Authentications & Attributions

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Tale of two copies and one thief (a Cardinal)

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When in 1507 the Raphael‘s Baglioni Altarpiece was placed on the altar of San Matteo in the Church of San Francesco al Prato, in Perugia, no one would ever have imagined that about 100 years later Cardinal Scipione Borghese would have craved its possession so much to commission its theft. Robbery that, following the riot of the Perugians, in a few days became a “voluntary donation” by the friars, immediately ratified by Scipione’s uncle, Pope Paul V.

At the time of the crime, in 1608 Raphael’s art, the Baglioni Altarpiece and the subject of the central altarpiece, “The Transport of Christ“, still enjoyed great fortune. Therefore, many copies had been made over the years.

Two of these are now preserved in the National Gallery of Umbria.

Although of the same size (184 × 176 cm), and equal to the original one, which is now in the collection of the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Perugian copies were made at different times and on different media.

A copy on wood was made in 1554, when the original was still in its initial location, by Domenico Alfani, a friend of Raphael, in collaboration with his son Orazio. The panel was destined to the church of Sant’Agostino, also in Perugia.

The other copy, instead, on canvas, is attributed to Cavalier d’Arpino, and dated 1609, considering that it was commissioned by the cardinal to compensate the city for the deprivation of the original.

On both of these two copies, Art-Test Firenze performed with the Vis-IR scanner Infrared Reflectography on the entire surface. Thanks to the particular flexibility of the instrumentation, and to excellent coordination with the restorers and art historians of the National Gallery of Umbria, we were able to complete the works in just two consecutive days.

The reflectographic campaign, returning the image of the preparatory drawing, will be used by scholars to study the theme of “copies”, evaluating the methods of execution, through similarities and differences between them and with the original, that was also recently investigated and restored. All of this was to be on display at the exhibition, currently canceled for the closing period due to COVID19, entitled “The fortune of Raphael’s Pala Baglioni through its copies”. 

We hope it will be rescheduled soon!

(Emanuela Massa)

fakeforreal

A scientific approach is always crucial. Even museums know it!

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The case of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne is very topical, with the exhibition “Russian Avant-garde at the Ludwig Museum: original and fake. Questions, research, explanations“, which sees works certified as authentic (for example by Kazimir Malevich and Natalia Goncharova) alongside others whose attribution was rejected by the museum’s researchers, following an investigation campaign diagnostics carried out on each artwork.

It is interesting to note the participation of other museum institutions, such as the Momus Museum in Thessaloniki and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, which have lent some pieces from their collections.

The emergency of Covid-19 has unfortunately led to the suspension of the exhibition until 30 September, which for the moment remains scheduled until 3 January 2021.

The exhibition scheduled at the House of European History  in Brussels Fake for Real, A History Of Forgery And Falsification is also temporarily closed, but scheduled until next October 2021.

“In the routine of daily life, the sensational, spectacular and supernatural are sweet seduction. They allow us to escape the ordinary. But the game of deception is only fun when we have agreed to it. When we are deliberately deceived, we are on the losing side in many regards, losing our money, credibility, integrity or even our existence”

We hope that it will be possible to return to visit museums soon and soon and that they will remain a beautiful example of historical-artistic and technical-scientific research finally “exhibited” together!

(Federica Fani)

Boetti Senza Titolo (uno nove sette otto), 1978

From riches to rags

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It goes without saying that the certainty of authenticity is an indispensable prerequisite for a work of art and is what allows the collector, in some cases together with a certain amount of valerian, to sleep soundly.

We can only imagine how abrupt the awakening of the buyer must have been, when he, ten years after the purchase of a tapestry by Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) on Telemarket Spa, discovered he had a fake in his hands!!

When it could be estimated between € 350,000 and 500,000 as in last Christie’s auction.

Before you begin to look with suspicion at the portrait of a gentleman that you now exhibit in the room and to doubt the Fabergé egg that you keep in the cabinet, we inform you that there can be a happy ending, at least in litigations, as it has happened in this case.

However, the advice we will never tire of giving you, is to request a valid authentication and a complete diagnostic file before purchasing!

(Federica Fani)

chicago

As fake as it gets

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Trump will leave the White House and hopefully he is packing his lies and anti-scientific attitude.

How about his art? He loves fakes to bits.

