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,[1][2] and emerging AI[3] and Blockchaintechnologies,[4] art authentication can offer accurate attributions and protect the artistic legacy for future generations.[5] It consists of proving the authenticity of an artwork and its attribution to a specific artist.[6] This process involves determining the origin, authorship, and historical significance of a piece of art.[7] 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.[8][9]
The requirement for art authentication has been a historical practice, evolving over centuries alongside the growing recognition of artists and the increasing value associated with their creations. During the Renaissance,[10] the authentication of artworks was primarily based on the artist's style, brushstrokes, and technical mastery. Nevertheless, distinguishing between the original and the copy often proved challenging.[11] As art markets expanded globally and new artistic movements emerged, the authentication process became more intricate.[12]
Documentation examination involves scrutinizing the authenticity and accuracy of supporting paperwork, including certificates of authenticity, exhibition, and gallery records, as well as correspondence.[13]
Art authentication is a complex and multifaceted process, often accompanied by challenges and controversies. Some of the key issues include:[11][14]
Thierry Lenain[15] asserts that a forger's goal is to mislead the public into believing that the generated work of art is something else entirely.[16]
Throughout the 20th century, scientific methodologies were integrated into art authentication, resulting in significant advancements. Experts were able to examine artwork beyond their surface layers with the use of techniques such as radiography, infrared imaging, and ultraviolet analysis.[17][18] In the 21st century, the field of art authentication has progressed significantly due to digital imaging, computer-based analysis and Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration. These technological advancements have enabled new possibilities for obtaining insights into the pigments, materials and features of artwork. Computer analysis, powered by AI algorithms and data-driven assessments, compares works of art to extensive databases, facilitating pattern-based learning.[18]
Methods of Authentication
Authentication of artworks is a meticulous process that requires a multifaceted approach, resourcing to traditional art historical methods as well as to the precision of scientific inquiry.
Authentication techniques are instrumental to this field, encompassing a wide array of methods including provenance research, stylistic examination, the scrutiny of historical documentation, and assessments by subject-matter experts. Moreover, the advent of cutting-edge scientific methods and the application of Artificial Intelligence have considerably broadened the scope of art authentication.
For instance, discerning the pigments utilized by an artist can unveil aspects of their methodological practices, thereby situating their work within a broader art historical narrative. This synthesis of art history and technology not only fortifies the authentication process but also deepens our comprehension of the artwork within its historical milieu.
Examining Art Historical Methodology in Practice. This analysis illustrates the methodology of art historical inquiry through the study of the panel painting 'Dante and Petrarch' by Giovanni dal Ponte, acquired by the Fogg Art Museum in 1919. This case exemplifies how art historical research can evolve, incorporating stylistic analysis, historical context, and scholarly debate to interpret and understand a complex Renaissance artwork.
Provenance Research: Provenance, or the documented history of an artwork's ownership, is a very important aspect of authentication, examining its lineage from creation to the present day.[7] Scholars and experts trace the ownership trail of a piece, examining catalogs, exhibition records, receipts, correspondence, and any other relevant documents to establish its authenticity.[19]
Stylistic Analysis: Art historians and connoisseurs analyze an artwork's style, composition, technique, and subject matter to attribute it to a specific artist or artistic movement. This approach relies on in-depth knowledge of art history and the ability to discern subtle nuances and distinctive characteristics.
Scientific Techniques - Imaging Techniques: Scientific techniques such as material testing laboratories include instruments that allow for determining aspects such as elemental and molecular composition, undertaking particle characterization, and identifying the organic phases present in a work of art. As an example, particle analysis, also known as pigment analysis, allows knowing where, when, and how a painting was created by enlarging and understanding the specific materials in a painting.
