(Strafrechtelijke en Criminologische Onderzoekingen) H. Van de Waal, Th. Würtenberger, W. Froentjes (Auth.) - Aspects of Art Forgery-Springer Netherlands (1962)

ASPECTS OF ART FORGERY
STRAFRECHTELIJKE EN CRIMINOLOGISCHE
ONDERZOEKINGEN
onder redactie van
PROF. MR.
J. M. VAN
BEMMELEN
PROF. DR. W. FROENTJES

PROF. MR. W.
H.
NAGEL
PROF. DR. D. WIERSMA
NIEUWE REEKS
ZESDE DEEL
Aspects
of Art Forgery
PAPERS READ BY
H. VAN DE WAAL (Leiden)

TH. WRTENBERGER (Freiburg i. Br.)
W. FROENTJES (Leiden)
at a symposium organized by the
INSTITUTE OF CRIMINAL LAW AND CRIMINOLOGY
oJ the University oJ Leiden
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y 1962
ISBN 978-94-017-5841-3
ISBN 978-94-017-6302-8 (eBook)
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
Art forgery is, as far as I am aware, not listed in any criminal

code as a crime "sui generis." As Wrtenberger shows in his article
in this book, it is generally regarded as species of fraud. The
Netherlands Criminal Code, which in 1912, in Art. 326 bis, included the forging of the signature on or in a work of literature,
science, art or industry as aseparate crime, has in fact gone further
than many other codes. Nevertheless, only a small section of art
forgery has thereby been made a punishable offence. Proceedings
against art forgers are - as pointed out more than once in the
following articles - relatively rare in proportion to the large number of forgeries.
Hence relatively little attention has been paid to this type of
fraud in the literature on both penal law and criminology. It
was for this reason that the Institute of Criminology at Leiden
organised a symposium on this subject, which was addressed by
Professors H. van de Waal, Th. Wrtenberger and W. Froentjes.
Why is it - one may ask - that art forgery does not constitute a
separate crime, like the counterfeit of money, documents and
goods? There are three reasons for this: 1. historical; 2. social;
and 3. practical,
1. The historical reason is that forgery, falsum, was recognised
as a crime only relatively late in the development ofRoman Law.
The lex Cornelia de faIsis,in which the forging ofwills and coinage
was made punishable as falsum, did not appear until the last
century B.C. A number of cases were added later as "quasi falsa,"
but the crimes offorgery and fraud were never properly distinguished from one another,
VI
FOREWORD
The adoption of Roman Law in Western Europe passed this

ambiguous situation on to modern law, and the result has been
disagreement about the extent ofpunishable falsum . Somejurists,
such as Jousse and Muyart de Vouglans in France and August
Leyser in Germany, proposed that "any form of alteration to or
suppression ofthe truth" should be regarded as falsum. The "natural rights" movement at the end ofthe eighteenth century argued
that there was "a right to the truth." However, the legislators of
the nineteenth century were generally unwilling to go quite so
far, and they confined crimes of forgery to a few cases, drawn
within narrow limits. For a forgery to be punishable, it was in
the first place necessary that the offence should to a certain extent
constitute "a danger to the community" and a threat to the "publica fides." It was not recognised that this could also be the case
with art forgery, and aIthough Wrtenberger assurnes - probably
correctly - that it would be of great benefit to the community at
large to make art forgery aseparate punishable offence, it is also
understandable that the legislators of the various countries have
not yet proceeded so far,
This is related - even ifthe.legislators are perhaps unaware of this
- to the social and practical reasons which, it may be assumed, have
to the present day prevented art forgery being made punishable.
2. The social factor which has contributed to this situation lies
in the nature of artists as a group. It is a fact that an artist only
very rarely becomes rich from his art during his lifetime. He is
not a businessman, and he generally has no social status. Only
after his death do the products of the creative artist acquire a
rarity value that makes it worthwhile to imitate them fraudulently.
The man who is in the first instance injured by the forgery, viz
the man whose work is imitated, is thus no longer alive. He will
therefore derive no benefit 'from criminal proceedings, and he is
not in a position to institute a civil action. However, even living
artists whose work is fraudulently imitated take only a slight interest in this. Sometimes - and it is alleged that this is the case with
Picasso - they find it more amusing or even flattering. "Imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery." Thus the person imitated has
either no interest whatsoever in criminal proceedings, because he
is already dead, or - ifhe is still alive - often remains unconcerned
at the act of forgery.
FOREWORD
VII
Again, the community generally does not have much sympathy

