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(Strafrechtelijke en Criminologische Onderzoekingen) H. Van de Waal, Th. Würtenberger, W. Froentjes (Auth.) - Aspects of Art Forgery-Springer Netherlands (1962)
(Strafrechtelijke en Criminologische Onderzoekingen) H. Van de Waal, Th. Würtenberger, W. Froentjes (Auth.) - Aspects of Art Forgery-Springer Netherlands (1962)
STRAFRECHTELIJKE EN CRIMINOLOGISCHE
ONDERZOEKINGEN
onder redactie van
PROF. MR.
J. M. VAN
BEMMELEN
H.
NAGEL
NIEUWE REEKS
ZESDE DEEL
Aspects
of Art Forgery
PAPERS READ BY
ISBN 978-94-017-5841-3
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6302-8
Copyright 1962 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands in 1962.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1962
All rights reserved, including the right to traslate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
FOREWORD
VI
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
VII
vm
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
IX
FOREWORD
J. M. VAN BEMMELEN
-1-
tition between explorers was one ofthe fields in which this struggle
went on, and forgers were not unknown. Another characteristic of
the nineteenth century was its historico-romantic ideals. These
explain the importance that was attached in this period to
forgeries in the historical sphere, as title deeds to historical priority
rights, We find such forgeries particularly among the national
minority groups of that time, where they are rooted in the
resulting cultural frustration.
The Scot Macpherson, with his songs of Ossian, which were to
pluck the crown from Homer's head, was the first to appear as
a pre-Romantic in 1760. We also find the Czech Vaelav Hanka,
who likewise "published" a volume of ancient poetry and who,
after his appointment as Librarian in Prague in 1818, had ample
opportunity to add the signatures of Czech artists made up by
hirnself to the old, genuine miniatures of a different origin under
his care. In addition to this Scot and the Czech, I would mention
the Frisian foreman shipwright Cornelis Over de Linden, who
- driven by pride in his Frisian ancestors - discovered (i.e, invented) an ancient family chronicle, the Oera Linda Bok.
National resentment and personal frustration - perhaps even
more than the desire for material gain - form the actuating
motives which impel the artistic or scientific forger.
Wh at do people forge? Whatever is held to be of value and is in
short supply, Thus the Middle Ages had its forgeries in many
fields: false relics, forged charters, fraudulent imitations of precious
stones, but no forgeries ofworks ofart in our meaning ofthe word
"forgery," since the Middle Ages had no concept of artistic
individuality (I do not say that this did not exist).
However, in all cultures in which we find collectors for
whom artistic individuality exists as a concept, we also find
forgeries in our sense of the word: we find them in Rome, China,
India and Persia long before the Middle Ages.
There is always a elose relationship between views on plagiarism
and on forgery. There is an obvious similarity between them: in
both cases we are dealing with secret borrowing; but the plagiarist
issues the work of others as his own, whereas the forger tries to
bring his own work into the world under false colours. It should
Original
replica by artist's own hand
studio copy
old copy
(documentation)
(instruction)
B Weak original
1
2
3
4
weaker master
bad preservation
radical restoration
partial alteration
New work
modern copy
pasticcio
new work with so-called "original"
invention
4 falsification "without model"
(imitating no one particular type)
C
1
2
3
1. Two po rtra its of Co m mo do re Per ry, th e man who in 18 52 op cn ed j a pa n to American tr ade. Ri g ht , a photograph ;
left , a co ntempora ry j a pa nese wood c ut.
The wood cut wi ll impress Europeans as a bo ve a ll japa nese ; th e a r tist's j a pa nese con te m po ra ries co uld not ha ve
fa iled to rec ognise the su bje ct as a Eu ropea n (Ia rge no se d ow ncast eyes ).
.A-1JfJ .,f1
2. " Su prematie dc la lc mm c." Ill ustrat ion from Alber t R obida, Le XX siede,
Paris 1879, a com ic u to pia laid in 1952.
While this book contains sta rtl ing ly ac curat e Ior eca sts oftec hnica l developmen ts,
th e " fa n tas tic" forms of dress all bear th e mark of th cir pe riod of orig in,
despit e th e wr iter-ilIust ra to r's cf'Io r ts to esca pe from his own time .
10
11
12
13
do not offer a single point ofattack from the legal point ofview.
Kunstchronik. 23rd March, 1917.
M.]. Friedlnder, Echt undunecht. Aus den Erfahrungen desKunstkmners, Berlin 1929
(first appeared in Kunst und Knstler 26 (1928) pp . 17Iff).
a "Die Frage der Expertisen," Kunst und Knstler 26 (1928), p. 382.
