Art Forgery Research Articles

In Cahoots with Neo-Indigenism

Academia’s support for neo-indigenes is a significant component of their professional success. I describe how this support operates, drawing a model of cahooting from Edward Dolnick’s analysis of art forgery in The Forger’s Spell. Cahooting reflects the importance of social relationships to the construction of perceived truth and virtue. It corrupts academia at multiple levels through these relationships, undermining the pursuit of truth and goals of equity and inclusion.

Synthetic images aid the recognition of human-made art forgeries.

Previous research has shown that Artificial Intelligence is capable of distinguishing between authentic paintings by a given artist and human-made forgeries with remarkable accuracy, provided sufficient training. However, with the limited amount of existing known forgeries, augmentation methods for forgery detection are highly desirable. In this work, we examine the potential of incorporating synthetic artworks into training datasets to enhance the performance of forgery detection. Our investigation focuses on paintings by Vincent van Gogh, for which we release the first dataset specialized for forgery detection. To reinforce our results, we conduct the same analyses on the artists Amedeo Modigliani and Raphael. We train a classifier to distinguish original artworks from forgeries. For this, we use human-made forgeries and imitations in the style of well-known artists and augment our training sets with images in a similar style generated by Stable Diffusion and StyleGAN. We find that the additional synthetic forgeries consistently improve the detection of human-made forgeries. In addition, we find that, in line with previous research, the inclusion of synthetic forgeries in the training also enables the detection of AI-generated forgeries, especially if created using a similar generator.

Criminal Business of Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property: Features and Counteraction in Modern Conditions

The author analyzes the criminal business of illicit trafficking of cultural property in Russia, describes its features, determinants and counteraction to it in modern conditions. The analysis was conducted on the basis of statistical data of different governmental organizations that monitor the condition of counteracting the criminal business in this sphere, as well as the expert assessments of leading Russian companies and specialists who study the situation with illicit trade in cultural property. As this criminal business is of transnational character, foreign sources, both statistical and analytical, were used for a comparative analysis. In addition to the analysis of criminal business, which is immediately connected with the trade in cultural property, the author also assessed the situation in the related criminal market of art forgeries. As a results, the author concludes that illicit trade in cultural property both in Russia and in the world is, on average, about 10 % of the legal trade. Statistical indicators determining the ranges of registered crimes that regulate criminal liability for activities in this sphere demonstrate a decrease in the number of thefts of objects of cultural value, and, simultaneously, an increase in illegal search and appropriation of archeological artifacts from their resting places. At the same time, trafficking of cultural property is decreasing, and only isolated cases of such crimes are registered. The analysis of the features of stolen objects showed that their Russian and global structures differ: while numismatic property and other small objects are the dominant type of goods in the world, Russian trafficking is dominated by icons (60 %). The market of forgeries of cultural property is growing, it is closely connected with the legal market of original cultural property and the market of corrupt service. The key factors determining the development of this segment of criminal market are the following: an increasing demand for objects of cultural value; the appearance of special places for their storage (freeports) with an offshore status; transnational character of criminal activities; use of telecommunication networks for finding and trading goods without identifying the participants of such trade. Counteraction is quite effective due to its well-developed mechanism of legal regulation, as well as the formation of international databases of stolen objects of cultural value, which hinders their legalization, and the use of these data for the creation of digital clones of such objects with the involvement of artificial intelligence in their identification.

Фальсификация произведений искусства как феномен культуры

The article deals with the problem of falsifi cation of works of art (forgery) and attitudes towards falsifi ed works: falsifi cation as a cultural phenomenon; the meaning of falsifi cation in different types of art; falsifi cation through the eyes of an art connoisseur, philosopher, forger; falsifi cation as an aesthetic and ethical phenomenon; the signifi cance of falsifi cation for modern aesthetic theory and for the art market. The relevance of the topic is justifi ed by a large number of falsifi cations both in the modern art market and in the artistic fi eld. The article defi nes falsifi cation; reveals the problem of distinguishing a fake from legal ‘secondary works’. Particular attention is paid to the lack of clear criteria for identifying falsifi cation: as a rule, this is the intention to bring a secondary work to the market or to the artistic sphere. The different meaning of falsifi cation in different types of art is associated not only with different opportunities to be the subject of investment, but also with the specifi cs of the types of art. In accordance with the theory of N. Goodman, for ‘autographic’ (‘visual’) types of art, the history of creation of a single unique copy has exceptional value; for ‘allographic’ ones such as cinema and literature, each reproduction is original (but works of these arts are not the subject of investment). T. Kulka, a prominent representative of modern aesthetics, explains why the “correct” aesthetic perception of an original or a fake without a hint from the outside is impossible and always requires knowledge of the context. This is a very important point for understanding the attitude towards falsifi cation: it is not built into the history of art and therefore cannot claim the same reverent attitude towards itself that the originals deserve. The ethical problem of the existence of falsifi cation is shown on the example of E. Hebborn’s “The Art Forger’s Handbook”, which explains how to shift responsibility for establishing the status of a work to art critics, using the peculiarities of their professional psychology. In general, the article recognizes the important role of falsifi cation in the modern art market: the fi rst unsuccessful acquisition of a novice collector becomes a kind of act of initiation and strength testing.