for the victims of forgeries. The man in the street finds it sheer
madness that such ridiculous sums are paid for works of art, Those
who feel a little more deeply about it feel sympathy more for the
artists who are no longer there to see how much their work is in
demand than for the immediate victim of a forgery.
The violent contrast between, for example, the poverty in which
Vincent van Gogh lived and the ridiculous amounts now offered
for his work does to a certain extent provide a just motive for not
having much sympathy for those who find they have bought a
forged Van Gogh.
This social reason can also be approached from another direction . For the great mass of the population real art, especially
painting and sculpture, remains a closed book. The plastic arts
are regarded as a luxury, and in so far as they allow themselves
this luxury, the masses buy the most awful rubbish. It is necessary
just to look at the displays in the windows of so-called art dealers
to see what sort of'journey-work is sold there wholesale. It would
of course be impossible for there ever to be really good art hanging
in every working-class horne. The most that can be expected is that
a number of middle-class hornes will contain good copies ofworks
by great masters, instead ofthe innumerable moorlandpaths- withbirch-trees, windmills and Italian harbour scenes that are now
displayed on the walls of so many houses as "genuine paintings."
Little enthusiasm can thus be expected from the majority of
the population for vigorous action against art forgery. On the
contrary, they experience a certain pleasure whenever rich collectors fall into the trap and discover that they too have bought
"imitations."
The "thinking section of the population" are also satisfied that
only the most serious cases of art forgery are qualified as fraud
and punished accordingly; but they also have the feeling that the
destruction of taste brought about by the art trade cramming the
public with tenth-rate pictures and figures is at least as serious a
social evil as art forgery proper.
Only when, with Wrtenberger, one considers art forgery as
something that will "obscure the true general picture of the art
of anation" (p, 37) can one understand why he, with Albrecht
Drer, wishes to brand this "despicable work" as "criminal and
vm
FOREWORD
evil." Even then, however, it is a question whether art forgery as

such should be made aseparate crime. When this question has been
asked, the practical reason why this has not yet happened comes
.
into view,
3. This practical reason lies in the fact that not every wrong
can be made punishable without thereby inflicting more damage
than gain on the community. This is the case with many social
evils.
Prostitution is the most striking example ofthis. In a number of
countries (for example the Netherlands) prostitution as such is
entirely non-punishable. In other countries, where prostitution
does fall under the criminallaw, the maintenance ofthis prohibition gives rise to gross injustices. The prostitutes' clients are practically never punished, and some ofthe prostitutes are able to escape
prosecution entirely.
Another example is the providing ofopportunities for gambling,
which is forbidden in a number of countries (for instance the
Netherlands) but which nevertheless re-appears there in all sorts
of forms and is either openly regulated or quietly tolerated. With
this crime, as with prostitution, the demand for this opportunity of
giving expression to certain desires is so great that it is practically
unfeasible to punish effectively those who offer such an opportunity. This is also the case, mutatis mutandis, with quackery,
abortion and pornography. Here the legislator provides, in most
cases, an opportunity for prosecution, but he knows that he will
never effectively combat the evil in this way. There is always
such a large dark number that the few prosecutions produce practically no effect.
Art forgery can be compared very well with prostitution, gambling and quackery. The forger prostitutes his artistic talents. He
knows that there are a large number ofpeople who wish to satisfy
their artistic feelings but do not possess the necessary ability and
knowledge to distinguish the false from the genuine. He takes
advantage of this by providing a substitute without real love. The
forger likewise speculates on the need of his fellow-men to make
a large profit quickly, at one stroke. He provides an opportunity
for this by organising a lottery containing nothing but blanks (i.e.
forgeries). Nor can it be denied that he is a quack. He feigns
powers he does not in fact possess. This is the case even when a
FOREWORD
IX
able and good painter - such as Van Meegeren - imitates an

old master.
But a proposal to make art forgery punishable as such runs up
against difficulties as great as in the case of prostitution, gambling and quackery. It would undoubtedly be possible to make
this punishable. One can envisage a provision parallel to the
articles on counterfeit of documents and money. But where does
forgery begin and imitation end? Is it forgery for an artist to
paint a picture in the style of a fellow artist? Unquestionably,
no, even if he himself normally paints in a completely different
style. Is it forgery ifhe copies a painting by another artist and does
not sign it? Is it forgery ifhe deliberately produces craquelure in
the painting in order to give it the outward appearance of an old
painting? One can have doubts even about this, ifhe does it only
because he feels that the picture is more beautiful this way and
that this is more fitting for a picture in an old style. It becomes
forgery only when - as also in the counterfeit of documents - he
does it "with a view to allowing it to pass as a genuine old painting
and to use it as such" (i.e. to seIl it as such). Would it be punishable
if he did it to present it to a museum or art collector? Ought it
to be punishable in every case, if he donated the forgery as
a genuine old painting? These examples show how difficult it
would be to make the forging of works of art punishable as such.
Forgery ought to be punishable as soon as it becomes a means of
inducing another person to buy the product; but in this case it
falls under fraud or attempted fraud. As long as the forgery does
not serve this purpose, it is extremely difficult to prove that this
was the forger 's intention, much more difficult than with counterfeit of documents or money. Nobody - except in exceptional
cases - will imitate another person 's handwriting for his own
pleasure, certainly not in a legal document, without the very
contents of the document revealing that his intentions were dishonest. The same applies to the forging ofmoney. But producing
paintings and statues in the style and manner of another artist
does not necessarily reveal any evil intention whatsoever.
However much Wrtenberger thus has right on his side in
urging that art forgery be made punishable, this will run up
against great practical difficulties.
The true artist produces art for the sake of art, The way to
FOREWORD
abuse is opened as soon as art becomes commercialised. If it were

