J. Forens. Sci. Soc. (1 973), 13, 169

Frauds and Forgeries in Libraries and Museums

A. D. BAYNES-COPE Research Laboratory, British Museum, London W C L B 3DG, England

A condensed version of the lecture given at the Forensic Science Society's Symposium on "Fraud and Questioned Documents" on November 20, 1971.

There is much material in museums and libraries to which the terms 'yraudulent" and 'Lforgery" are not strictCy applicable and which is best described as "dubious". Sometimes material may be classijed as dubious because it is not now suficiently well documented.for its nature and origins to be known exactly. Some material is now known to be fraudulent or forged because scientific research into the materials and methods of antiquity has enabled us to distinguish true from false. Some examples of the range of materials in which honest mistakes and.fraud can occur are given.

Perhaps instead of "Frauds" and "Forgeries" we should think about "Dubious matter" for though there is a ccrtain amount of forgery, there is a great deal of rnaterial where the technical terms "fraud" and "forgery" may not be exactly applicable.

One of the difficulties in fixing hard-and-fast lines of demarcation is that caused by poor documentation relating to antiquities and works of art. We know that many pictures were copied in the studios of the original painter, yet without there being clear labelling from the very beginning, art historians will find grounds for argument ad injinitum. In many museums, records have not always been kept with the meticulous care that we expect today in regard to previous ownership, provenance, etc., and lack of a definite pedigree may bring doubt into being where none should exist, either as to the genuineness or the falsity of the material concerned. Perhaps policemen, lawyers and archivists share a common concern for evidential integrity and it is now realized in other professions how vital this may be.

Certainly fraud and forgery have been with us for a very long time for there is in existence at least one Roman coin forged in antiquity. Forgers of works of art flourished in the Renaissance and some monasteries have become notable for their forgeries of charters in medieval times. There is in "Lady Ivie's Case" a report of a hearing of a property dispute, involving forged deeds and plans, before Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys in 1684 in which one witness described their methods of artificially ageing documents (Fox, 1929). The problem that we in museums and libraries face today is that we have to sort out the dubious material according to its true nature and to the intent with which it may be offered. - - - - -

In the past, many individual scientists who had an interest in antiquities would examine ancient material but it is only in this century that some museums have had their own laboratories in which objects could be examined by scien- tific, that is, chemical and physical techniques. The Staatliche Museum in Berlin had the first laboratory but in the aftcrmath of World War I this did not have a long life and the British Museum Research Laboratory, founded in 1922, is now the oldest ofits kind. Nowadays, such laboratories are being formed yearly, some in a museum for that particular museum, some as central state laboratories to serve all the museums in a country and some in universities. From these has come a steady stream of data that can be used to elucidate problems of identi- fication. Obviously, great care has to be exercised in interpreting the results. Analysis is perhaps the most exact science but all too often the analyst may have

to work with a sample that may not be truly representative of the object as a whole, for the sort of sample that is taken when commercially available metals are bought and sold is not available from fragile and precious antiquities. Metals, as sold, are free from corrosion, though not from internal disproportion- ation, but most antiquities, particularly those from excavations, are heavily corroded and this results in disproportionation at and immediately below the surface. Thus, more than ordinary care must be taken in sampling and interpretation.

I propose to illustrate the sort of problem with which we are faced by actual examples. My own work is much concerned with the library and archival side and there will be a considerable bias to that aspect.

In 1837 Queen Victoria came to the throne and in that same year, Rradshaw's Railway Guide was first published as a slim book for the pocket (apart from railway timetables it contained street maps and a table of cab-fares for London). In 1887, the Golden Jubilee was celebrated and Bradshaws produced their own Jubilee facsimile. This was indeed an excellent replica and considerable knowledge is required to distinguish it from the original. When this question was referred to the British Museum Research Laboratory, it was resolved quite easily, for, in 1837, rag fibres only were available to the papermaker, whereas in 1887 the printer used paper made from esparto pulp, the morphological differences between the fibres being very distinctive.

An interesting case arose when I undertook to clean a pair of large (24-inch) globes for All Souls College, Oxford. I t so happens that the present Superin- tendent of the British Museum Map Room, Dr. Helen Wallis, has a keen interest in globes, and this particular pair were very dirty, so that a proper cartographical study of them was very difficult. I t was known that they were published in 1742 by the famous English maker, John Senex, and had been donated to the College in 1753. In 1742, Anson had not yet completed his great circumnavigation and Janies Cook was only a boy of 14. In 1793, the College sent the terrestial globe to Dudley Adams, the successor to John Senex, to be brought up to date with the new discoveries of that great age of exploration.