Can archives lie?

A nefarious plot of forgery and fame that shocked the world in 1996.[1] A hidden tunnel of dubious origin that baffled Kingston’s historical experts in 2009.[2] But how could the world of British counterfeiting possibly collide with Kingston’s local mysteries? For Queen’s annual I@Q Conference, I would love to present a research poster answering just that. The key to both cases lies in the importance of archival evidence to uncover misinformation both large and small. In the modern day, historians are constantly surrounded with conflicting arguments and many have relied on archival evidence to settle debates and quell misinformation. But are archives always reliable? Can archives lie? To best address these questions, my poster would engage with both the theoretical aspect of archival diplomacy and the practical side. It would expand upon the key examples mentioned previously and analyse the historical use and abuse of archives in the name of stopping misinformation. Therefore, such a poster would be significant because it would explore the ambivalent position of the archival record and expose the dangers of archival manipulation at an international level. A tale of ingenuity, the case of the Staffordshire art forgeries revolved around the infiltration of leading archives and planting of false documents to bolster the legitimacy of counterfeit paintings.[3] The uncovering of such a plot shocked artists and archivists alike and suddenly cast doubt on the reliability of the archival record. On a much smaller scale, a similar archival debate was battled out in Kingston with intriguing results. [1]Rodney G.S Carter, “Tainted Archives: Art, Archives, and Authenticity,” Archivaria 63, no.1 (2007), 75-86. [2]Rodney Carter, email message to author, February 14, 2023. [3] Carter, “Tainted Archives,” 79-80.

Utilizing mathematical concepts of heat map for an intelligent and secure approach to efficiently detect credit card fraud

In the current scenario of digital world, every year the financial institutions have to face billions of dollars losses due to fraudulent transactions. Out of different categories of financial frauds credit card transaction fraud is the most common. To reduce the effect of these fraud transactions there is a need for a well-designed and secured fraud detection system with a state of art fraud detection model. Our work’s primary contribution is the creation of a fraud detection system that makes use of some mathematical usage of creating heat maps which is then enhanced with the use of a deep learning architecture and a sophisticated feature engineering method based on HCNN- Heat Map Convolutional Neural Network. HCNN is a model which create the heat maps for the imbalance data set without replicating the minor class records and without discarding major class records. The experimental findings show that our suggested technique is a practical and successful mechanism for detecting credit card fraud. The main objective of our model is to develop such a technique that can be used to detect and correctly classify more numbers of fraud transactions thus, our suggested technique, may detect considerably more fraudulent transactions than the benchmark methods with the accuracy of 91.7%.

Wolfgang Beltracchi and the authenticity of forgery: Not a moral failure

Reiner Schurmann’s Broken Hegemonies is a philosophical approach to how humans have historically created a rhetorical framework of ideas to operate in their existence. For this article, I will discuss Schurmann’s text, specifically his Hegemonic Fantasms of Nature and Modern Consciousness (as well as the associated concepts of the tragic condition and tragic denial) in order to understand Wolfgang Beltracchi as a skilled albeit complicated artist, researcher and art forger. Beltracchi operates within the Hegemonic Fantasm of Nature as the law (per Marcus Tullius Cicero and Marcus Aurelius) as well as with nature as the destitution of the hegemonic construct of nature (per Meister Eckhart) and the Hegemonic Fantasm of Modern Consciousness of the subject ‘self’ (per Luther and Kant), as well as the diremption of hegemonic concepts (per Martin Heidegger). I will further discuss Nature as the law of authenticity and provenance within the twentieth-century art market as discussed in Anthony Amore’s The Art of the Con, Arne Birkenstock’s documentary, Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, as well as articles from Deutsche Welle (DW) and Times Magazine, and then define diremption as the self-reflexive gaze as discussed in Martin Heidegger’s essays from Basic Writings and Schurmann’s interpretation of Heidegger’s text, Contributions. While I am of the opinion that Beltracchi is operating under the particulars of laws and ‘ethics of naturality’ (via Roman Stoicism), he is also operating outside of Nature and into the narration of singularity that contradicts the Hegemonic Fantasm of Modern Consciousness. I will argue that Beltracchi utilizes the fantasm of the art market to operate within the fantasm of forgery and, in doing so, becomes an ‘obedient spirit that lets itself be broken’ and re-subsumed by art itself.

