In 2014, a startling revelation by the Fine Art Expert Institute (FAEI) in Switzerland claimed up to 50% of art circulating the market is fake.
Home to roughly 1 million artworks, they estimated that 70-90% of them have been misattributed.
This could be down to art forgery and/or academic mistakes.
Before we delve into how you can spot a fake artwork, let's take a look at some examples.
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Image Via - Brain Pickings
Elmyr de Hory was a master art forger who is most famous for his forgeries of Matisse, Picasso and Modigliani.
Based in Ibiza, he was found and sold thousands of fakes to galleries and even museums throughout America and Europe!
The kicker here is that he was actually a good artist. When you look at his art, you can see his talent.
Elmyr was a social chameleon and had a knack of inserting himself into some of the highest social circles in Europe and America.
He called upon these connections to sell his forgeries but it was his social skills that landed him in trouble too.
When rumours started to spread about his forgeries, Clifford Irving wrote a book about him.
Trivia - If that name sounds familiar then you'd be right. Irving would later infamously write a fake biography of Reclusive American Billionaire, Howard Hughes - not cool.
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Image Via - DW
Widely considered the most talented living art forger, Wolfgang Beltracchi amassed a significant portfolio of fake works.
Including Fernand Léger, Max Ernst and Heinrich Campendonk, he was found guilty of forging the works of 14 artists.
Beltracchi was highly meticulous in his approach. He actually created fake paper stamps which he used to imprint on the back of paintings to make them look like they came from a previous collection.
He was caught after a titanium-white pigment was found which wasn't commercially available until 1921 - 20 years after the painting was supposedly created.
His scheme netted over €45m and was considered one of the most successful schemes of the 20th century. He even sold a painting to Steve Martin!
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Image Via - The Vintage News
Another artist who forged artworks out of his ability rather than a lack of it is Han van Meegeren.
Van Meegeren specialised in the Dutch master, Vermeer. After failing to establish himself as a legitimate artist, his lack of critical success compelled him to forge artworks instead.
He produced 6 fake Vermeer paintings and 2 other Dutch masters. Most of his forgeries were sold to art dealers and eventually ended up in renowned galleries across Europe.
The Second World War was happening simultaneously and it was the Nazis who were hoarding artworks during this time.
Van Meegeren sold a painting, considered to be a Vermeer, to the Nazi Field Marshall, Goering.
When it was discovered after the war, Van Meegeren was charged with collaboration with the Nazis. However, to prove his innocence, he had to admit that the painting was a forgery.
This is one of the more unique examples of forgery because his forgeries gave him a defence for a more serious crime.
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Image Via - BBC
This is a fascinating story of how 'The Biggest Art Fraud of the 20th Century' unravelled.
John Myatt was an artist advertising his services for fake artworks, publicly, for fun. This caught the attention of John Drewe who approached Myatt to create forged artworks with the purpose of selling them.
Myatt was the artist and Drewe was the dealer.
They deceived both the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Tate Gallery.
To add provenance to the artworks, Drewe made his way to The Tate Gallery who allows members of the public access to their archives. There, he added the fakes to relevant catalogues and also removed pages to ensure everything was in order.
Over 200 fake artworks were sold which netted £1.8m.
This technique was the undoing of Beltracchi - using the wrong titanium-white pigment.
Materials need to be consistent with the time period. For example, there's no way a painting from the 1700s could have Cadmium pigment (a modern pigment).
This makes materials the primary way to authenticate a painting but it's also one of the most expensive.
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Every artist has their own style. For example, Pollock used drip painting but Raphael was renowned for his clarity and attention to detail.
Styles are so unique that it's almost like a fingerprint - the marks they leave on a painting are very much their own. It can be difficult to replicate to such a high standard.
For example, a forger would find it difficult to replicate the intricacies of Van Gogh's brushwork or Raphael's refined style.
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Scientific analysis comes in 2 different forms for the purpose of this article.