possible to protect the true artist effectively by making forgery
punishable, there would be everything to be said for this. But
in fact this will protect the true artist only slightly, if at all. The
most serious excesses can also be countered effectively with the
aid of the existing provisions - particularly if more coutries were
to follow the example ofmaking the forgery of a signature a crime.
For the rest, we must expect - and we can expect - that a thing of
beauty is ajoy for ever, that it thus has an etemal value and that,
sub specie aetemitatis, history will be able to give judgement and
separate the grain from the chaff.
J. M. VAN BEMMELEN
PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DEWAAL
Forgery as a Stylistic Problem
Why is it that art-historical investigations to determine whether a

work of art is fake or genuine (so often) take an unexpected or
undesirable course?
To answer this question, we must realize that a forgery, like a
genuine work of art, is subject to certain laws which form the
fie1d of study of historical style criticism or historical style analysis.
What is this field, and on what are its methods based? I shall
answer the second question first: historical style criticism, or
historical styleanalysis, is based on the hitherto totally unexplained
fact that all the works of art produced in the same cultural circ1e
in the same time by artists of the same generation have certain
formal characteristics in common. Moreover, this influence of
time is not limited to works of art, but applies to all forms ofhuman
culture. It affects the visual forms of culture (such as handwriting
and fashions in clothes and hair styles) as much as the auditive
forms (such as the pronunciation ofthe language). Even mathematics is influenced by this general law.'
Jurists also know that the same holds for law. I would add,
en passant, that the man of science generally knows these phenomena in his own fie1d but that neverthe1ess eachone be1ieves
that they are not inherent in other disciplines, until he notices
that these parallels are a universal phenomenon which pervade
all the forms of expression of a generation.
1 It was recently argued in an inaugural address at Leiden "that the garment . ..
warn by [mathematics], the form in which it appears to us, [is] dependent on time
and occasion." A. C. Zaanen, Het kleedder UJiskunde, Amsterdam 1957.
-1-
PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE W AAL
Art-historical analysis of style is based on these phenomena.

This field of study embraces a world of scientific investigation,
such as the problem of the unity of style within various arts and
the processes ofsuccession and interpenetration of the "generation
styles"; and then there is also the exciting pattern that these
"horizontal," chronological constants form in combination with
the "vertical," psychological constants, as the various typologies
reveal them to us.
Through this enormous complex of investigation, which I like
to think of as a mass of mountains, we must now forcefully drive
a tunnel to emerge on the shadow side of this mountain range of
man's creative activity: the world offorgery.
Using the methods of style criticism, how does one recognise a
forgery? Above all by defects in its organic unity, such as failures
in spontaneity, lack of balance, a discrepancy between the more
or less slavishly copied forms and the uncomprehended content
or function, and so on.
The true work of art grows through various stages towards its
final form; the forger, on the other hand, proceeds from the final
result; he tries to reach his goal in a forced manner - from behind
as it were - so that in many respects a forgery is nothing more than
a facade, In both art-historical and scientific investigations the
argumentation is often determined according to whether or not
the disputed work is as insubstantial as one of Potemkin's villages.
What do people forge? Whatever is held to be of value and is in
short supply. This is why we so often see individuals (and
nations) who feel a lack ofhonours, recognition or prestige seizing
on forgery as a method of acquiring what they lack.
National priority documents, in whatever field, are apparently
among the most passionately desired objects in the world; and
we repeatedly see this rivalry occurring in the field where the
highest aspirations of that moment lie,
Thus our present age has not only its sports events but also its
sputniks and luniks as pawns in this deadly serious game. And so
in our own time a favourable climate hads already been produced
for forgeries in the field of space travel.
In the nineteenth century, the period of colonisation, compe-
FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM
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
PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE WAAL
be noted that "own" work in forgery is generally limited to the

material and craft aspects.
It is generally known that previous centuries took a broad view
ofplagiarism. In 1512 astranger was selling prints in front ofthe
Town Hall in Nuremberg, fraudulently copied from Drer and
bearing his monogram. The town council summoned him to
appear before them and made him swear to remove the signatures
and not to sell work of that kind there again. Non-compliance
would lead to confiscation. Destruction ofthe forgeries, as plaintiff
had demanded, was not allowed: he should regard it as an honour
for bis work to be imitated.!
Conclusion: the monogram, the master's mark, was protected,
but not the spiritual property. Views on artistic production were
characterised by guild relationships.
In the second half of the seventeenth century an Italian artist,
Luca Giordano, painted aChrist healing the lame man, with
Drer's monogram placed in a conspicuous position, while his
own signature was written so small along the left edge ofthe picture
that it was hidden by the frame,
Then wh at was to be so often the case happened: the painting
was sold, it was praised on all sides and finally the forger made
himself known, not without pride. A lawsuit followed; but the
decision was: no one can blame our Luca for painting as well as
Drer,"
Not until the seventeenth century did the idea appear that
borrowing in the artistic field might be something improper. Only
in 1735, at the insistence of the engraver Hogarth, was a law
passed in England forbidding the copying of prints."
For Van Mander, at the beginning ofthe seventeenth century,
forging still referred exclusively to the use ofbad, defective material,
and even for Van Hoogstraten (1678), with a play upon words
referring to the compiling method employed by so many artists
"rapes, provided they are well cooked, make a good SOUp."i That
1 O. Kurz, Fakes, a handbook for collectors and students, London 1948, p. 106. None
of the more recent books on this subject reaches the scholarly level of this study.
A general survey ofthe literature in this field can be found in : R . G. Reisner, Fakes
andForgeries in thefin arts, New York 1950.
I Kurz, p. 35.
I nu, pp. 106/107.
, H . van de Waal, Drie eeuUJen oaderlandsche geschied-uitbeelding 1500-1800, The
Hague 1952, I p. 75.
same year, however, saw the appearance of Malvasia's history of