Financial Markets Fraud Detection and Prevention using Kernel Adatron Algorithm with Machine Learning

The investors may have great interest to invest in stock market. Moreover, financial markets like stock markets are driven by explosive factors such as social media, micro blogs and news that make it hard to predict stock market index based on purely the historical data. The financial services industries that involve financial transactions are suffering from fraud- related losses and damages. Machine Learning (ML) is being rapidly adopted for a range of applications. It is important to begin considering the financial stability implications for every financial asset‟s organization. Using the machine learning tools and techniques in the finance sector will become necessary because it will closely monitor nascent and rapidly evolving landscape, wherein data on usage are largely unavailable, and bereft of any analysis. Financial assets fraud has seriously affected investors' confidence in the stock market and economic stability. The huge economic losses incurred because of several serious financial fraud events and because of this the intelligent financial fraud detection has thus been the topic of recent advances. In recent years, several studies have used stock market and machine learning techniques to provide solutions to this problem. In this paper, we propose various a state of art fraud detection techniques such as classification, clustering, and regression. This study aims to identify the techniques and methods that give the best results that have been perfected so far. Stock markets can benefit if fraud identification and prevention can be incorporated by using machine learning algorithms.

Storytelling and Sensemaking Physics from Newspapers

Surprisingly, newspapers contain wide-ranging physics topics available for narrative-style teaching in the classroom. Topics of newspaper articles we have covered over the years include physicists (obituaries of Hans Bethe, etc.), art or music that involve physics (color and standing waves), forensics (auto accidents and art forgeries), archeology (dating and satellite imaging), human folly (accidents), public policy (nuclear weapons, tasers, and earthquake prediction), and random events (statistics).

Intervals in Relief

From the late 1920s to the early 1940s, meteorologist Abe Masanao (1891–1966) used time-lapse and stereoscopy to study clouds near Mount Fuji. Abe’s research connects cinema, clouds, and the stereoscope in a circuit of mediation, both literal and metaphorical. Analyzing Abe’s image-making practices alongside his discussion of tricks and magic, this case study proposes that meteorological visualization is an art of forgery.

Ion Beam Analysis and 14C Accelerator Mass Spectroscopy to Identify Ancient and Recent Art Forgeries

Forgeries exist in many fields. Money, goods, and works of art have been imitated for centuries to deceive and make a profit. In the field of Cultural Heritage, nuclear techniques can be used to study art forgeries. Ion beam analysis (IBA), as well as 14C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), are now established techniques, and the purpose of this paper is to report on their capacity to provide information on ancient, as well as modern, forgeries. Two case studies are presented: the production of silver counterfeit coins in the 16th century and the detection of recent forgeries of 20th century paintings. For the counterfeit coins, two silvering processes were identified by IBA: mercury silvering (also called amalgam silvering or fire silvering) and pure silver plating. The discovery of 14 mercury silvered coins is an important finding since there are very few known examples from before the 17th century. In the detection of recent forgeries, among the five paintings examined, 14C dating showed that three of them are definitely fakes, one is most likely a fake, and one remains undetermined. These results were obtained by using the bomb peak calibration curve to date canvas and paint samples.

The potential of radiocarbon analysis for the detection of art forgeries

Art objects form an essential part of cultural heritage and are appreciated for their artistic values. However, the observed investment in art and capacity for high monetary returns encourages counterfeiting of art objects. The art market's lack of transparency and traditional confidential protocols amplifies the problem. Radiocarbon analysis provides a tool to detect anachronistic materials. Measurement of bomb peak radiocarbon, which was observed in the atmosphere during the last 70 years, can provide clear evidence of post-1950 material. Here we briefly introduce the method and discuss its application in detecting forgeries. Three accelerator mass spectrometry AMS laboratories performed a 14C dating inter-comparison study on the material used in art. Results obtained on modern cotton paper, two antique sheets of paper, one parchment, and one textile demonstrate the radiocarbon dating capacity to date the material accurately. The excellent agreement between laboratories is crucial for the broader application of this scientific tool in forensic studies and court cases.