Radiocarbon dating, also known as carbon-14 dating, is a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials up to about 60,000 years old. This technique, first developed by Willard Libby in Chicago in the late 1940s, is based on the decay of the carbon-14isotope. Radiocarbon dating led to the “radiocarbon revolution” in archaeology and it has been useful also in the domain of art history.[21]
Documentation and Expert Opinions: Documentation examination involves scrutinizing the authenticity and accuracy of supporting paperwork, including certificates of authenticity, exhibition, and gallery records, as well as correspondence.[13] Art authentication also relies on the expertise and opinions of specialists, scholars, curators, and artists familiar with a particular artist or artistic style. Their insights, along with supporting documents, scholarly publications, and catalog raisonnés, contribute to the overall evaluation of an artwork’s authenticity.[24]
Artificial Intelligence: Digital technologies have enabled the analysis of intricated details such as brushstrokes, color palettes, and stylistic elements unique to individual artists. AI systems can identify patterns in vast amounts of data. This capability enables experts to detect potential forgeries and differentiate genuine artworks from imitations. AI algorithms can process and interpret diverse data sets, facilitating a data-driven approach.[3][25] A company that offers AI art authentication services is Art Recognition.
Blockchain technology, known for its decentralized and immutable characteristics, facilitates the establishment of secure digital records that track an artwork's provenance and history. On the art market specifically, “blockchain can counteract the lack of documentation and the burden of proving ownership”.[4]
Challenges in Authenticating Art
Art authentication is a complex and multifaceted process, often accompanied by challenges and controversies. Some of the key issues include:[14]
Subjectivity and Interpretation: Art authentication is inherently subjective, relying on the individual expertise of scholars and specialists and varied interpretations.
A prominent example highlighting this issue is the debate surrounding the Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.[26] This painting has become a focal point for discussions on attribution, with some experts contesting its provenance and others defending it. Such examples accentuate the varying perspectives and the sometimes polarizing nature of art attribution.[27]
Forgery: The art world has witnessed numerous cases of skilled forgers who replicate famous artworks with precision. Moreover, forgers now can employ generative AI to produce imitations that mimic the style of a particular artist.[28] However, a study has shown that AI technology can detect digital forgeries produced by a generative AI, if AI-generated imitations are fed into the training.[29]
Lack of Standardization: There is not a universally accepted standard or governing body for art authentication. The art world, of course, is an unaffiliated consortium of art historians, curators, merchants of varying stripes.[30] This lack of standardization can result in disparities in authentication practices and varying levels of confidence in attributions.[31]
Legal and Ethical Considerations: Authenticating an artwork can have legal and financial implications. Authentication can influence an artwork's value, ownership disputes, and copyright issues. Balancing the interests of artists, collectors, scholars, and the art market while maintaining transparency and fairness is a complex ethical challenge. Lawsuits against the authenticator who dashed their hopes are common.[31]
Restoration: Restoration involves any attempts made to repair or conserve a painting by altering its original surface with later additions. When a painting undergoes restoration, it can pose challenges for its authentication. The restoration process may modify or obscure the original elements of the artwork, making it difficult to determine its authenticity accurately.
Training images in AI-based authentication methods:Training datasets are preeminent for the success of AI training as well as the AI assessment of an artwork’s authenticity. Acquiring a diverse and comprehensive collection of high-quality training images can be difficult. Insufficient or limited training data can result in the AI model lacking the necessary knowledge to make accurate authenticity assessments.
Related Research Articles
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.
Provenance is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, paleontology, archival science, economy, computing, and scientific inquiry in general.
Art forgery is the creation and sale of works of art which are 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.
John Myatt,, is a British artist convicted of art forgery who, with John Drewe, perpetrated what has been described as "the biggest art fraud of the 20th century". After his conviction, Myatt was able to continue profiting from his forgery career through his creation of "genuine fakes".
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.
The Shroud of Turin, also known as the Holy Shroud, is a length of linen cloth that bears a faint image of the front and back of a man. It has been venerated for centuries, especially by members of the Catholic Church, as the actual burial shroud used to wrap the body of Jesus of Nazareth after his crucifixion, and upon which Jesus's bodily image is miraculously imprinted. The human image on the shroud can be discerned more clearly in a black and white photographic negative than in its natural sepia color, an effect discovered in 1898 by Secondo Pia, who produced the first photographs of the shroud. This negative image is associated with a popular Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.
