Spotting Forgeries 101

Yesterday, Aaron and Katie and I happened upon die Falschermusum or Museum of Art Fakes!

Katie in front of the "Rembrandt" wall.

How exciting! There is not a better way to spend 4 euros in Vienna. It's a criminal art musuem filled with faked paintings by the world's finest forgers including Han van Meegeren ("The Fake Vermeer"), Eric Hebborn, David Stein (author of Three Picassos before Breakfast) and Konrad Kujau (so famous forgers made forged Kujaus).

The museum did a great job of providing narrative histories to go along with the pieces. It was the perfect counterpoint to the exhibit at the National Gallery in London I saw a few weeks ago.

For instance
During World War 2, Han van Meegeren cheated Hermann Goring into buying a fake Vermeer painting entitled "Christ and the Adultress" for $100,000. After the war, he was held and prosecuted for betrayal and helping the enemy. Van Meegeren admitted to having forged many fake Vermeers in the trial and had to paint another one from prison in order to be exculpated. Today, these forged paintings are worth nearly as much as true Vermeers.

Doesn't it look real?? This one would have fooled me.

So would this "Chagall"

These two were the best at capturing the feel of the artist. The other "Monets" and "Van Goghs" and "Rembrandts" were nicht so gut.

Closer to home-

Apparently Texas oil magnate Algur H. Meadows bought 56 forged paintings before de Hory was unveiled as a fraud in 1966. The Meadows Foundation has a museum near SMU. Just think of how many of those paintings might have been affected. The forger eventually sold his story, which was turned into a documentary "F for Fake" starring Orson Wells.