Going to the museum is one thing. Moving there to admire fakes is another matter. Some of the best-known art forgeries are on display at the Courtauld Gallery, London, in an exhibition that unveils a world of intrigue, deception and the painstaking work of investigators to expose deceptions.
This exhibition, which opens on Saturday, presents drawings, paintings, but also sculptures and works of decorative art kept in the gallery’s collections. Equipped with magnifying glasses, visitors are invited to examine the counterfeits of masters, from Sandro Botticelli to Auguste Rodin, passing through the paintings of the British painter John Constable, and learn how they were made.
“Forgeries have always existed in the history of art and have a place in our work,” explains curator Rachel Hapoienu, showing in particular a fake from the gallery, long attributed to John Constable. The exhibition aims to highlight the methods used by the most famous counterfeiters and the sophisticated means mobilized to unmask them.
Thus, illuminating the work with a torch reveals a watermark on the paper proving that it dated from the 1840s, after the painter’s death. “Many paintings and drawings from the children and grandchildren of John Constable were probably made by one of his sons”, explains Rachel Hapoienu, without it being possible to say with certainty that there was a desire to fraud.
The exhibition also focuses on the famous forger Éric Hebborn, who raged from the 1950s until he was unmasked in the 1970s. Trained at the prestigious Royal Academy, winner of several prizes during his studies, he forged close relationships with art dealers and gained their trust by supplying them with authentic works, but also its own counterfeits.
“He was very meticulous, doing his own inks and chalks in the manner of Renaissance artists, also making sure to have the right paper, explains the expert. But he made a mistake when he cut a sheet of paper in half, making an artist’s drawing on one side and another on the other side from an artist who lived 100 years later. Both designs landed in the same collection and the deception was exposed. Eric Hebborn, who claims hundreds of other forgeries, was murdered in Rome in 1996.
The exhibit also features a fake Vermeer, made by Dutch forger Han van Meegeren, whose pieces often ended up with Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring. Accused of collaboration, he eventually became a “national hero”, explains Karen Serres, curators of the Gallery’s paintings.
The exhibition also sets out to show the techniques used by investigators to detect counterfeits: analysis of pigments, traces of brushwork which betray a left-handed or a right-handed person, faces resembling contemporary people known from the time of the counterfeiters, and of course the latest technologies such as infrared and ultraviolet scanners. The event will remain open until October 8.