Bolognese art, in which such borrowings, which had hitherto been
current, were branded as thefts.'
What has this to do with our present subject? The fact that the
individuality of the artist was seen as something too minor to
merit respect meant that old copies could be produced in a whole
range of possibilities, and without any evil intent.!
In the listing below, running from "copies that are honest to
frauds that are not," an attempt has been made to distinguish
some of these types, It should be noted that in most cases the
boundaries between these types cannot be drawn very distinctly,
while combinations ofsome of the types distinguished below may
also occur.
A
1
2
3
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
With regard to Group B (weak originals) we should not forget

that even the great masters are not without their bad days. Max
Liebermann had this fact in mind when he advised his colleagues:
"Let us honour the art historians. It is they who williater purify
our oeuvre by rejecting less successful works as 'certainly not by
the artist's own hand'!"
1 H . Tietze, "Psychologie und sthetik der Kunstflschung", Zeitsehr. fr JIstheliJc
27 (1933), p. 229.
After EI Greco's death, according to the inventory drawn up by his son, his studio
contained four or five replicas, in various dimensions, ofmost of his paintings. Some
were expressly distinguished by the words " T his is the original." Kurz, loc. cit., p . 56.
For the rest of our investigation we shall limit ourselves to

the type given under e3 - new work with so-called 'original'
invention - since this reveals a number ofmost remarkable points.
As an example of this type we may take the portrait busts that
were acquired by the Louvre, the Victoria and Albert Museum
in London, etc. in the period between 1860 and 1870 as masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, but that later proved to be recent
works by Giovanni Bastianini (1830-1868) .1
How can we explain that no one noticed the difference between
these busts and I talian Quattrocento portraits? Bastianini provided something which corresponded, in increased measure, to
the picture that people at the end of the nineteenth century (in
the period of Naturalism) had formed of the Italian Renaissance.
These and similar cases force us to the remarkable conclusion
that each generation remains bound within the general stylistic
forms of its time. If this is so, another inescapable consequence
folIows: that under certain circumstances we shall not be able to
see a difference like that between the Bastianini Quattrocento
portraits and genuine Quattrocento portraits, no more than we
can observe the movement of the Earth. A precondition for this
is that the forger's conception of the works of art to be imitated
corresponds in every respect with our own conception of them.
In the days of Bastianini's successes the principle of realism was
still struggling for recognition in the nineteenth-century art
world. People believed - in part correctly - that in the artists of
the Italian Quattrocento they could see the precursors and
harbingers of their own aspirations ; the other characteristics of
this style went unnoticed. Thus a super-naturalistic forgery had
the chance ofbeing appraised as a particularly great masterpiece
of the Quattrocento.
For this is what is special about these forgeries: they are accepted
as supreme masterpieces as long as they correspond to contemporary tendencies in style. After fifteen to twenty years a
discrepancy usually becomes apparent and the scales fall from
people's eyes. Forgeries of this sort have to be served hot!
A striking proof, more or less a reductio ad ahsurdum, can be
given for the sweeping statement that we can never escape
1
Kurz, loc. cit., pp. 148ff.
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 .
3. View 01' the succesive fashions in women's dress in th e n ineteenth century.

Robid a 's Iantasi es ca n be seen to be inseparably re lated, in their essen tia l
str uc ture, th e 1880 m odel (bott om row left) (After D er Kinderen -Besier ),
4 . Painting in the st yle of Vermeer b y H . A. va n M eeger en .

Published in 1932 by Bredius, who sta ted that he was str uc k a bo ve a ll by
th e "su bt le expression of th e yo ung g irl , tim id a nd yet inwardl y wel!-pl ea sed
with h er self " ,
H is words in p raise of thc pi eture end ed with the follo win g prophetic rem ark :
" It is not ort en th at we find such a del ica cy of scnt im cm in a V erm eer fac e".
completely from the historical "field of force" of the style of our

own, contemporary period.
What happens - we might ask - when the deliberate attempt
to be non-contemporary is directed not towards the past but
towards the future? What do illustrations of utopias look like?
Here the illustrator is forced to make something new, something
entirely different from currently known forms. But he has no
model to follow, unlike the forger, whose gaze is directed towards
the past.
In 1879 the writer-illustrator Albert Robida (1848-1926)