Systemic Septicemia Overwhelms Late Nineteenth Century NonLethal Abdominal Gun Shot Wounds (GSW): President James A. Garfield (1831-1881) & Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

U.S. President James A. Garfield (1831-1881) was a well-known and accomplished federal government servant who became the Twentieth President of the United States. Unfortunately, his presidency was interrupted by an assassin’s bullet six months after assuming the highest office in the land. Although the assassination attempt failed, it was sepsis that sealed his fate, not the assassin’s bullet. On September 19, 1881, after a seventy-nine-day battle to survive a non-lethal gunshot wound, President Garfield succumbed to septicemia which was caused by flagrant medical incompetence and hubris. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), now the most widely recognized and iconic artist, was an unknown artist at the time of his untimely death which occurred less than a decade later after President Garfield’s demise. Although President Garfield and Vincent van Gogh traveled significantly different pathways in their lives, the common thread that united them was their survivable GSW to their abdomens. This clinical scenario included bad medical wound management, motivation, and hubris which resulted in their deaths due to overwhelming systemic septicemia. President Garfield’s demise was the result of medical malfeasance and malpractice from all medical perspectives as understood from his medical history and detailed four-hour autopsy. Unsterilized multiple medical hands and unsterilized probing medical instruments facilitated the introduction of pathogens into the President’s body. In contrast, the septicemia associated with van Gogh’s death was the result of an acute infection due to the presence of an intra-abdominal bullet without an exit wound. The digital probing of van Gogh’s abdominal wound was conducted by Dr. Paul Gachet who harbored questionable motives against the artist. Nothing was mentioned if Dr. Gachet observed sterile procedures while digitally examining Vincent’s abdominal wound. Moreover, Dr. Gachet has been implicated by The Killing Vincent Project as a person of interest [1]. Did Dr. Gachet purposely facilitate Vincent van Gogh’s rapid demise to acquire Van Gogh’s, then unknown master artworks, for his collection while serving as the impetus to form the nucleus of the Gachet clandestine art forgery ring to copy these masterpieces? This question remains unanswered.

Judgments of honest and deceptive communication in art forgery controversies: two field studies testing truth-default theory’s projected motive model in Korea

ABSTRACT Two field studies investigated people’s inferences about the honesty or deceptiveness of two Korean artists whose work may or may not have been forged. Based on the projective motive model from truth-default theory, it was anticipated that judgments of honesty would be impacted by people’s perceptions of the artist’s apparent motive for lying. The results of both studies were consistent with the importance of apparent motives. The role of internal attributions was also assessed for veracity judgment. Internal attributions may be more common as explanations for honesty than deception. The data provide additional evidence of the cross-cultural applicability of truth-default theory.

Conservation and the Ethics of Unintentional Forgery

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the distinction between conservation outputs and outcomes to frame thinking about conservation ethics, decision-making and practice. It proposes that prescriptive ethical principles or their narrow interpretation do not necessarily deliver outputs that meet desired conservation outcomes such as ‘authenticity’. It draws analogies between philosophical definitions of art forgery, conservation case studies and cases of known forgeries, to debate whether heritage conservation could be construed as a ‘forger’s art’ and, despite the contradiction of terms, conservation ethics as an ethics of forgery. Viewed from the perspective of output-outcome inconsistencies, the paper argues there are four potential types of unintentional conservation forgery. It proposes that effective mitigations of this risk reside in the broader interpretation of conservation concepts drawing from metaphysics and other branches of philosophy, and a shift to more outcomes-based conservation ethics. The paper concludes with initial reflections on what a more outcomes-based conservation ethics might look like and the opportunities that such a shift would present to the field.

Fabricating the past at Hammond Castle

Abstract During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wealthy art collectors in the United States amassed extraordinary collections of medieval and early Renaissance art, and, on occasion, unscrupulous dealers fulfilled the demand for such objects by passing off fakes as originals. The story of one such object is instructive in understanding the way that collectors pursued, purchased and displayed their finds. A sculptural bas-relief of the Virgin and Child at Hammond Castle in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was purchased as an authentic Italian Renaissance piece, but the revelation of its true provenance as a modern work by Alceo Dossena ultimately connected it to one of the most notorious cases of art forgery in the early twentieth century. This article discusses the case of Dossena and his artistic fabrications, but also reconsiders the role such objects could play in the creation of an authentic atmosphere – the goal of revivalist monuments like Hammond Castle.

