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| Art
Imitation |
| Art forgery is
most common in famous pieces that offer high prices, but is also common
in some of the less famous pieces, as not many people know what the
piece looks like, making the selling of a forged piece easy. Analysis
of a painting is the most accurate method of uncovering an art forgery,
as an art piece can be tested to see how old it is. |
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Choose one of the following to read more:
--> Using
the microscope
--> Light
--> Colours
and composition
--> Metals
and ceramics
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| Using
The Microscope |
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In a
laboratory, oil paintings can easily be tested using the simplest
methods of examination. Microscopes allow scientists to see
how old a painting really is. Forgers create old, cracked looking
surfaces by rolling the canvas, heating and cooling it rapidly
and applying a constricting varnish using a stippling
brush to give it a fly-blown look. X-rays can also reveal
whether the cracks appear under the surface and on every layer
of the painting. In forged paintings, it is quite often found
that the forger has only created a cracked appearance on the
top layer and therefore, it does not match the bottom layer.
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| *Van
Gogh's Sunflowers is a classical artpiece, with the original
piece now located at the
London National Gallery. |
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| Light |
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| Depending on the paint
composition and the age of the painting, ultraviolet light
shows fluorescent blue-green if the varnish is from the 19th
century. Infrared light can also reveal whether it is paint
or ink used in the painting. If these tests reveal nothing out of
the ordinary, scientists take a paint sample from the edge of the
painting or a damaged area, placing it in cold-setting polymer
and are thereafter able to identify its pigment underneath
a microscope. |
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| Colours
and Composition |
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Because oil paintings began in the 15th
century, certain colours did not exist at that time, for example,
Prussian blue was only created in 1704. A painting that contains
the Prussian blue colour, therefore, cannot be anymore than
three centuries old.
The canvas on which an oil painting
was painted provides an inaccurate guide to age. The weave
composition of the material may however, provide a clue, but
a forger may have used an old, cleaned off canvas from another
artist. Canvas frames, on the other hand can be dated using
the tree ring measurement technique, which can tell how long
ago exactly the wood was cut.
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| *Even
till today, Leonardo De Vinci's Mona Lisa (1503-1506)
is one the world's best known portraits, currently located at
lè Louvre in Paris, France. |
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| Fraud metals and ceramics
are difficult to spot and require some highly advanced equipment and
techniques. Ceramics are hard to copy, as identical clay to the original
is required in order to make them look even close to the real thing.
Stone statues are almost always an original, as it requires too much
time and labour for a forger to consider. Cast metals, on the other
hand, are much easier to forge, but only a small handful acquire suspicion.
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Ceramic
is dated using a method called thermo luminescence, which unfortunately
(to the annoyance of the purchaser) requires the removal of approximately
30 grams of clay for the process to work. The process works by measuring
the natural radiation that is absorbed by the clay from the
moment the piece was placed in a kiln and fired. Metal objects are
dated using a different method. X-ray fluorescent analysis involves
an art piece emitting an x-ray characteristic of the metal it was
made of. This metal characteristic is compared with the x-ray of a
genuine artifact that is from the same period. |
| *Simply
a weathered outlook can deceive and largely increase the value of
what may be otherwise worthless. Photo courtesy of www.imageafter.com. |
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