published a comic tale "Le XXe siede," which was supposed to
take place in the year 1952. The technical possibilities for the
future offered by such recent and sensationa1 inventions as the
telephone (1876) and the phonograph (1877) were from the
beginning so evident that Robida was able to foresee many
features of modern life, such as the spoken morning news bulletin
and television (which he called "telephonoscope"). For the
technical part of utopias it is sufficient to follow the logical
extension of already visible lines of development. But in the
matter of the evolution of forms there is no such possibility.
When, in 1879, Robida had to design dothing for a date so far
in the future as 1952, he obviously did his utmost to free himself
from the fashions of his own time. The "fantastic" forms of dress
he designed must have seemed as fanciful to his contemporaries
as, for example, the strange idea of a woman commandant
inspecting the troops (Fig. 2). Yet it is possible for us now, after
the event, to date Robida's deliberately a-historica1 creations
accurately to within a few years. His wild fantasies can all be seen
as bearing, willy-nilly, the mark of their period, not only with
regard to their general style of drawing, but also in the forms of
the costumes themselves. In other words, in the very field where
the artist deliberately tried to get away from contemporary norms.
What has happened? Robida's fantasies " la 1952" reflect
precisely the short phase around 1878 when women's dress was
for a few years strongly influenced by male dress. The typical
garment of this period was the "polonaise," with a bodice and
overskirt in one piece, fitting tighdy at the hips, and with a
pronounced diagonal accent at knee-height. About 1881 this
manish tendency was already declining, and in the fashion

journals the nineteenth century's second bustle period was
announcing its arrival.! All these characteristics of the polonaise
can be found in Robida's drawings ofhis utopia (Fig. 3).
Conclusion: after the passage of time even the strangest, most
bizarre fantasy inevitably reveals itself as what it really is: a
product of its period of origin. It is evidently impossible for man
to really escape from the historicallaws which act upon him.
The remarkable example I have just given is by no means an
isolated one. Illustrated utopias are, it is true, not very common,
but similar cases can be found in other fields to illustrate that
it must indeed be deemed impossible to escape the "pull" of the
historically and geographically determined forces to which every
human creation is subject.
The J apanese woodcut of Commodore Perry (1852), the man
who forcibly opened up Japan to American trade (Fig, I), will
appear to twentieth-century Europeans who are unfamiliar with
Japanese art more as what it is (aJapanese product) than what
it was meant to be at the time (a portrait ofa European). Yet here
too we must assume that the artist - who had to operate with a
form which was alien to him (European facial features) - has
done everything possible to state clearly that it was his intention
to portray a non-Japanese. For those belonging to his own cultural
circle, he probably succeeded in this, but for us, who approach his
work from a totally different standpoint, what matters most is the
unintended stamp of time and place of origin. "Nichts ist in der
Fremde exotisch als der Fremde selbst" (In a foreign country
nothing is exotic except the foreigner himself) . 2
A forger works under similar conditions. It holds equally
for what he produces that he may possibly succeed in conveying
what he intended to his contemporaries, but that to observers of
later generations his work will reveal itselfmore and more clearly
as a product of its actual period of origin.
We are astounded now at the romantic flavour of early nineteenth-century fakes imitating Flemish primitives. It was for this
very reason that they were acceptable to contemporaries.
1 J. H . der Kinderen-Besier, De kleeding onzer voorouders: 1700-1900, Amsterdam
1926, pp. 192/194.
2 E. Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, Frankfurt am Main 1959, I p. 430.
Thus we see that every attempt to escape from one's own,

contemporary cultural "field of force" is doomed to failure. But
it also becomes clear to us that,Jor the same reasons, it is often impossible to escape the contemporary suggestions of a contemporary
fake. Optical illusions are always a question ofpoint ofview, and
in our opinion, in these questions it is a case of amental optical
illusion on the part of the observer. The laws I have mentioned
apply as much to the receptive sphere as to the creative one.
All our creations and re-creations are determined by preconceived ideas, and these preconceived ideas are rooted in our
own time. Starting from linguistic phenomena, Carry van Bruggen
described the psycho-sociological side of this involved question
very clearly:
"The supremacy of the preconceived idea explains 'Kpenick',
After the event, everyone saw in the so-called high-ranking officer
the unshaven, unkempt, shabby plebian, after the event everyone
was ashamed ofhow he had been taken in. It is the same with a
child who even years later is amazed at not having recognised
Santa Claus, with his boots and .trouser legs sticking out from
under his cotton robe, as the uncle who, by coincidence, had
disappeared. That is afterwards, when he had seen it, And the
younger child, who remains deceived, is by no means more stupid
- often he is more intelligent, but he has just not seen it yet."!
In our opinion literally the same thing happens to the expert
who falls victim to a contemporary fake. The remarkable thing
about an optical illusion is that it never involves any doubts. One
does not imagine one sees something, one does not see it indistinctly or only in part; it is in cases of this sort that you are
convinced of what you see, and so the path to any other interpretation is blocked. Mental optical illusions, to which we are
referring here, do not form any exception to this rule.
For Hofstede de Groot the forged Frans Hals in which he
believed was not "a" Frans Hals but a "genuine and extraordinarily beautiful" work by the master.P He had previously
Carry van Bruggen, Hedendaagsfetischisme, Amsterdam 1948, p. 155.
C. Hofstede de Groot, Echt ofoned? Oog ofchemie? Beschouwingen naaraanleiding
van het mansportret door FransHals uit hetproces Fred. Muller & Co. contra H. A. de Haas,
The Hague 1925. Beforejudgement was given in this case Hofstede de Groot u . .. still
convinced of the genuineness of the pieture and admiring its extraordinary quality,
bought it for his own collection for the price which he had repeatedly said the pieture
was worth" (p. 10).
1
I
10
made a really quixotic gesture by offering "should I be wrong ...

