Authentication is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicating a person or thing's identity, authentication is the process of verifying that identity. It might involve validating personal identity documents, verifying the authenticity of a website with a digital certificate, determining the age of an artifact by carbon dating, or ensuring that a product or document is not counterfeit.
Henricus Antonius "Han" van Meegeren was a Dutch painter and portraitist, considered one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century. Van Meegeren became a national hero after World War II when it was revealed that he had sold a forged painting to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names have been used to describe digital art, including computer art, electronic art, multimedia art, and new media art.
Art forgery is the creation and sale of works of art which are intentionally falsely credited to other, usually more famous artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler.
Otto Wacker (1898–1970) was a German art dealer who became infamous for commissioning and selling forgeries of paintings by Vincent van Gogh. He had gained a good reputation in the 1920s after false starts in various other professions. Since the end of World War II, he lived in East Berlin. A study of his life and times has been written by Modris Eksteins.
A catalogue raisonné is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period.
Offset codebook mode is an authenticated encryption mode of operation for cryptographic block ciphers. OCB mode was designed by Phillip Rogaway, who credits Mihir Bellare, John Black, and Ted Krovetz with assistance and comments on the designs. It is based on the integrity-aware parallelizeable mode (IAPM) of authenticated encryption by Charanjit S. Jutla. The OCB2 version was proven insecure, while the original OCB1 as well as OCB3 from 2011 are still considered secure.
A replica is an exact copy or remake of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Copies or reproductions of documents, books, manuscripts, maps or art prints are called facsimiles.
A certificate of authenticity (COA) is a seal or small sticker on a proprietary computer program, t-shirt, jersey, or any other memorabilia or art work, especially in the world of computers and sports. It is commonly a seal on paper authenticating a specific art work which and is made to demonstrate that the item is authentic.
Samson and Delilah is a painting long attributed to the Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in the National Gallery, London. It dates from about 1609 to 1610.
The Kunsthaus Zürich is in terms of area the biggest art museum of Switzerland and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over time by the local art association called Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft. The collection spans from the Middle Ages to contemporary art, with an emphasis on Swiss art.
Anthony Gene Tetro, known as Tony Tetro, is an art forger known for his perfectionism in copies of artwork produced in the 1970s and 1980s. Tetro never received formal art lessons, but learned from books, by painting and experimentation. Over three decades, Tetro forged works by Rembrandt, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí and Norman Rockwell and others. Tetro's paintings and lithographs, known for their perfectionism, were sold by art dealers and auction houses as legitimate works and hang in museums, galleries around the world. He was caught after Hiro Yamagata found a forgery of his own work for sale in a gallery.
Authenticity in art is manifested in the different ways that a work of art, or an artistic performance, can be considered authentic. The initial distinction is between nominal authenticity and expressive authenticity. In the first sense, nominal authenticity is the correct identification of the author of a work of art; of how closely an actor or an actress interprets a role in a stageplay as written by the playwright; of how well a musician's performance of an artistic composition corresponds to the composer's intention; and how closely an objet d’art conforms to the artistic traditions of its genre. In the second sense, expressive authenticity is how much the work of art possesses inherent authority of and about its subject, and how much of the artist's intent is in the work of art.
Lincoln in Dalivision is a 1977 original limited edition lithograph created by Salvador Dalí. It is often considered one of the most counterfeited Dalí lithographs. Dalí authentication experts who have noted the counterfeiting issue with this work include Albert Field, Frank Hunter, Robert Descharnes and Bernard Ewell. Lee Catterall comments in his book The Great Dalí Art Fraud & other deceptions, "The painting most commonly reproduced for such fraudulent purposes was Lincoln in Dalivision, 'prints' of which Los Angeles art appraiser Dena Hall testified in the Hawaii trial have become as commonplace as 'pancakes at the pancake house.'"
Wolfgang Beltracchi is a German former art forger and visual artist who has admitted to forging hundreds of paintings in an international art scam netting millions of euros. Beltracchi, together with his wife Helene, sold forgeries of alleged works by famous artists, including Max Ernst, Heinrich Campendonk, Fernand Léger, and Kees van Dongen. Though he was found guilty for forging 14 works of art that sold for a combined $45m (£28.6m), he claims to have faked "about 50" artists. The total estimated profits Beltracchi made from his forgeries surpasses $100m.
Artificial intelligence art is a visual artwork created through the use of an artificial intelligence (AI) program.
Typewise is a Swiss deep tech company that builds text prediction AI. In January 2022, the company filed a patent for its technology which it claims outperforms that of Google's and Apple's.
Aaron Herbert De Groft is a former American museum director, author, and art curator. He was the former deputy director and chief curator at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and the former director for the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary before he joined the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida in 2021. He was fired from the latter position in June 2022 amid a scandal caused by inauthentic Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings and an FBI raid.
Fine art authentication is a process that ensures the integrity of artworks, preserves cultural heritage, and maintains trust in the art market. By combining traditional methods, scientific advancements, and emerging AI and Blockchain technologies, art authentication can offer accurate attributions and protect the artistic legacy for future generations. It consists of proving the authenticity of an artwork and its attribution to a specific artist. This process involves determining the origin, authorship, and historical significance of a piece of art. The proliferation of art forgeries and the increased skill of the forgers who are aware of what scientific analysis reveals requires a rigorous approach to fine art authentication.
Anna Tummers is a Dutch art historian, curator, and researcher, known for her work on Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish painting, particularly those of the seventeenth century. She is a professor in Early Modern Art at Ghent University.