Once they were clean, Dr. Wallis and I could examine them, the points of interest being these :

(i)The gore structures were different. This is not perhaps of great importance and is not uncommon. I t can easily be realized that there is little of geo- graphical importance at the North and South Polar Regions, whereas the circumpolar stars are of considerable importance and their positions must be depicted accurately. This is more easily done if the gores meet at the ecliptic pole or if the gores are shortened and the polar area is covered by a "calotte", than if the gores meet a t the pole, for the placing of the gores involves distortion of the paper in which they are printed.

(ii) The Polar pivots were of different thicknesses on the two globes. (iii) The hour hands were of a different shape. (iv) The "clips", which hold the pivots in place on the meridian rings, were

retained bv screws of different sha~es . (v) The inter& structures of the globis were different, for the celestial globe

had a "triple-cross", that is, three pieces of wood mutually at right-angles, whereas the terrestrial globe had a single centre pillar between the North and South poles.

(vi) When we came to examine the cartographical information on the terrestrial globe, we found certain peculiarities. (a) An island was, in 1742, believed to exist north-east of Japan, but

by 1793 this was disproved. I t came a t a point where two gores met and was present on one but not on the other, so that half an island was shown.

(b) Anson's track was shown by a dotted black line overlaid with a continuous red line. At a point where it crossed a bay which came near to the edge of a gore, it was marked by a red line, but not by a

dotted line. Further, where the track came to a block of written description, it ran between two lines of writing as far as a semi-colon, turned north to the next line above and then westward to emerge from the far side of the text.

We came to the conclusion that Adams was producing his globes using a mixture of original Senex plates, modified Senex plates and new Adams plates and placing them on globe bodies of his own design and make. When the All Souls globe came in, he removed the "book-plate", put it on one of his own globes and returned this to the College. Lawyers may like to argue as to whether or not this was "bringing up to date" or substitution. Certainly, it was not the original globe, and indeed it is doubtful if there are any complete Senex globes of the 1742 edition still surviving in this country.

This case is also worth mentioning because it gave impetus to a systematic study of the ways in which globes are made as distinct from the information they display, and this study has produced information of value in other cases. We have twice been able to certify globes as genuine and once were able to expose a forgery.

This particular pair of globes were in the possession of a museum which believed, but were not certain, that they were part of a donation by a reputable and knowledgeable collector. I t would have been interesting to know if they were in fact part of his collection and whether he had been deceived by them or had bought them as examples of the exceedingly impudent forgery that they were.

The globes were reputed to be by P. Kaerius, i.e., Pieter van den Keere, who lived from 1571 to 1646, that is, they came from the hand of a master engraver working in the Golden Age of cartography and globe-making. The terrestrial globe was clearly in the correct Kaerius style, but the celestial globe was not, and appeared to be a copy of a Coronelli globe of 6.1680-1690 (Fr. Coronelli, a Venetian, lived 1650-1718). Neither of the globes had been varnished and neither had the usual excess of dirt on the northern (upper) side.

The printing lacked the sharpness of copper plate engravings from expert hands, and the writing in the cartouches of the celestial globe was reduced to mere squiggles. The placing of the gores lacked the professional perfection of the two masters and thus is was possible to detach a tiny fragment of overlap from gores on each globe. Both of these proved to contain sulphite wood pulp, a material not introduced to papermaking until 200 years after Kaerius's death. The shell of the globes proved to be of similar material. A little bibliographical research located the books of unmounted gores from which photocopies were taken.

One of the most notorious of all library frauds was exposed in the early 1930's and was concerned with the activities of Mr. Thomas Wise. He was a book collector and bibliographer of the highest standing and had been so for many years. He collected the "Ashley Library", later bought by the British Museum as a very valuable addition to our Department of Printed Books.