to present all the works of art belonging to me to our public
museums, provided that Messrs Frederik Muller & Co., should
they be wrong, also agree to give one-tenth of the value of my
collections to these institutions" ; he further wished to bind himself "in the above-mentioned case never to express another word,
either in writing or verbally, about the genuineness ofan unknown
Frans Hals, without however wishing to impose this last condition
on the opposing party as well" (page 68).
The tragedy was that Hofstede de Groot saw the result of this
case as inseparably linked with his own reputation; if he were
proved wrong "after forty years ofwork (non sine gloria, I might
add with Horace) I should have to admit that all art history and
stylistic criticism are mistaken and that there is no basis for their
existence" (p. 35). Any idea of a possible optical illusion was
foreign to him. He believed that because of the "inexpertness of
the experts" he was threatened by an injustice "so enormous ...
that mutatis mutandis it could be compared only with that
committed in the Dreyfus case."
Professor W. Martin, who was appointed by the court as an expert and who was violently attacked by Hofstede de Groot, began
his report with the following sobering and prophetie sentence:
"The painting is the work of a skilful painter, done in the manner in
whichhe imaginedFrans Hals worked, but not in the manner in which
Frans Hals in fact painted" (quoted from pp. 81/82, our italies).
In 1927 the specialist on Spanish art, August L. Mayer, published seven wooden male busts as apostle figures by EI Greco. We
must think back to that period when, thanks to contemporary
expressionism, people's eyes were beginning to open again to the
outstanding qualities in the work of this sixteenth-century artist,
in order to be able to understand the origin of the paradoxical
characteristic feature with which Mayer attempted to support
his attributing these busts to EI Greco: "The very modern manner
in which the costume ofthe apostIes is carved is most characteristic
of EI Greco."!
1 Theart netos 25 (1927), p . 66. A few years later RudolfBeriiner wrote ofthis case :
"Man muss Sp ezialist sein, um He1ena in jedem Weibe zu sehen . Man muss Spezialist
fr Greco sein, um in diesen Machwerken die Hand Greco's zu erkennen" (One has
to be a specialist to see Helen in every woman. One has to be a Greco specialist to
recognize Greco 's hand in these fakes), Belvedere 10 (1931), p. 24.
11
When, in 1932, Bredius published his first Van Meegeren, he

began by warning against some recent forgeries, then went on:
"I could name dozens offakes of this kind but I prefer to rejoice
the hearts of my readers by the reproduction of a very beautiful
authentie Verrneer which has recently been discovered." He
continued in this tone of genuine enthusiasm: "I was struck with
amazement when I first saw the beautiful thing" (Fig. 4). Why
was Bredius so struck? "But the greatest attraction ofthe picture
lies in the subtle expression of the young girl, timid andyet inwardly
well-pleased with herself. It is not often that we find such a delicacy
ofsentiment in a Verrneer face. "!
Arecent investigation by Professor J. H. van den Berg seems to
bear out the suspicion that no better distinguishing feature could
be given for the physiognomie difference between the attitude of
the sitters in modern portraits and those ofprevious centuries than
the very se1f-assurance which so delighted Bredius in a quasiseventeenth-century work: "inwardly well-pleased with herself. "
Seen in this light, these forgeries give us a remarkable view into
the processes of interpretation which underlie every act of
observation.f The ultimate consequence of this is the view that
whenever we look at a work of art, read apoern, playa musical
composition or perform a play, we too are inevitably introducing
similar "forgeries." This conclusion seems to attack every fixed
standard. In our opinion, the way out of this impasse is to be
found in the conclusion that a great work ofart is capable of many
interpretations, distinguishing itse1f thereby from less important
works .
Art history can adopt a laconic, wait-and-see attitude to
forgeries of the last type discussed. These frauds, and they are
always the greatest successes, inevitably come to light, ifnot after
a few years then after a few generations.
The legal and social side of the problem is, however, less
reassuring; and, as we have seen, for the same reasons. It is the
reverse ofthe same medaI. Ifwhat we observe is to a large extent
determined by preconceived ideas, if artists' creations are above
all influenced by what art history usually designates with the
German terms Anschauungsbilder (Fiedler), Sehformen or Vor1
2
Burlington Magazine 61 (1932), p. 145 (our italies) .

