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>I've been peripherally involved in the restauration of a Mondriaan after it was damaged by some knife wielding idiot and I can guarantee you that the art is re

>I've been peripherally involved in the restauration of a Mondriaan after it was damaged by some knife wielding idiot and I can guarantee you that the art is real. After which the display was permanently replaced by a copy? ;) More seriously, though I don't say I believe it, surely it is an interesting point. For example when I visited the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, there were maybe a dozen other visitors total, one musuem worker per ~ 4 halls, and nothing was under glass. How sure are you of your ability to distinguish the original from an expert fake? The Met's experts apparently couldn't for decades. I'd wager the number of people in the world that can tell a real Carvaggio from an expert forgery number in the double digits.

jacquesm 9y ago
I'm sure that's true. But considering there are 100's of employees in your average museum and such a conspiracy would require just about all of them to be in on it I don't see how it could be kept a secret. There are fakes in museums, but those are actual fakes where the museum isn't in the know either. Estimates run as high as 20(!)%. But a museum that would have an exact duplicate of the art on display for the majority of their art would be incapable of keeping that a secret and likely would not be looked at favorably. FWIW I was good friends with the ex-curator of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and have visited their vaults, and have been behind the scenes in the Tate Gallery in London. The only thing I've been able to establish with any certainty is that at least those two museums have far more art than they could ever display and that I'd hate to see their insurance bills. I did not come across an army of master forgers working hard to make new old works or copies of works which I knew were on display.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I'm sure that's true. But considering there are 100's of employees in your average museum and such a conspiracy would require just about all of them to be in on it I don't see how it could be kept a secret. Actually such a "conspiracy" wouldn't require more than a few to be on it. Why would the guys guarding the spaces, or the people selling tickets and merchandise, the cleaning staff, the canteen workers, the secretaries, etc need to be "on it"? Those are the majority of the "100s" of workers. Just the director, a few of the people in the administration, the curators, and the ones putting up the paintings (or, actually, not even them).
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    And the insurers, the people that move the real paintings around, the people that store the real ones and so on. It's about as likely as a faked moonlanding. But then again, those too have their believers.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >And the insurers, the people that move the real paintings around, the people that store the real ones and so on. So, like 10 people? And even if it was 20 or 100 what's the great rush to expose this? It's just something you don't talk about. It's not even that interesting. We have crews of 1000s of people not leaking tv series and film plots.

jacquesm 9y ago

I'm sure that's true. But considering there are 100's of employees in your average museum and such a conspiracy would require just about all of them to be in on it I don't see how it could be kept a secret. There are fakes in museums, but those are actual fakes where the museum isn't in the know either. Estimates run as high as 20(!)%. But a museum that would have an exact duplicate of the art on display for the majority of their art would be incapable of keeping that a secret and likely would not be looked at favorably. FWIW I was good friends with the ex-curator of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and have visited their vaults, and have been behind the scenes in the Tate Gallery in London. The only thing I've been able to establish with any certainty is that at least those two museums have far more art than they could ever display and that I'd hate to see their insurance bills. I did not come across an army of master forgers working hard to make new old works or copies of works which I knew were on display.

coldtea 9y ago
>I'm sure that's true. But considering there are 100's of employees in your average museum and such a conspiracy would require just about all of them to be in on it I don't see how it could be kept a secret. Actually such a "conspiracy" wouldn't require more than a few to be on it. Why would the guys guarding the spaces, or the people selling tickets and merchandise, the cleaning staff, the canteen workers, the secretaries, etc need to be "on it"? Those are the majority of the "100s" of workers. Just the director, a few of the people in the administration, the curators, and the ones putting up the paintings (or, actually, not even them).
- jacquesm 9y ago
  And the insurers, the people that move the real paintings around, the people that store the real ones and so on. It's about as likely as a faked moonlanding. But then again, those too have their believers.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >And the insurers, the people that move the real paintings around, the people that store the real ones and so on. So, like 10 people? And even if it was 20 or 100 what's the great rush to expose this? It's just something you don't talk about. It's not even that interesting. We have crews of 1000s of people not leaking tv series and film plots.