& An interesting survey ofthe development ofthe value ofworks ofart as compared
with other prices can be found in M . Rheims, La vie etrange des objets. Histoire de la
curiosiu, Paris 1959, pp . 289ff. "L'lvolution des prix" and G. Reitlinger, T1r4 ecrmomics of
taste. T1r4 rise andfall of pieture prias , 1760-1960, London [1961].
1
of Paintings
-15-
16
17
rise in his social position and the winning of economic power. The
world stood amazed at the great achievements that could be
realised by a human talent, genius, in the field of artistic creation.
The value and importance of works of art now became more and
more dependent on the strength of the artist's personality. The
artist's special position was indeed often justified with an appeal
to the divine origin of his genius. It was in this period, which
brought a sort of "glorification" of the personality of the artist,
that an idea arose which is nothing if not basic for an understanding of art forgery : the idea of originality. This was recognised to
a greater and greater extent as a high criterion, in fact as the
highest criterion in judging a work of art. The original work of
art comes into being as something innate; the artist creates it
"from the depths ofhis own, unique self." The work corresponds
to the spiritual organism of its creator, it is to a certain extent a
part of his own personality. Despite his often violent struggles in
the original act of creation, the original creative master remains
in astate of perfect equilibrium between his task and his ability.
Originality was indeed identified with genius. Thus in the eighteenth century the Englishman Young described genius as the
highest attribute, since it is both "moral and original." Originality
is divine and hence sacrosanct; any attack on it, no matter under
what guise, seems reprehensible. This idealisation of the original
work of art, which has appeared since the Renaissance, is a sociohistorical fact of major importance. The imitation of foreign
stylistic forms, still so frequent in the Middle Ages, was now
considered objectionable, and the formerly so important branch
of art, the copy, was outlawed. A factor of particular importance
for the development of art forgery was that the esthetic and moral
value of originality was more and more drawn into the "commercial way of thinking" of the capitalist age and at the same time
raised to the status of an "economic category." Only works of art
acknowledged as originals - which works had, since the Renaissance, become the main object of collectors' attentions - obtained
the highest prices in the European art markets. They had become trade commodities, desired on a11 sides. The price of a
picture was determined less by its esthetic effect than by the
uniqueness of the great name, symbolised by the signature. And
so it has remained to the present day!
18
19
20
21
the socialposition ofthe artist and views on the nature ofart have always
provided, and continue to provide, powerful impulses for the
further spread of art forgery. I would mention, just in the form of
headings: the growing prosperity of old and above all of new
classes of soeiety - as has been visible in Western Germany since
the "Wirtschaftswunder" - who for various motives and often
without any se1ectionor knowledge of art acquire, collect and then
dispose again ofnumerous works; the public and private museums,
at present real "hornes for the home1ess", in which works retrieved
from churches, castles and middle-class houses or acquired on the
art market are being accumulated in large numbers; the live1y
trade in works of art in the large eities of the Old and the New
World, where the forger not only enjoys anonymous sec1usion to
carry on his trade, but swindling dealers, go-betweens, touts,
auctioneers and experts also find a large cliente1e. The enormous
fungibility of a work of art, in the sense of the phrase "l'art pour
l'art," which according to Oskar Spengler means "Art for the
sake of the art trade!," as a further encouragement to crime,
should not be forgotten either. While the work ofart, as an artic1e
ofmerchandise, has been complete1y tom from its earlier cultural
and soeial associations, the greedy pursuit of money and profit of
our time has often reduced it to an object of pure business speculation. And not least the artist may join in this worship of the
Golden Calf, which is gradually destroying the traditional artistie
ethos, depraving the talent of creative minds, even turning
genius es into criminals.
III
This short review ofthe conditions governing the origin ofpresentday art forgery, the ways in which it is committed and its extent,
will suffice for the moment. We shall now turn our attention to the
fight against diverse forms of art forgery as waged by criminal
justice in the past and at present, with varying degrees of success.
In the history ofEuropeon penallaw a long time e1apsed before the
wrong contained in acts of art forgery was fully recognised and
adequate provisions were made in the penallaw. In the penallaw
ofthe guilds in the eities of sixteenth-century Germany we find the
22
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Fig . 3.
Fig.4.
23
24
25
IV
26
the original in detail. The instinctive assurance and naive unconcern of a French Impressionist are such conspicuous personal
characteristics that no copyist can ever conjure them on to paper
in the same way.
If we look at a work by such a versatile artist as Dufy or N olde,
we can observe that these paintings, water-colours and drawings,
like all modern art in fact, breathe the spirit ofpure individuality
and subjectivity in seeing and creating. Such original creations
mirror to no small extent an extremely delicate state of mind in
the artist. Access to such an inner condition as artist and man is
denied to the copyist-imitator (cfthe forged Nolde water-colour:
Fig. 1).