M. C. Colenbrander, De weg vanhet zien, Amsterdam 1957.
12
PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE W AAL
stellungsformen (WlfHin),ifan entire culture isindeed permeated

byan "innerer Bildtrieb," as Burckhardt called the phenomena
discussed here, then I see no way, within the limits ofart-historical
methods of avoiding the chance of being taken in by a contemporary forgery whose point of departure coincides exactly
with certain modern tendencies which we greatly admire in the
period or the artist in question.
If our views correspond to any extent with the complicated
psychological processes underlying these questions, it might be
advisable to have a work of art of doubtful authenticity examined
by a number of competent art historians belonging to different
generations and with varied general cultural backgrounds.
I have deliberately not made any mention whatsoever of
scientific methods of investigation. In the first place because it is
not my subject, and in the second because Prof. Froentjes will be
discussing it tomorrow.
Then doubtless the slides will also be shown which, in view of
my subject, you had probably expected tonight. Slides showing
enlargements and Xvray photographs.
I should like to make the following remark in connection with
what I have already discussed. After my detailed exposition of
the weak spot, the inherent "blind spot" in art-historical investigations, it would be incorrect to conc1ude that scientific
methods can offer a greater, or absolute, guarantee.
It seems so simple: we take an X-ray photograph. But it is often
forgotten that this X-ray photograph has to be read, i.e. interpreted. Moreover, our criteria for answering the question "genuine
or fake?" are all qualitative in character. On the other hand,
scientific methods can - of necessity - only give quantitative
information. Scientific investigation never gives a direct answer
to the question "Is this paint old or new?" We can get an answer
to the question "Is this paint hard or soft?"; this is immediately
interpreted by us as: (already) hard or (still) soft. This interpretation presupposes, however, the normal processesofthe drying
of paints! If the forger follows another method and is able to
harden his paint by means of some still unknown process (as Van
Meegeren did), then the routine examination will not in the first
instance be able to identify this fraud.
In other words, scientific investigation can, without fail, draw
13
attention to forgeries made according to an already-known

process, It is a robot which will without fail - according to our
instructions - call attention to what is undesirable; but only
according to our own instructions!
The process is reminescent of the blind giant Polyphemus
in the Odyssey, who had shut up his sheep and his Greek prisoners
in his cavern. He let his flock out to pasture, in the morning
stroking them along their fleecy backs. It was quite simple for the
cunning Odysseus to tie each of his companions under the belly
of a sheep and so to escape.
You would be misunderstanding me if you were to think that, by
c1early defining the limits of our methods, I wished to imply that
with the means at our disposal the outlook seems serious.
Moreover, the art-historical and scientific methods complement each other in a most fortunate manner. While arecent
forgery may sometimes be difficult to detect by using arthistorical methods, recourse may in certain cases be had with
success to scientific methods, and vice-versa. In short, the contrast
between an art-historical investigation and one based on scientific methods is essentially smaller than is often thought. It would
be better to speak of an unarmed and an armed eye.
Our discussion of forgery as a stylistic problem would be
incomplete if we were to disregard a remarkable and very unwelcome complication which occasionally disturbs the already
complicated set of relationships in this field. We are referring to
the system of issuing certificates.
In no other field is it possible to take a heap of scrap, tinker
about with it a little and then seIl it as a Rolls Royce, covered by
a statement signed by a highly reputed expert, in which the latter
dec1ares that "to the best of his knowledge" he considers the one
to be the other.
The "Winkler Prins Encyclopedie van de Kunst" expresses it
rather neatly in the following terms: "The practice has lead to
unsavoury dealings connected with the fact that connoisseurs
differ widely in knowledge and character."!
To avoid any misunderstanding I wish to state quite c1earlythat
in this respect our present Dutch officials are above all suspicion.
1
Vo1. I (1958), p. 613.
This abuse is a remainder from the speculative atmosphere of

the First World War. In 1917 the art histori an Tietze exposed it
for the first time in a paper : "Sollen kunsthistorische Expertisen
honoriert werden" (Should art-history expertise be paidr) .! His
conclusion was : it is desirable for the art trade to continue to come
to the official staff of museums for advice. He was thinking of a
service that would charge either a uniform rate or one based on
certain standards relating to the amount of work involved.
In 1928 Tietze retumed to this subject, particularly since
Friedlnder had meanwhile also given his opinion, seeing the
remedy as lying in educating the collector." Tietze riposted
sharply : "This evil is to be fought not by educating the collectors
but by disciplining the art historians. The prejudice of earlier
generations against any form of expertise - whether paid or free
of charge - by scientific specialists has instinctively found what is
right; and perhaps the French custom, whereby this form of
activity is left to a separate profession, is the most radical solution:
then at least the trickery takes place outside science, and the latter
is not always running the risk of looking at objects with the eyes
of the art market and thinking with its mentality.:"
So much for this unpleasant question, which will become more
rather than less important as the value of works of art increasest
and as a larger group of the totally inexpert begin to acquire
works of art as investments.
We have said that national resentment and personal frustration
may motivate the artistic or scientific forger even more strongly
than simple greed. This does not hold for the writer of unjustifiable certificates. This is not a case of scientific falsification but
of a false declaration, a false testimony, made knowingly and
made in such a way that no impropriety can ever be proven.
Formulas such as:
The undersigned eonsiders this picture as an authentie
and eharaeteristie work by . .
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
PROFESSOR DR. THOMAS WRTENBERGER
Criminological and Criminal-law Problems

of the Forging
of Paintings
The nature and importance of art forgery in the modern world