The deliberate acquisition of contemporary first editions has not always been a common practice but during the later years of the nineteenth century, an increasing number of bibliophiles began to collect first editions of works by contemporary poets and authors. In the late 19207s, two bibliographers, John Carter and Graham Pollard heard what they described as "vague rumours" that certain copies of first editions that appeared on the market at intervals were not all that they seemed to be. They therefore began a meticulously thorough investigation into these pamphlets. They considered several factors which were: (1) The paper used; (2) The type used; (3) Collation of the text; (4) "Negative evidence" relating to the identity of the printer, publisher, etc.; (51 Provenance. \ ,

Of these, the one most germane to the occasion of this lecture is the question of the paper. I t is now generally known that following the introduction of the Fourdrinier machine and rotary presses, there was an increasing demand for

paper which the existingsources of raw material (cotton and linen rags) could not meet. Thus, from about 1835 onwards much experimental work on developing new sources of fibrous pulp was undertaken. New materials were introduced as they became available and Carter and Pollard were able to produce a clear picture of the dates at which these new forms of cellulose were used com- mercially.

Analysis of the paper of the pamphlets showed that certain of them were printed on paper composed of fibres that had not been introduced at the date which was borne on the pamphlets, the discrepancies being from 3 to 19 years. I n virtually every case the source of the pamphlet could be traced, typographi- cally, to a printer who had carried out the work a t the request of Mr. Wise. By bibliographical detective work, they were able to show that no productions occurred after 1899. Incidentally, the series of these pamphlets which the British Museum possesses were all donated by members of the firm of essential oil merchants for which Wise worked.

Carter and Pollard published their findings (1934) and though they did not categorically state that Wise was the forger, they invited him, in no uncertain terms, to explain the matter. He was then an old man, in poor health, and no satisfactory answer was ever made by him. I t should be made clear that, apart from the small number of forged pamphlets, the Ashley Library is undoubtedly genuine.

The nineteenth century saw the rise of the practice of collecting book- bindings for their own sake, though comparatively little study of genuine bindings had as yet been made. 'l'his left a fBirly open field for the forger, and there is an interesting chemical sidelight on this. The leather available from the middle of the nineteenth century onward is notoriously less durable than, say, sixteenth-century leather, and a forgery will probably expose itself, or rather destrov itself. after a few decades.

One man made a speciality of forging a particular type of book cover, which were based on the wonderful series of painted wooden covers for the accounts of the city of Sienna, the majority of which are still preserved in the archives of that city. From early in the thirteenth century, the officials of the Public Treasury and of the Tax Office made up their accounts every 6 months on parchment (paper was as yet rather a newcomer) and had them bound between wooden boards. O n the upper board (i.e., the front cover) was painted a portrait of the chamberlain and his scrivenor and the arms of the citizens who had served, for that 6-month period, as officials, called "Provveditori" in the Treasury and "Esecutori" in the Tax Office. O n the lower board (i.e., the back) were painted the names of the citizens. I n 1459 the system was changed. Italy now had a well-developed papermaking industry and paper, rather than parchment, was used for the accounts, and leather, rather than wooden boards for the covers. The record of the citizens' service was no longer preserved on the bound volumes of the accounts, but separate framed panel paintings were prepared, similar to those that had been placed on the covers and these were hung on the walls. There are, however, a set of book covers, mostly bearing dates subsequent to 1459, for such accounts and these were produced, late in the nineteenth century by I. F. Joni. Rather unusually for a forger, he published his memoirs in 1932 and admitted that he had not dared to visit the Archivio di Stato in Sienna to inspect the originals, which quite reasonably accounts for the fact that they do not resemble the originals and are clearly designed as bookbindings rather than as panel paintings, which would have been correct for the putative date.

Possibly the most meticulously examined fraud was that of the Piltdown fossils (1 955). Charles Dawson was a solicitor in Sussex, well known for his great interest in fossils and in the history of early man. I t is worthwhile to try to cast our minds back to the early years of this century to try to understand the great interest in this subject. Charles Darwin had been dead for about 15 years. Alfred Russell Wallace, who had independently conceived the Theory of Evolution

was still alive, but opposed to its application to man himself. There were still men opposed to the Darwinian theory and there were men alive and still active who had attended the famous meeting a t which Huxley had rebuked Bishop Wilberforce. The descent of man was then in those years, still, in some minds, controversial. Dawson produced from gravel workings at Piltdown in Sussex a series of fossil bones and artifacts which, from their close physical association, could clearly be regarded as belonging together, and the character- istic features of two skulls and a jawbone were such as to indicate that these came froman extremely early period in the history ofmankind. I t must he remembered that in those days there was little comparative material as yet discovered, so that there was no opposition to the view that Dawson had genuinely made a major discovery. As the years went by, more discoveries were made, in all parts of the world, except Piltdown, and yet, Piltdown man could never be placed exactly into the logical schemes of the descent of man that could be based on the information afforded by the later discoveries. The problems hinged, to a great extent, on the relation of the jawbone to the skulls and on the way in which such a jawbone could have moved in order to cause the wear to the teeth that was peculiar to Piltdown man.