Fine Art Insurance Policies and Risk Perceptions: The Case of Malta

The aim of this paper is to identify the risks that need to be addressed when holding fine art, determine which are perceived as being the most important, and whether the risk perception is influenced by demographic variables such as age, educational background, and field of occupation. To identify the risks and evaluate the risk perception, we used a purposely designed questionnaire and sent it via various sources of communication systems and applications to individuals knowledgeable on fine arts. Findings revealed that, generally, art deterioration, art fraud, and art theft are the three main highlighted risks, with art deterioration considered in the high-risk range. In terms of risk perception, forgery is the biggest concern. On the other hand, considerations of the investment value of art lessened perceived risk exposure. Furthermore, the study has shown that certain risk perceptions were influenced by the participants’ demographic variables. Both the identified risks and risk perception considerations analyzed within this study provide us with insights as to what needs to be considered when offering fine art insurance, particularly when it comes to which risks that are perceived as being the most pressing by potential policyholders, and how these perceptions vary according to individual demographics variables as noted above.

Art Forgery: The International Context

The article deals with the problem of art forgery, its local and global dimensions, whilst also exploring the origins of this practice. The author argues that works of art have always aroused and continue arousing great interest among collectors, art admirers, and specialists in forgeries. It has been found in the research that collecting has been practiced since ancient times, in a certain way promoting the process of art forgery. The author mentions well-known and reputable world auction houses and reveals the role of some of them in trafficking forged paintings. The article emphasises that the scandals related to trading art forgery cast a dark shadow on auctions and galleries in general. Paintings have proven to be one of the most common items of antiquity and forgery. It is established in the article that the prices for the artworks of famous masters have increased from thousands to millions of dollars over the years, and that they are generally recognised as a reliable investment. The replenishment of collections with purchased works of art is always a large and lucrative business. However, not all of these masterpieces are originals. The presented research shows that this problem keeps gaining momentum and needs to be resolved on a global level. The article notes that the 20th century can be characterised by positive achievements and discoveries of humankind. However, it has engraved in history the problem of art forgery mired in scandals of a worldwide scale. The author highlights famous forgeries and falsifications as well as the most popular art forgers and paintings. The forgers were found to have skillfully used the hardships connected with the chaos and displacement of cultural property caused by the two world wars. As a result, forgery artworks appear on the auctions, where they can find their new owners. It misleads museums, collectors, and millions of art lovers. The article describes the methods, which forgers use in their work, and reveals their motivation for making fake art products. The details and ways, which allows distinguishing a counterfeit artwork from the original, are also covered in the research. The article shows how the international community invests great efforts to find originals, detect existing forgeries, and prevent the creation of new fakes. Interpol’s opening of a previously classified database of stolen works of art has proved helpful in partially blocking forged artwork distribution channels. Keywords: works of art, forgers, forgeries, art market, auction houses, galleries, museums, theft, search, Interpol.

Creativity, Madness, and “the light that dances deep in Pontchartrain”: Glimpses of “The Passenger” from Cormac McCarthy's 1980 Correspondence

Abstract Letters Cormac McCarthy wrote in 1980 to Robert Coles, Deaderick Montague, and John Fergus Ryan reveal that he was working on “The Passenger” at least by that year, when he expected it to be published after Blood Meridian (1985). The project was partly inspired by an unpublished poem by Louis Diehl about New Orleans jazz clarinetist Leon Roppolo, who is said to have thrown his clarinet into Lake Pontchartrain in an act of artistic suicide. The novel was not to focus on Roppolo, but its origin in the poem McCarthy quotes suggests that the tragic theme of creative potential spoiled or unfulfilled was central to it, and that originally the domain of creativity may have been artistic rather than scientific. Biographical influences that may also inform McCarthy's early thinking about the novel include his familiarity with three men he met in Ibiza in the late 1960s, art forger Elmyr de Hory and writers Clifford Irving and Leslie Garrett, all of whom followed paths that undermined their artistic potential.

New concept for art and antiquities identification based on craquelure pattern analysis

In this paper, it is shown that the craquelure patterns of paintings and other antiquities can be considered as fingerprints so that the authenticity of any given artwork can then be verified against prior works. The authors propose to extract craquelure features from photographic images and use them in the implementation of a unique matching procedure to address the art forgery issue as well as to monitor the health conditions of the objects concerned. This feature extraction strategy is robust against illumination, scale, rotation and perspective distortion. The craquelure extraction system developed, called multi-scale multi-orientation morphological processing (MMMP), performs analyses in each sub-band. A comprehensive craquelure image dataset has been constructed from a variety of different types of painting and other art objects. The results show significant improvement and compare favourably with the current best results in the market.