Why art trade should learn to love forensics

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When I worked at Christie’s as an internal student in a summer, book Collector William Foyle came for sale. They were sold around a thousand lots over three days. A single book was withheld, never for sale. He had a Nazi stamp in him.

Increasing the research of origin – the documented history of an object – is directly connected to forced sales, credits and thefts during the Second World War. So much cultural heritage has illegally changed his hands, that there is a significant danger that a past owner would intervene with a sale. It can become disordered, both morally and legally.

Art is authenticated in three main ways. The oldest is knowledge: experts (often self -proclaimed as such) offer their opinion on who created an art work. The research of origin is the second, which means the collection of documents and historical references to the object in question, which attests to the generations of experts who agree with its authenticity and a paper route that states the legal property. The third is forensic testing.

Art trade has always used forensic testing as the last solution, a Tiebreaker when experts do not agree or origin raises a red flag. There is no good reason for this. Criminal testing should not be expensive or invasive-often only involves the look of an object with different light spectra (X-rays, infrared, ultraviolet). But art trade has always worked in Gentleman’s agreements and the opinion of the connoisseurs. A criminal test would confirm what the expert has already said (he did not necessarily add value from a business perspective), or he would contradict the expert (in which case the expert loses the face and art trade loses at a potential sale).

None of the fakes I studied would be in front of the basic forensic tests a good-looking provenance made an object look good enough to sell

In the history of forgeries, the tricks have often created “traps of origin” to take advantage of the excessive addiction of trade in origin. The basic premise is that the counterfeiter passes his false thing as a lost work of a renowned artist, and a route of origin (original or forged documents) is followed by the enthusiastic expert, who considers that he is in a real life hunt. Almost none of the forgeries I studied will be in front of the basic medical -legal tests. They did not have to, because a good -looking origin made an object look good enough to sell.

But I entered a new era of mistrust. Populism does not trust experts. Experts who do not trust, because, in the era you have, photos and texts and even videos can be falsified so perfectly that it can be very impossible to distinguish fiction. The origin, which is primarily dealing with mustard archive documents, feels more tangible than the opinion and less likely to be manipulated than the scientific tests that most people do not understand. So where to get out of here?

Technology can handle and mislead, but can be used for the better. Consider outfits such as C2MF based on Paris, which use the latest forensic tools to examine the pigment and analyze various light spectrum work. Researchers at the British Museum currently use advanced techniques, such as CT scan, molecular and isotopic analysis and radiocarbon dating in an Egyptian animal mummy, revealing the methods used by ancient embalms. There are also new initiatives, such as Zurich-based art recognition (which I joined as a counselor), who uses AI models to authenticate art works, as well as the evaluation of the place where more artists could have been involved (for example, by restoring the heavy hand that can confuse the waters).

At the art business conference this year from Tefaf in Maastricht, the founder of art recognition, Carina Popovici, will discuss a recent case. They tested a painting “Bath of Diana” from a private collection, through a set of clean data that included 329 images with works confirmed by Rubens, as well as 316 images with non -authentic works to learn what you have. not to be fooled by. The result confirmed that the painting is partially by Rubens (and specified which parties).

While the chemical analysis and image of light spectra are good when detecting anachronisms (a pigment that posts the supposed creation of a painting or lack of subdomis on a canvas), these tools are not as good when identifying the authority. You have Art Analysis it isProvided you have a closed, well -cleaned data set, supplied with images by the alleged artist.

Farators have always understood that they should not make such bright forgeries, provided that their route of origin is convincing enough. If all the works of sale are expected to have medical -legal results that accompany them, together with the opinion of the experts and the documentation of origin, then we would see much less attempts. It was never so easy to analyze the scientific art. Such a compulsory forensic test would bring to the market such a necessary soul.

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