He is known for having a phony Renoir in his apartment (formerly on his plane), and having raided the France’s ambassador residence taking a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters.

However, they were also fakes. The figurines date to the early 20th century and were made by Neapolitan artist Luigi Avolio, simulating a 16th or 17th centuries style.

After White House art curators examined the pieces, also the Franklin bust appeared to be a replica. The Franklin portrait snagged from Paris was also a copy of the one by Joseph Siffred Duplessis painted in France in 1785, which now hangs in the Oval.

Instead, he did not want to buy an original Andy Warhol, that the pop art artist made for the Trump tower: it did not match the colour scheme.

So we though it could be now the right moment to offer him this authentic masterpiece.

Go Kamala Go!

(AP)
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Eyes Wide Shut

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The longstanding question regarding the authentication of artworks, both old master and modern ones, is always relevant. Even today, no shared scientific protocols have been established, so to start a correct discussion on this topic. Not later than last week, this problem became clear again at auction.

Two paintings declared “FOLLOWER OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS, about 1700”, had already been sold six months ago by the same gallery but with a different attribution: “CICLE OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS” were auctioned.
What has happened in the last six months that got the paintings from being a “workshop” to being a “copy” of the following century? Moreover, the same two artworks eleven years ago were offered by another large auction house for a double estimate. How can this happen? What information was added between one auction and another?

The Condition Reports  which are generally published –same here- report only the conservation conditions, observed rather superficially.
The provenance only rarely adds decisive information on the autograph. As indeed this is the case this time as well. We wonder why it is not explicitly stated in the catalogue if any type of analysis has been performed that has implied consequences for the attribution. One could think of analyses performed showing an anachronism in the materials used, or a C14 on the wooden support.
A Condition Report enriched with Radiography, Reflectography and colour analysis would have clarified many doubts.

Especially at a time like this, where auction houses only offer online sales, it would be appropriate to offer works with more detailed curricula, also enriched with elements that the human eye cannot perceive. This could offer complete transparency, a de-risking for the investment and therefore an incentive to buy. Who would buy with closed eyes?

Il Volto di Cristo 1.1

AAA Leonardo wanted

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The year of Leonardo is about to end, the 500th anniversary of his death.

In Italy mostly ancillary exhibitions have been organized, the biggest event being the great exhibition at the Louvre.

In France, where he spent a couple of years, mostly very sick, and died, they have organized a big celebration. Many works of the Italian genius have arrived in Paris for a blockbuster exhibition whose visit needs to be booked in advance, although it does not seem  to offer anything really new.

However, bravely, as Carmen Bambach writes (The Art Newspaper Dec 2019), some of the reflectographies are also exhibited, both of the works on show and also of others, like the National Gallery’s Virgin of the Rocks that now has its own exhibition in London. In that case, thankfully, a number of diagnostic images are presented; however, in a setting that imitates a restoration lab, rather than a diagnostic lab.

The Art Newspaper (Dec 2019) also reports that this was the year with the largest number of publications on Leonardo (more than 250!).

But what have we learned? What do we know more now than a year ago?

Renato Barilli writes on Artribune (Nov-Dec 2019) “no one has accepted my admonition to remove from his safe works at least the Belle Ferronière, of which there is no news in his time, besides the fact of completely contradicting all of the stylistic features that are usually attributed to the genius of Vinci.

For example, to advance studies on this author, it would have been interesting to compare the Xrays images of the Gioconda, the Musico, Saint John the Baptist and the Belle Ferronière (similar in size and support). All the radiographs were published earlier and you can see the comparison now here.

Leonardo da Vinci – Gioconda 
Ph Louvre Museum eRx image 
Leonardo da Vinci – San Giovanni Battista 
Ph  Louvre Museum  Rx image 
Leonardo da Vinci – Musico 
Ph Biblioteca Pinacoteca Accademia Ambrosiana  Rx image
Leonardo da Vinci – La Belle Ferronière
Ph  Louvre Museum  Rx 

We now await the discoveries concerning the Vitruvian Man promised in two volumes published by Giunti – the first in January – and in a major exhibition that will take place in Cagliari in May 2020 organized by the State Museum of Sardinia, all with the title  “The deception of the Vitruvian Man. The algorithm of the divine proportion”. Here the trailer

In fact, there is still a lot to be investigated on Leonardo and, who knows, may 2020 will be the year in which a totally unknown Leonardo will be revealed. Stay tuned!

biaf

60 years of dreams

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Next 21st September, the BIAF, the Biennial International Antiques Fair of Florence, will open its doors in Palazzo Corsini. It will be sixty years after the first edition, noticeably in a very different context, compared with when one in whitch the Bellini brothers commenced the adventure.

