Scientists help determine authenticity of paintings
Print Edition
DRESSED in an immaculate white lab coat, Sandra Mottaz stared intently through a stereo microscope at a bold-colored painting purportedly by French master Fernand Leger, searching for signs of forgery.
“Here, we can make out vertical lines in what could be a grid,” Mottaz said, looking up from the shiny white instrument providing a three-dimensional view of the painting.
That could signal the painting is a fake, but artists also use the technique to copy their own work onto different formats, so more tests are needed, she said.
Mottaz and her colleagues at the Fine Arts Expert Institute (FAEI) use cutting-edge scientific methods like radiocarbon dating and infrared reflectography to determine the authenticity of artworks, and sometimes to uncover unknown masterpieces.
“When you buy an apartment, you always get an appraisal first. But in the art world, until recently, you could buy works for 10 million euros without sufficient documentation,” said FAEI Chief Yann Walther.
But that is changing amid soaring prices in an art market where works worth an estimated US$60 billion change hands each year.
Sky-high prices have also increased the incentive for art forgers, and scientists like Walther and Mottaz are increasingly being called upon to supplement efforts by traditional art experts and conservationists to authenticate works.
The art world has in recent years been rocked by forgery scandals, revealing fake works attributed to a long line of masters, including Paul Gauguin, Marc Chagall, Jackson Pollock and Leger.
Experts estimate a full half of all artworks in circulation today are fake — a number difficult to verify but that Walther said is, if anything, an underestimate.
Between 70 and 90 percent of works passing through FAEI turn out to be fake, he said.
His institute sits inside the Geneva Freeports, a toll- and customs-free zone where collectors from around the world store more than a million artworks, including Picassos, Van Goghs, Monets and apparently a Leonardo da Vinci.
It can be tricky spotting fakes with the naked eye, but top-notch lab equipment helps.
Mottaz carefully carried the Leger to another room where her colleague Valeria Ciocan used infrared reflectography to confirm the grid underneath the working man’s face.
Depending on what tests they run, labs can charge clients up to 15,000 euros (US$19,000) per painting, which might sound steep until you consider the value of many of the paintings they study.
Art historian and restorer Andrea Hoffmann of Atelier Arte in Geneva agrees scientific methods can be useful in some cases, but still believes in traditional experts like herself.
“Ninety percent of what can be seen in a painting can be seen with your eyes,” Hoffmann said, stressing: “That is where experience comes in.”
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