Forgers and Forgeries

by W. G. Constable

Copyright 1954 by Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated. Copyright in the United States and foreign countries under International Copyright Convention. All rights reserved under Pan-American Convention. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated. Printed in U.S.A.

The usual idea of a forgery is of something deliberately fabricated to appear to be what it is not; something conceived in sin, and carrying the taint of illegitimacy throughout its existence. In fact, however, many things made for quite innocent and even laudable purposes have been used to deceive and to defraud, by means of misrepresentation or subsequent manipulation. So the essential element in forgery lies in the way an object is presented, rather than in the purpose that inspired its making.

Still, it is objects made to deceive which have always held the center of the stage. Without doubt, the main motive for their manufacture is to make money. But often there is an element of drama, even of romance, in the way they come into existence. A famous example is a Sleeping Cupid which the young Michelangelo is supposed have carved in imitation of the work of classical antiquity and which, after being buried in the ground, was bought by a dealer and sold as an antique, being rated as such until its true origin was revealed. Though the element of deceit was present from the beginning, the primary purpose of the work was a challenge to the past; and it is significant that Michelangelo’s early biographers counted the success of the imposition to his credit, since it proved that he could successfully rival the sculptors of Greece and Rome.

Such challenges to the past have undoubtedly inspired men who were or ultimately became professional forgers. This seems to have been the case with Giovanni Bastianini (1830-1868), the Italian sculptor. His admiration for early Renaissance Italian sculpture bred in him a spirit of rivalry which issued in the production of remarkable imitations to be exploited as originals through collaboration with a dealer. Alceo Dossena (1878-1937) also seems to have wanted to prove himself the equal of earlier sculptors, though later he knowingly embarked on the making of forgeries of medieval and Renaissance Italian sculpture, skillful enough to be purchased as originals by various museums. The case for conscious rivalry with the past is clearer with Rouchomovski, the nineteenth-century goldsmith, whose abilities, though sufficient to give him a reputation in his own right, led him to make the famous tiara of Saitaphernes, which was purchased by the Louvre as Greco-Scythian work of the third century B.C.

With other forgers, however, desire to confound connoisseurs and the learned world has been uppermost, generally bred by neglect or adverse criticism. So it seems to have been with Thomas Chatterton and his eighteenth-century imitations of medieval poems; perhaps it operated in the case of T. J. Wise and his forgeries of nineteenth-century pamphlets; and apparently I. F. Ioni, the Sienese painter and restorer, well-known for his forgeries of Italian primitive paintings, derived at least as much satisfaction from trying to take in eminent authorities as from the money he made. Certainly such motives inspired H. A. Van Meegeren, the most famous forger of our time. Van Meegeren, a dexterous painter, skillful in imitating others, did not receive the recognition to which he felt his gifts entitled him, and turned his talents to forging the great Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. In 1937 he achieved spectacular success with his sale to the Rotterdam museum for $200,000 of his Disciples at Emmaus, as an early work by Jan Vermeer. A vivid light is thrown on his motives by a remark he made in 1947 after his arrest and trial: “The Disciples represented the master-stroke in my plan for vengeance.” Later, the desire to fill his pockets seems to have become paramount. A similar case may be that of the Piltdown skull, once thought to be the earliest surviving relic of prehistoric man. Recent intensive examination has proved that though the cranium is of respectable antiquity, the lower jaw is that of a chimpanzee doctored to appear ancient; and there is some reason to think that it was made and planted near where the cranium was found, by a disgruntled museum technician who wished to prove that he could fool the learned world.

LEFT: A forgery by Giovanni Bastianini, part copy and part style imitation. RIGHT: A fragment of an original relief by Desiderio da Settignano on which the forgery was based.

But whatever mixture of motives may go into making a forgery, the predominant one is almost always financial gain. It follows that what the forger makes is mainly determined by the market for his goods, which in turn depends on current activity among collectors and in the learned world. In the Middle Ages, fantastic curiosities and saintly relics were much in demand, and forgers saw to it that the supply was kept up. Later, the growth of scientific knowledge and religious skepticism spoiled this market; while recognition of the artist as an individual and the development of art collections stimulated production of forgeries imitating the work of particular artists or of particular epochs. These have since been the staple of the forger’s trade, reflecting the tastes of the day. The eighteenth-century collectors’ passion for classical antiquity helped to sustain in Rome a flourishing industry for the supply of classical statues and gems, with Thomas Jenkins, painter, art agent, and banker as one of its leading figures; English Regency taste produced a fine crop of imitations of Sèvres and Meissen porcelain, made both in England and elsewhere; the Gothic revival, bringing in its train a new enthusiasm for Italian primitives, created hitherto neglected opportunities for the forger, who maintained an active sideline in keeping up the supply of Palissy ware and Italian majolica, until the taste of the aesthetic period turned his attention to Delft ware; and in our own time we have seen the forger swing from fabricating Famille Rose and Famille Verte to meeting twentieth-century demands for the art of the T’ang, Sung, and earlier Chinese dynasties.

ABOVE: An example of a flourishing nineteenth-century industry: a forgery of a fourteenth-century Italian diptych, with (BELOW) a genuine example for comparison. The crackle and facial types indicate the forgery.