For two weeks the city will attract, also relying on its charm, as the past,  art dealers and collectors from all over the world. Although the antiquarian sector, and Florence, are no longer those in which, for example, Bernard Berenson lived (and died, unfortunately, the same year of the BIAF first edition).

The seventy-seven galleries participating this year are for example specialized in various sectors, including contemporary art. Unthinkable in the days when “Italian Renaissance painters” of the Lithuanian connoisseur became an international bestseller.

The peculiarity of BIAF remains, however, the promotion of Italian art in the market. Paintings, sculptures, drawings, and all other artworks on display, are made by Italian Masters or by foreign artists who worked in Italy.

Sixty years ago connoisseurs like Berenson, who contributed to raise interest in the Italian old master, were unchallenged authorities in attributions. This too has changed today. In the most prestigious international fairs, artworks are admitted to the sale only after having passed a careful scrutiny, done also by scientific means. It is the so-called “vetting”. The BIAF also has a Vetting committee. Divided into 3 commissions: Painting and Drawings, Sculpture and Furniture and Decorative Arts. They are formed by art historians, and restorers, of international renown, with an undoubted knowledge and an authoritative preparation.
However, scientific diagnostics seems to be still absent from this procedure, which is essential to guarantee buyers.

Notwithstanding, diagnostics offers more than this. As Maurizio Salomon, an art historian and gallery owner, explains in one of the commercials (#amolarteperche) created to promote the fair. The desire to make a discovery is often the drive for the collector. Finding a “pentimento”, a preparatory drawing, or details that are not visible to the naked eye, makes you fall in love. Few occasions allow you to have this kind of feeling, hopes, dreams. And this is still the same as sixty years ago.

biaf
diagnosticanoncosta

The costs of not doing it!

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The costs for a diagnostic campaign to authenticate a painting may seem high, but they are always a good investment.
Without a painting having positively passed a series of tests to determine the compatibility of methods and materials with the period or the envisaged author, there is the risk of running into a fraud, which can be millionaire and deceive also auction houses of the calibre of Sotheby’s.

In this case, the possible scam that led to the arrest of both the painter and the antiquarian involved, covers a total of over 200 million euros and well-known and much-studied authors, from El Greco to Frans Hals.
Naturally it is neither the first nor it will  be the last scam we read about; the chronicles report more and more frequently of similar cases. The market is full of fakes for sale. Counterfeiting of artworks can however be uncovered and indeed, for example, produced other arrests recently in Bologna

How to avoid risking the unwary purchase? Invest in serious scientific analyses, and at a qualified laboratory, not involved in the market.

It is an investment, not a cost. The cost is not the diagnostics, it cost is not to do it!

diagnosticanoncosta
caravaggio perduto

Have we found the Lost Caravaggio?

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In 2006 “Il Caravaggio perduto”, by J. Harr, was published. The volume describes the discovery of a painting by the Italian Master that had been lost for centuries. The protagonists are a great art historian and a PhD graduate, who discovers, in the inaccessible and forgotten archive of the Mattei family, in Recanati, the proof that an original by Caravaggio (the Capture of Christ: Jesus surrounded by soldiers and kissed by Judas) had been sold in 1802, with an incorrect attribution, to a Scottish gentleman. It is not a fiction; it is more or less the chronicle of what happened a few decades ago.

As a consequence, the version now in Dublin became the original Caravaggio, after having entered the collection as Gerrit van Honthorst. A splendid subject of which there are many versions.