Chang Dai-chien or Zhang Daqian was one of the best-known and most prodigious Chinese artists of the twentieth century. Originally known as a guohua (traditionalist) painter, by the 1960s he was also renowned as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter. In addition, he is regarded as one of the most gifted master forgers of the twentieth century.
Josephus Maria Van der Veken was a Belgian art restorer, copyist, and art forger who mastered the art of reproducing the works of early Netherlandish painters.
Craquelure is a fine pattern of dense cracking formed on the surface of materials. It can be a result of drying, shock, aging, intentional patterning, or a combination of all four. The term is most often used to refer to tempera or oil paintings, but it can also develop in old ivory carvings or painted miniatures on an ivory backing. Recently, analysis of craquelure has been proposed as a way to authenticate art.
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.
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.
The Spanish Forger is the name given to an unidentified individual who, in the late 19th to early 20th century, created a large number of forgeries of medieval miniatures.
Karl Feoder Sim, also known as Carl Feoder Goldie was a New Zealand art forger, and the only person convicted of that crime in New Zealand.
La Bella Principessa, also known as Portrait of Bianca Sforza, Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress and Portrait of a Young Fiancée, is a portrait in coloured chalks and ink, on vellum, of a young lady in fashionable costume and hairstyle of a Milanese of the 1490s. Some scholars have attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci but the attribution and the work's authenticity have been disputed. Supporters of the theory that it was by Leonardo have propositioned that Bianca Maria Sforza is the woman depicted in the drawing.
Authenticity in art is manifest 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.
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.
Technical art history is an interdisciplinary field of study at the cross-section of science and humanities in which an increasingly wide range of analytical tools is employed to shed light on the creative process from idea to artwork. Researchers from varying fields – among which art history, conservation, and conservation science – collaborate in an interdisciplinary manner to gain “a thorough understanding of the physical object in terms of original intention, choice of materials and techniques as well as the context in and for which the work was created, its meaning and contemporary perception.”
Peter Paul Biro is a forensic art analyst, known for his work in authenticating paintings using fingerprint analysis. He has been involved in several high-profile cases, including the authentication of works attributed to artists Jackson Pollock, Leonardo da Vinci, and Goodridge Roberts. Biro's techniques and conclusions have been subjects of debate and scrutiny. In 2009, The New Yorker published an article that critically examined Biro's methods. Subsequently, Biro filed a defamation lawsuit against the magazine, the article's author, and others. The courts later dismissed the lawsuit.
Art Recognition is a technology company headquartered in Adliswil, within the Zurich metropolitan area, Switzerland. Specializing in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for the purposes of art authentication and the detection of art forgeries, Art Recognition integrates advanced algorithms and computer vision technology. The company's operations extend globally, with a primary aim to increase transparency and security in the art market.
1 2 Charney, Noah (2015). The Art of Forgery: The Minds, Motives and Methods of Master Forgers. Phaidon Press. ISBN978-0714867458.
↑ Lenain, Thierry (2011). Art Forgery: The History of a Modern Obsession. Reaktion Books. ISBN978-1861898500.
↑ Calcani, Giuliana (2022). "The Cultural Pollution of the Fake: The case of the Pseudo-Ancient Bronze of an "Artisan" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art". In Salvadori, Monica; Bernard, Elisa; Zamparo, Luca; Baggio, Monica (Eds.). Beyond Forgery. Collecting, Authentication and Protection of Cultural Heritage. Padova. ISBN978-88-6938-292-5– via Padova University Press.
↑ Eastaugh, Nicholaus (2010). "Authenticity and the Scientific Method Past Approaches, Present Problems and Future Promise". InCoRM Journal. 1 (1). S2CID160029944.
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