Firstly, X-Rays. This is a very common form of analysis as the X-Ray can reveal what is under the paintings.
These underlying layers (pentimenti) are crucial to authenticate a painting as they can reveal brush strokes, designs and revisions.
For example, Vermeer made unique revisions and had an underdrawing style quite specific to himself.
Secondly, carbon dating. Radiocarbon dating can determine the age of the canvas as it measures the amount of carbon isotopes (a breakdown of carbon) and the age of the pigments used.
Fun fact: Sotheby's have taken X-Rays to the next level. To support their auction, they acquired Orion Analytical. With this acquisition, they have their own in-house conservation and analysis department.
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It's no secret that paintings and even their canvasses patina over time.
A patina is a process where natural signs of age appear.
Typical tell-tale signs can be how the paint has cracked over time. For example, French canvasses from the 18th century appear like spider webs.
This could be down to various factors such as the natural environment e.g. climate, exposure to chemicals and more.
A popular method for creating an artificial patina are tea bags and even varnish.
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Before you decide to bid on or buy a painting, it's necessary to understand its provenance. Questions which you need to focus on are any gaps in its record of ownership.
There have been questions raised about the authenticity of the "Salvator Mundi" which sold at auction in 2017 for £450m. There are 200 years of ownership which isn't documented. You can read more about the artwork here: Missing Salvator Mundi Found on a Yacht.
If there are any gaps in the provenance of the artwork then ask.
These gaps can inspire a wide variety of questions as to how it started somewhere and ended up somewhere else.
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A cheap replica will speak for itself just take a closer look at the painting under magnification.
What you can find are brush bristles stuck on to it. This is one of the most common ways to check on the authenticity of the painting.
An original piece of art will not contain any traces of brush bristles.
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A magnifying glass should come handy here. A printed piece of art has its own characteristics.
To expose a printed artwork, you can hold the painting against the light and look at it from the back.
If it is a real painting, you should be able to see light coming through the back of the canvas. But if it is a printed copy, this isn't the case.
Artists use varying degrees of impasto (heaviness of paint in certain areas) which alerts the viewer to brushstrokes which vary in size and texture. Perfection can only be achieved if it's a print.
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Artists have what's called a catalogue raisonné.
This details all of their known artworks. Sometimes, it can be presented by media such as oil, water and pastel.
Other times, all of their known works appear on the same list. If a painting cannot be found in their catalogue raisonné, it could have been misattributed, fake or undiscovered.
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Art forgers have gone to great lengths to make their artwork look as original as possible.
Examples include taking pictures of modern people in period clothes holding the artwork, forged documents, papers, fabricated stories about provenance and more.
Wolfgang Beltracchi, a well-known art forger, is said to have faked over 50 artists.
To create a fake provenance, he invented stories about his grandparents being collectors.
His scheme netted over €100m!
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From the research conducted to create this article, we've learnt that the art market is incredibly unique.
Despite the tools available today, those of notable regard can negate any early concerns about forged artworks through their opinion.
It's true that artists possess unique traits that instantly give themselves away but how is that up to 50% of artworks in circulation are said to be fake?
Is it cheaper to hire an expert than to go through the process of in-depth analysis by companies like Orion or even the Fine Art Expert Institute (FAEI)?
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Image Via - Liberator
The previous 10 tips tackle objective ways in which you can use to identify fakes but there is still an overriding opinion which can tip the scales - your own.
How many times have you done the research, asked people and looked at in a million different ways with no compelling evidence to buy the item but you still bought it anyway?
Even if you think you're on course for the deal of the century, it's necessary to look for the signs.
Trivia - If you don't have access to an x-ray or carbon dating machine then something you can bring is a colour chart.
What was your favourite tip? Or perhaps story? Hit the comments and let us know!
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However, the charm can be taken away upon the discovery that it's fake or a print. When you buy original art online, be sure to use these tips to avoid being caught out.
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