, pieces of the true cross, nails from the true cross, the crown of thorns,Longinus’ lance, dice thrown by the Roman soldiers, all sorts of shrouds and veils

‘Tricks of the renaissance and shams of the baroque’ Watershed for fakes Passionate nostalgia for the golden

ages of ancient civilisations Famous architects employed

copyists and fakers, Robert Adams, 1775- Modern thinking about

restoration emerged

Materials favoured by forgers Clay – convenient, easy to age

Forged painters

Corot (1796-1875) Honore Daumier (1808-1879) Renoir (1841-1919) made lacklustre

copies, Max Liebermann (1847-1935)

Disclaimer – Art historians make it easier for bad

paintings to be attributed to forgers’

Claude Monet 1840-1926

Placed advertisements in local french newspapers offering for sale works of haystacks, poplars and the façade of Rouen Cathedral

Case Study

Hanricus Antonious van Meegeren (1889-1947)

‘The Vermeer man’ Dutch painter Invented new Vermeer’s

How did he do it?

Prepared the canvas Scraped entire canvas but used a

seventeenth century one Preserved original ground with its

thin layer of gesso and beige wash Ground was full of natural cracks Used canvas as a template and

rolled it with a large cylinder

Preparation of canvas

Removed all the paint except the seventeenth century white and incorporated this into the new subject

Signed the picture with the standard I.V.M.

Roasted his novel combination of hand-ground colours, lilac oil and bakelite in an oven at a temperature of 450 degrees fahrenheit for a couple of hours,

Responded to the alcohol test

Methodology

Picture given several coats of varnish Rolled on a cracking cylinder Covered the surface with india ink

soaked into the crack Cleaned the picture so ink remaining

would heighten the effect of the craquelure

Deliberately damaged the canvas with a number of abrasions and a small rip

Methodology

For a fillip, he carried out some small bumbling repairs of the damage and tacked the canvas on to the wood of an old stretcher which he cut down, used nails of the right age also

Painting became the toast of the art world though many denounced them as fakes

Became collectors items and nazi Herman Goering possessed them

Other paintings

Isaac blessing Jacob Washing of the feet Last supper Helped by the fact that there was a

war and no-one was travelling to Holland to see them

Exposed after the war

Faked Photographs

http://www.cracked.com/article/118_the-15-most-shameless-fake-photos-ever-passed-off-as-real/

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tests/hoaxphototest4.html