Completely, 100% off topic -- Art -- but Authenticity Red Flags, anyone?

[Tennis13]

So this Da Vinci painting was sold today, and here's a key paragraph from the CNN article. Am I just jaded by this industry (Wagner Card), the vintage wine industry ("Billionaire's Vinegar"), and the art industry ( I don't follow art, so I have no reference material) to think "RED FLAG! RED FLAG! RED FLAG!"?

We are the experts, we own the product, we authenticate it, we put it into circulation. I mean, come on, right?

"When "Salvator Mundi" reappeared at auction in 1958, it was dismissed as a copy and sold for £45 ($59). Acquired by a group of art dealers for less than $10,000 in 2005, the painting -- which was in poor condition and had been heavily overpainted -- was painstakingly restored and subsequently authenticated."

[Tao_Moko]

I read that yesterday as well from another source and had the same feeling. Sounds like they found the right authenticator for the cause.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Tao_Moko

I read that yesterday as well from another source and had the same feeling. Sounds like they found the right authenticator for the cause.

Let's assume you meant 'for the price'...


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[x2drich2000]

There is an interesting BBC show called Fake or Fortune (episodes can be found on youtube) that really gets into what it takes to authenticate individual works of art. If you think the card authenticators can be biased, the art world takes it to an entirely different level.

DJ

[darwinbulldog]

If you've never seen the Orson Welles film F for Fake you're really missing out.

[nebboy]

(fake) thats a strange movie its hard to watch but hard to turn off. very interesting!

[drcy]

A lot of scientific technology and analysis has been invented and developed over time. 1958 was a long time ago in that respects.

Beyond stuff such as carbon dating and spectroscopy (atomic testing used to identify the chemicals in paintings), there are now artificial intelligence programs that analyse brush strokes and composition details to help identify the artist. As with autographs, artists have subtle minute and stylistic habits that even they are often not consciously aware of. They've done tests on the programs with known real and fake paintings, or paintings by two different painters, and the programs have been excellent (if not perfect) and separating the wheat from the chaff by examining minute details and patterns unnoticed by human eyes. They've been shown to even work with Jackson Pollack paintings.

In the 1930s, they would date a painting by rubbing alcohol in a spot of the oil painting and seeing if a needle would push through. As oil paint is very slow drying (we're talking decades to completely dry out) it's not an unworthy test (and could still be used today by the average antique store collector on that $200 painting), but it's primitive and one famous Pre-WWII forger beat the test by adding hard drying Bakelite plastic to his paint. Obviously, things have advanced since the needle test.

But I don't know the specifics about this particular painting and its history and the changing opinions. For $450 million, I would hope people were pretty sure.

Beyond determining the age, studying the style and brushstrokes to identify the actual artist has long been a thing. In Rembrandt's day, and with Rembrandt, the students of the master painter would copy the master's paintings under the master's watchful eye as their education. That's how they learned painting. As their payment to the teacher, they would give him their copies, the teacher would sign and sell them. So, for today's authenticator, there are fake Rembrandts that will scientifically date to the correct period and with authentic Rembrandt signatures on them. It takes stylistic analysis of the painting and brushstrokes to identify the real from the fake.

[Tao_Moko]

Right. Net54 gets only a few random minutes of my day while taking care of business in the water closet. My words are not to be given much thought because I'm preoccupied when typing them. But, it's important to point things like this out due to the massive importance and ground breaking info shared here.

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Let's assume you meant 'for the price'...


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[nat]

What I noticed about the story was the juice on the painting. You guys complain about buyer's premiums, well Christie's pulled in more than $50,000,000 on that one.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by nat

What I noticed about the story was the juice on the painting. You guys complain about buyer's premiums, well Christie's pulled in more than $50,000,000 on that one.

yes...the juice at fine art houses is crazy!

[drcy]

One of the great films noir, Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street (1946), revolves around art forgery and scamming-- plus murder, insanity, unrequited love, femme fatale, the electric chair and more. One of my favorites and one of the darkest.

[arcadekrazy]

A great read about forgery within the world of fine art:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/15942...=UTF8&qid=&sr=