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Historian discovers a prized Galileo manuscript was forged
- Victerius 4y agoWhat do you think they'll do with it? What do museums and universities do with objects they discover are forgeries? Do they throw them away? Do they keep them? Do they move them in storage? There are Picassos younger than this forgery. Maybe old and high quality forgeries are of some historical value after all? Indeed, what if the only remaining copy/copies of an old object or painting was a forgery/were all forgeries?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- leoc 4y agoIt seems that something related to this actually came up recently. Someone with institutional cred claimed that a famous alleged Biblical manuscript from the 19th century, long accepted to be fake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapira_Scroll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapira_Scroll , was actually genuine all along, and it's a lot harder to settle the question definitively because no-one can find the thing anymore: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/arts/bible-deuteronomy-discovery.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/arts/bible-deuteronomy-di... .
- bombcar 4y agoThis is an important consideration - we do not have perfect knowledge of the last century let alone the last millennia. Imagine a painting being determined to be an elaborate forgery; it is NOT a genuine Da Vinci, it was faked! Later research determines that the faker was Michelangelo! But we already destroyed it ... not realizing it had just been mislabeled ages ago.
- ffhhj 4y agoImagine a Jesus Mono painted on top of an actually valuable painting that can only be seen with x-rays.
- Natsu 4y agoReading that, it's a scroll with unknown provenance (many wildly inconsistent stories were told about where it was found) from a guy who promulgated other frauds and all we have left is apparently a drawing of it. I don't think you can meaningfully authenticate a scroll from just that, especially not one with a dubious history like this.
- carabiner 4y agoFTA: Per the Times, the University of Michigan is considering taking a similar approach to the fake Galileo. Rather than tuck it away, the university may make it the centerpiece of a future exhibition on the art of forgery.
- mhb 4y agoIf it's like this forged Chagall which you have sent to this expert panel in France for authentication, the panel will unilaterally destroy it for you: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/06/arts/design/chagall-sothebys-expert-panel.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/06/arts/design/chagall-sothe...
- jollyllama 4y agoConveniently, there's no second opinions after that.
- jollyllama 4y agoMaybe they should let the public get up close and personal. If it's a worthless forgery, where's the harm? Failing that, there's always the museum gift shop.
- xoxxala 4y agoThe 1973 Orson Welles docudrama "F for Fake" is worth watching if you're interested in art forgery. It posits that there is value in the art of the forgery itself, if the forgery is high enough quality and fools enough people.
- citizenpaul 4y agoEven a casual search on google will show you that art forgeries are at epidemic levels. Modern forging techniques are so good that the copies are indistinguishable from the original with all non destructive testing techniques. Which of course are of course very undesirable to perform. I now find it difficult to accept much of what is in museums are authentic. The incentive to steal these artworks and such are simply too great. You can literally make generational wealth from selling a single famous artwork if you can pull off the swap. How hard can it be to buy off underpaid under funded museum staff?
- mekal 4y agoIf it's really so easy to make forgeries now, it seems like the street value would plummet. Even if that's not the case, instead of swapping the original and risking jail time, why not just sell the cheap, perfect forgery to whatever idiot is buying stolen art? That way everyone wins! You (criminal), society (still have the original in the museum) and the buy (thinks he has the original).
- citizenpaul 4y agoWho said it's easy? It seems to require a team of people based on some stuff I saw. A painter that has mastered the technique of the artist being copied. A canvas/substrate maker. ,Or sometimes they can find an old unused canvas and they paint on it so it passes dating tests. The paint ingredients usually have to be gotten from very specific locations, then require an expert in creating the old style paints from it. Sometimes they can find authentic old paint to use. Someone that knows how to recreate wear, tear and time damage to match the original. Finding old materials from the same time period and working it into the forgery is a common tactic. Its quite an interesting situation if you have some free time to read or watch the many documentaries on the subject. The mona lisa has a crazy history of being stolen, borrowed and lost so many times it could easily be a fake. And that is one of the most famous well known and closely watched artworks. What does that say about the rest... I'm sure you are right that the majority of fakes are probably just sold directly to rich suckers. I don't think jail is a very high risk either. It seems most of the time these things are quietly swept under the rug when discovered even when reputable sellers get caught up in it. Of course this is on of those things that stats basically don't exist since it is all back room deals and confidential accounts. Hard to prove and as you mentioned no one wants to crash the market.
- rawling 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32560536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32560536