During the late 19407s, K. P. Oakley had realized that the slow accretion of foreign trace elements in bone could offer a means of comparing the relative ages of bones from the same, or similar environments and Dr. C. R. Hoskins of the Department of the Government Chemist, carried out a prolonged investi- gation into the determination of fluorine in bone, for fluorine can be trapped by bone, replacing the hydroxyl apatite which is the mineral constituent of bone. Hoskins's work showed that, given adequate samples, fluorine could be deter- mined in fossil bone with sufficient precision to allow fair comparisons to be made. The examination of Piltdown material did not, however, give unambigu- ous results, for Piltdown man was very very precious indeed. Later work by C. F. M. Fryd, who succeeded Hoskins in the Crown Contracts Division, refined the method and, together with surcessful results obtained from nitrogen determinations carried out in the Natural History Museum, it became clear that powerful methods did exist which could be used to study the age of fossil bones. The authorities of the Natural History Museum allowed larger samples to be taken and a full-scale investigation could be set in hand.

Several methods could be used. When bone decays, it slowly loses the protein fraction, collagen, thus causing a decrease in the nitrogen and organic carbon content. Carbonates may be deposited in the fossil and two elements may be taken up, fluorine, which replaces the hydroxyl group and uranium, which replaces calcium. The microdetermination of carbon and nitrogen is a standard technique in organic chemistry, but a new micro-method for determining inorganic, carbonate, carbon, was devised by Fryd. For fluorine, the Hoskins- Fryd method could be used and for uranium two methods could be used. The advances in nuclear chemistry had provided accurate methods for the radio- metric assay of uranium, and also highly sensitive methods for fluorimetric analysis, both methods being required for examining Piltdown man, to eliminate the possibility of interference by other radioactive elements such as potassium in the radiometric assay. Other analyses, peculiar to the Piltdown problem were directed to the nature of colouring matter on the bones and implements.

Obviously, it is not possible to condense all the hundreds of results obtained, and it suffices to say that every item that came from that site was found to be dubious and the majority to be fraudulent. The jawbone was shown to be completely modern and the peculiar colourings to be artificial. The chemical process used to stain many of the bones, treatment with a chromate and sulphuric acid, had resulted in the virtual total loss of phosphate and conversion of the skulls to calcium phosphate. One interesting feature was that an elephant's tooth, rich enough in uranium to rank as a low-grade uranium ore, could be paralleled only in finds from Morocco, where the local phosphate rock deposits are notably rich in uranium.

I venture to suggest that the methods that we evolved for use on Piltdown man have rather effectively frightened off any would-be imitators.

This, of course, brings us to why people produce this material. As I explained, we in museums acquire some dubious material for the very good reason that we did not know, at the time, quite enough about the subject, and these gaps in our knowledge are slowly and steadily being filled. Less material of this nature would be acquired if all museums had well-equipped laboratories and curators were able to cause objects to be examined before purchase. Our own first line of defence, as I indicated earlier, is the expert historical and art-historical knowledge of the staff in the other departments. What we receive for authen- ticity examination is usually acceptable on "non-scientific" grounds, but objects may come in because they are suspect and the examination may throw light on the methods that modern forgers use. The motive of the forger is usually, not always, money, Joni must have made a comfortable income, but not all of this was derived from forgery, for he was a capable restorer of old paintings.

Acknowledgement I wish to thank Mr. H. M. Nixon, Department of Printed Books, British

Museum, for his help on the section regarding the work of I. Joni.

Discussion Dr. J. Grant said that at a recent auction, £700 had been paid for a literary

forgery by Thomas \Vise, sold as such.

References CARTER, J. and POLLARD, G., 1934, An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth

Century Pamphlets. Fox, JOHN C., 1929, The Lady Iuie's Trial for Great Part of Shadwell in the County of

Middlesex. Clarendon Press. WEINER, J. S. et a]., 1955, "Further Contributions to the Solution of the

Piltdown Problem". Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural Histoy) , Geology. Vol. 2, no. 6.