One is now exhibited at Palazzo Pitti, and a new volume, The Capture of Christ by Caravaggio – A recovery for the Uffizi Galleries , edited by Sillabe, (for now unfortunately only in Italian) summarises the historical, artistic and scientific studies carried out on the canvas previously in storage at the Baldissera Carabinieri Station in Florence.
Thanks to the accurate provenence research that constitutes the heart of the volume, it was possible to ascertain the origin of the canvas from the Lorraine castle of Commercy, not far from the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Nancy where an Annunciation by Caravaggio is kept, probably commissioned by the Duke of Lorraine.
The same castle from which also other works destined for the Florentine grand-ducal collections arrived in Florence in 1737, when the Habsburg-Lorraine took over the regency of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Scientific analyses on the painting were performed by Art-Test and generated many interesting surprises, starting with a previous, hidden different version of a soldier, as revealed by the X-ray images.

One thing is certain, we will hear about this painting again. Stay tuned!
caravaggio perduto
tefaf

A NEW POLICY OF ARTWORK AUTHENTICATION WAS THE REAL NOVELTY OF LAST TEFAF EDITION

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Sunday, March 24th the 32nd edition of the Tefaf Maastricht  ended. Once more a grand edition, confirming this exhibition as the most prestigious art and antiquity fair worldwide. In the Netherlands the first appointment, to be followed by New York Spring  and New York  Fall.

Looking forward to visiting the American editions, three of us arrived in Maastricht for a 8 hours breathless marathon. 279 exhibitors (with 38 new entries) proposing masterpieces and rarities from all over the world. Counting 97 exhibitors, the ancient art section remains the most numerous. But the fair shows also a greater and clearer opening to new participants in the section dedicated to contemporary research and welcomes for the first time names of great caliber, including Pace Gallery, Kamel Mennour, Almine Rech and Sprüth Magers.

 

TEFAF MAASTRICHT VETTING COMMITTEE

The year 2019 marks some very important innovations for TEFAF, especially for what concerns the vetting , i.e. the new assessment policy of the proposed artworks.
Until last year, the selection committee was composed of 189 experts active in 29 categories, who analysed the artworks to be exhibited, verifying quality, provenance and attribution. The committees made use of technology and equipment such as microscopes, ir and xrays devices. With these instruments and the experience, the committees selected the artworks and in case of doubt the object was refused.

Possibly this was not enough to guarantee transparency and, above all, to express objective assessments.
The change came with the establishment of a new committee headed by Wim Pijbes, general manager of Rijkmusem Amsterdam from 2008 to 2016, which comes with at TEFAF as Global Chairman.

No gallery owners, art dealers, dealers and experts in auction houses are to be part of the vetting committees; they can be consulted, but have no longer  right to vote in the selection phase as tTefaf advisors have considered appropriate to avoid any possible conflict of interest.

The experts consulted this year are over 180, from 114 institutions and 14 different countries..

 

COUP DE COEUR

Visiting the stand we got to see many masterpieces we felt in love with, among which we have chosen 3+1, in our sole discretion, as the most intriguing ones.  A romantic and delicate painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir Jeune Filles aux Lilas exhibited by Richard Green


Pierre-Auguste Renoir Jeune Filles aux Lilas
Olio su tela, cm 54,9 x45,7
1890 circa
Richard Green, Stand 302

at stand 302and a Salomé  by Luca Giordano , a work belonging to his impetuous younger phase of experimentation, where the figure is immersed in a vigorous chiaroscuro (the painting was proposed by Lullo-Pampoulides, stand 368).


Luca Giordano  Salomé
Oil on canvas, cm 101 x 75
1660-70 circa
Lullo-Pampoulides, stand 368

Moreover, we were pleasantly surprised to find at the fair both the preparatory drawing, presented by Arnoldi-Livie of Monaco (stand 339) and the painting (or at least one of the 8 known ones, with the same subject) of La Lecture (Deux Fillettes, bouquet des pivoines sur fond noir) by Henry Matisse exhibited by Hammer Galleries in New York (stand 406).


Henry Matisse, La Lecture
Pencil on paper, 
Arnoldi-Livie di Monaco, stand 339

Henry Matisse, La Lecture (Deux Fillettes, bouquet des pivoines sur fond noir)
Oil  on canvas, cm 46×55,2
1947  
Hammer Galleries New York, stand 406
 

With great pleasure we also found some “old friends”, i.e.well over ten very prestigious artworks analysed by Art-Test in the past:.

The guarantee of authenticity remains a crucial factor in trading works of such value. And we believe that scientific diagnostics, with accurate analysis and total transparency, is the best vehicle to promote market confidence.

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