Old paintings in the eye of the storm

Antique furniture is not the only one affected by counterfeiting, as master paintings are also in the sights of investigators. Seized following an anonymous complaint about expertise on March 1, 2016, in an exhibition in Aix-en-Provence devoted to the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, the Veiled Venus, attributed to Cranach the Elder and dated 1531, could well be a fake. A battle of experts is being played out. The scientific analyses carried out two years apart contradict each other, one dating the woods to the 16th century, the other to the 18th century. The vague origin of the work would also be likely to reinforce doubts about its authenticity: sold to the prince in July 2013 for 7 million euros by Konrad Bernheimer (Galerie Colnaghi), the painting comes from Giuliano Ruffini,

It is also another painting, still from Giuliano Ruffini, Portrait of a Man, attributed to Frans Hals, which would have turned out to be a counterfeit after two scientific analyzes demonstrating "the presence of modern materials in the painting". In 2008, this painting had been classified as a national treasure at the request of the Louvre, which was ultimately unable to buy it. Once the painting was sold to the American Richard Hedreen by Sotheby's and the London art dealer Mark Weiss for 10 million dollars, the auction house had no choice but "to cancel the sale and refund the client within its entirety", she confirmed on October 6, 2016.

Other works would be suspect, such as David meditating before the head of Goliath, by Orazio Gentileschi, recently loaned to the National Gallery in London, or Saint Jerome, attributed to Parmesan, for a time on deposit at the Metropolitan Museum. What do these works have in common? All passed through the hands of Giuliano Ruffini, who claims to be a collector and not a dealer and recalls that it was the experts who authenticated these paintings, not him.

A disturbing coincidence, the incriminated works appear in a "visionary" novel, Forgers by Jules-François Ferrillon [2015, L'Âge d'homme], published more than a year earlier. The author, who knows Monsieur Ruffini, evokes an Italian, Giordano, who reveals how to make false paintings to the hero. "There is no objective evidence, but a bundle of very consistent clues", indicates a connoisseur of the market.

Lessons to be learned

The rumor swells on a possible forger or workshop of forgers. We could attribute twenty-five works, as indicated by the dealer Bob Haboldt to the Daily Mail, all for an estimated sum of around two hundred million euros. And if the scandal is proven, it could be one of the most terrible of the century, with very damaging consequences for merchants, not to mention that buyers are now likely to ask for more guarantees. All these cases raise the question of the role of expertise. If it turns out that the greatest connoisseurs have been deceived, does this not suggest that their mere gaze, without taking science into account, is no longer enough? Complementarity should be able to thwart the traps set by counterfeiters. "The only lesson to be learned is that we need to communicate more between us. We cultivate the cult of secrecy. The world of commerce does not communicate with the world of museums and vice versa. If there is a forger, he took advantage of this weakness," concluded painting expert Éric Turquin.

It is also rumored that other counterfeiting scandals could affect other areas in the coming months. The infernal machine is in motion...

seen in Le Journal des Arts - Marie Potard