The agitation, the characteristic nervousness of line and the
genius in the quick strokes of colour, which we admire so much in
Dufy, are entirely missing in the forgery, which tries in vain to
imitate the general artistic style of a Dufy. In the copy everything
seems stiff, heavy and tired, and in places an almost pedantic air
hangs over it,
These negative characteristics of an unsuccessful copy become
even more pronounced when we compare, say, an original by
Nolde, the Head of a Negress, with a copy made with intent to
deceive by the steward of the Cologne Art Society (Klner Kunstverein) during the Nolde exhibition, by tracing the original.
In theforgery, what in Nolde's original shows life and grace in
expression and vigour in brushwork, is coarse, incoherent, misunderstood form. It is certainly a very inept fake - but even such
imitations play an important part in the large-scale production of
forgeries, and always find credulous buyers.
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v
In the last seetion ofmy paper I should like to point out a number
of aspects of criminal psychology in order to give some idea of the
extremely unusual mental state of artforgers and art swindlers. Like
any crime, acts of art forgery are rooted in the personality of the
offender, and investigation ofthe nature and development ofthe
criminal personality has always been one of the most important
tasks of criminology. Although the personality of each offender is
something individual, something unique, the criminologist can
discover, in the group formed by art forgers and art swindlers,
certain characteristie traits which reappear again and again, in
almost typieal fashion, in the personality structure of these
offenders.
In order to arrive at a better understanding ofthe nature ofthe
criminal, criminology must always, when carrying out an analysis
of personality, proceed from the character of the person who has
not turned criminaI. Thus, when he turns his attention towards
art forgers and art swindlers, the criminologist is able to learn a
great deal from the psychology ofthe artist. Modern psychology may
still owe us a convincing analysis of the mental structure of the
artist, but many mental structures can nevertheless be worked
out which are also significant for an understanding of the personality ofthe art forger, Thus as many as forty years ago, H.]. and
W. H. Pannenborg pointed out quite rightly that pronounced
egocentric tendencies are to be found in the "psychograms" of
numerous painters and graphie artists. "Vanity and ambition
generally grow with an increase in drawing and painting talent,"
The French psychologist H. Taine even established that: "Un
artiste ne compose que pour etre apprecie et loue; c' est sa passion
dominante" (An artist composes only to be appreciated and
praised; it is his dominating passion). What here, in the realm of
normal psychology, has been shown to be a prominent feature of
the artistie character, applies to an even greater extent to the
forger, often occurring as what could almost be described as a
pathological "kink." How often we observe nowadays how
criminal elements in the art world take pleasure in proudly
drawing attention to their forging talent as a special asset to their
person. Art forgers now claim the right to be admired as con-
34
35
poraries, who did not appreciate his own original work sufficiently,
also drove hirn to what he did. He stated that his greatest wish
had been that a work by his hand might hang in a Dutch museum.
This wish was fulfilled when, after long and careful work in the
quiet of his studio on the Riviera, he painted his "Disciples at
Emmaus," which was sold to the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam
as a genuine Verrneer for half a million guilders and was admired
by the world as the great art sensation ofthe time . But vanity and
thirst for farne were certainly not the only motives responsible for
Van Meegeren's forgeries. If you know the conditions of this
artist's life in greater detail, then you can see that it was also greed,
desire for gain and the endeavour to maintain a high standard of
living that drove hirn to commit his forgeries.
What an innerly distraught and certainly unfortunate person
this artist was is shown by one of his self-portraits, in which we
see the artist in his studio with his nude model. Ifwhat Sigmund
Freud says is true and art represents a "converted form of libidinous and other impulses," and is the product of a disturbed
relationship between man and reality, this painting would
certainly be a fruitful object for a characterological study of this
painter along psychoanalytical lines.
The forger R. Sch., the defendant in two forgery trials in Cologne
in 1942 and 1950, was also a rather strange person, almost a
psychopath. He was not only an artist in the most modern style
but also an art dealer, and in this double role he was entangled in
many ways in the web of criminal art forgery. When, after the
second trial, in which he was acquitted despite considerable
grounds for suspicion, public interest in his "heroic role" as the
master forger began to fade, he tried to draw the attention of the
sensation-hungry world back to hirnself by having hirnself
photographed for one of the illustrated magazines at a studio
party while painting, not canvases, but beautiful women.
Schuppner's accomplice was]. ]., factotum and steward ofthe
Cologne Art Society, who, as an attendant at the exhibitions of
modern art, had heard a lot about the high prices paid for pictures.
This gave hirn the idea of hirnself forging drawings and watercolours, under the motto, "If Klee can do it, I can too!" The
"Head of a Negress," traced from an original Nolde drawing on
show in Cologne, was an example of his type of forgery. J., who
36
was anything but a skilful forger, was a mere casual offender, one
of those "commonplace swindlers" who were produced in their
thousands in the period immediately after the war. He supplied
the art dealer R. Sch. with several thousand of his forgeries and
was satisfied with a modest profit, which he used to build a new
house.
And finally, Lothar Malskat, whose self-confidence, verging on
arrogance, also confronts us from his portraits. He not only
produced the forged Gothic frescoes in the Marienkirche in
Lbeck and in other churches in northern Germany, but also
forged many hundreds ofmodern paintings, drawings and watercolours, which flooded the art market in the years immediately
after the war. He boasted that he could paint pictures in any style
at very great speed. His boundless urge for self-assertion was such
that, even when in prison awaiting trial, he had no hesitation
about publishing his memoirs under the title "Ich, Malskat,
Knstler und Flscher" ("I, Malskat, artist and forger"); and
after his conviction, he arranged exhibitions of his works in the
major German cities. Even today he cannot save hirnself from
commissions, and recently one ofhis fakes from the Marienkirche
in Lbeck was offered for sale in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung."
Like so many forgers before hirn, he loved mystification, as
when, for example, his fresco "the turkey," painted in 1937 in
Schleswig Cathedral, led art scholars and historians astray, or
when, with an air ofreal romantic mystery, he moved hisforger's
ioorkshop to a distant island in the EIbe which could be reached
only by canoe.
His behaviour during the criminal proceedings was arrogant
and overbearing. He made constant use of his position as defendant in the case, and in a constitutional state this position is a strong
one. For the purposes ofhis effective defence in court, the master
forger, together with the journalist who was confirming hirn still
further in his star role, studied the articles on German criminal
procedure.
Malskat was for years the assistant and accomplice of the
restorer Dietrich Fey, The latter was not only responsible for the
criminal way in which the restoration work in the Marienkirche
was carried out, but was also able to dispose profitably ofMalskat's
37
VI
38
Criminalistic Aspects
of Art Forgery
39-
40
the matter, and take care to let sleeping dogs Iie, TheJudge himselfis glad to
have the awkward case finished quickly and the case is struck off the list. The
plaintiffs are dumbfounded to leam that not a penny will be recovered, and
thus the popular belief soon forms that such actions can accomplish nothing.
Of course, the forgers too become wise to this, and more and more take
advantage of this belief.
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46
Fig. 1. Detail of thc su rfacc uf a for ged pa in tin g after EI G recu , shuwing th c
uld , pa rtl y pain t-fillcd cra quclure as w ell as T -shaped gruuves, scratche d
in th e fres h pai nt.
Fi g. 2.
s i g.n ~t ure .
A. R enoir .
~aked
The origina l signa ture " Heylige rs" had bccn pai nt ed over and repla ced
by the signat u re
Fig. 4. X -ra r sha dowgr a ph of the forgery sho wn in Fig . 3. The forger om itted to re rnove the old pai n t la yer from th e
(presuma bly) 17th cen tury ca nv as he uscd for h is for gcr y.
47
48
Onder~oek
van schilrJerijen,
49
50
graphy are still used in most cases. These methods, too, have been
improved in such a way that they now require only very small
samples, which can be taken from the object without damaging it
noticeably.
In light spectrography, aminute paint partide is subjected to
a very high temperature, which causes its elements to emit light.
This light has a spectral composition which is characteristic of
the nature and the quantitative proportion of these elements. It
can be split up by means of a prism, after which the spectral
composition can be recorded photographically and analysed.
This method is still generally used for the analysis of pigments.
When samples are taken, care should of course be taken that
the sample is part of the original painting and not from a restored
part or an overpainting.
These refined physico-chemical methods are especially useful
for identifying small admixtures or traces of impurities in the
paints. Should small quantities of modern pigments such as
titanium white or zinc white be found in a pigment such as white
lead, which is itself unsuspect, this would be an indication or a
proof of spuriousness.
Van Meegeren made no errors on this count. He used pigments
which were also used in Vermeer's time, without modern admixtures. The painter of the forged EI Grecos, however, was a
victim of modern paint manufacturing methods. He had believed
he was using the genuine old white lead - Cremser white - but had
not been aware that the manufacturer had been mixing this
pigment for years with 20% titanium white.
On the other hand, in view of this great sensitivity of modern
analytical methods, it should be borne in mind that a number of
these, what might be called "modern" elements, such as zinc,
titanium or barium, may also occur in old pigments as impurities.
Zinc, for instance, is a metal which has been used in utensils for
a long time as an alloy with copper. Zinc vitriol seems to have
been in use from prior to Van Eyck as a component of siccative
for linseed oil. So the identification ofa trace ofzinc in white lead
paint on an apparently old painting need not be direct proof of
spuriousness or forgery. Titanium and barium are elements which
are present in minerals (e.g. day) , which were also used in former
centuries. In such a case quantitative analysis and examination
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53
Contents
H . VAN DE WAAL
THOMAS WRTENBERGER
15
W. FROENTJES
39