can be grasped fully only if individual branches of science cooperate to the fullest possible extent in an overall review ofvaried
perspectives and in an association of several methods. Glimpses
into the mysterious border-zone between art and law, as represented by present-day art forgery, are afforded by the study
of art and the history of human thought, by criminology and the
study of penallaw, but also by scientific criminalistics.
It is for me a special pleasure and honour to be permitted to
address a group of experts on a number of selected criminological
and criminal lawproblems of artforgery.
Ir I have to define the special characteristics of crimes of art
forgery, I shall be paying special attention in my paper to those
aspects which are the concern of criminology. I shall attempt to
explain under what contemporary mental and social conditions
the present-day phenomena of art forgery have developed, the
extent and forms of criminal activity assumed by art forging in
the past and in the present, and the type of personality structure
possessed by those who become art forgers and swindlers. To
complete the picture of these criminological relationships,
reference will occasionally be made to the manner in which
forgeries are produced nowadays and how they can be recognised
as such by experts. Finally, I shall also touch on the purely penallaw questions involved in the present-day fight against art forgery,
but only in very broad outline, without going into the finer
dogmatic points of Dutch or German penallaw.
-15-
16

I
The present-day phenomenon of criminal art forgery can be

approached most easily via history. The development and form of
the criminal activities summed up in the words "art forgery"
simply cannot be understood without a knowledge of the influence
of certain cultural trends, spiritual forces and social changes. Deeds
falling under the heading of "art forgery" are not, however,
"eternal" crimes like murder or theft, but always occur only under
the influence of a particular situation produced by social and
mental history.
I t is one of the historical peculiarities of art forgery and art fraud
that these criminal activities generally appear and spread in
highly differentiated, late cultural periods. Periods with a
"retrospective" character are particularly liable to these forms of
criminality. Thus in Late Antiquity, works of Greek plastic art
were forged; in the Renaissance, works of Antiquity; and in the
Romantic period, Gothic paintings. At the present time, however,
not only the artistic models ofthe historie past but also all sorts of
works of modern art are being forged, and in such enormous
numbers that it is now almost impossible to distinguish what is
genuine from what is faked in the art produced. One may often
feel inclined to believe that Sainte-Beuve was prophesying
correctly when he said, "La phase ultime de l'art,je la trouve dans
la falsification" (For me, the ultimate phase of art is forgery) !
If we look back into the history ofEuropeon art, then we see that,
for instance in the Christian Middle Ages, when art was religious
in function and the artist was fully incorporated in society as a
craftsman, there were no art forgeries in our modern sense of the
word. The world admired the religious content of the altarpiece
more than the person of the generally anonymous artist, Thus any
inducement to copy a great foreign artistic model was completely
lacking. The great change came with the period ofthe Renaissance,
when the discovery of the world and of man, the new spirit of
individualism, set its stamp on cultural life. A decisive change
took place in views on the nature of the artist's personality. In
Italy, in the Netherlands and in Germany the artist emerged from
his confinement as a memb er ofthe medieval craftsman dass. The
newage granted him recognition of his value as an individual, a
CRIMINOLOGICAL AND CRIMINAL-LAW PROBLEMS
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
While the attention and the possessive urge of wide groups of

society were thus directed towards the original works of the great
masters, mere copyists and less-known artists were often scarcely
able to make ends meet, In many members of this layer of society
the resolve thus took firm root to obtain the same high economic
reward as their more fortunate rivals in the art market by deceit,
by copying and forging original works. Wherever people are
acquiring or disposing of works of art on the art market as collectors, dealers or connoisseurs, swindlers and forgers are also to
be found. For ever since works of art have been collected and
bought and sold as merchandise of a special quality, there has
been a temptation for countless dishonest elements to make a rich
profit by forgery and deceit, Since then, in modern times, an unceasing, rapidly growing flow of spurious or forged works of art
has poured into the world; every year a large nu mb er of people
are swindled into buying fakes, a total of several millions being
lost in this way.
n
The development ofacts ofartforgery at the present time is following the

trend ofthe general movement in criminality, in which a constant
increase in crimes of fraud and counterfeiting can be clearly
observed. Fraud has become the "property offence of the modern
world." Von Hentig has justly observed: "The method of fraud,
ofpushing a false roller under someone eIse's will and getting hirn
to do something which seems advantageous to hirn hut which in
fact harms hirn, has shown itself to he more lucrative and less
risky than the old, superseded methods of violence and lightness
of'finger." For artforgeries in particular, as for fraud and counterfeiting as a whole, it is, however, almost impossible, to obtain a
reliable picture of the real extent ofcriminality. For almost no other
crime is the "dark numher" of offences committed hut never
discovered or cleared up as large as it is for fraud in all its forms,
Not least among the reasons for this is the attitude which the
victims of the fraud and forgery can be frequently observed to
adopt: the victims often fight shy of commencing legal proceedings
for fear ofsuffering ridicule in addition to their loss. Small wonder
therefore that art-forgery trials are extremeIy rare events in the
19
field of activity covered by the administration of penallaw. We

should not allow ourselves to be deluded by individual sensational
cases, which we can follow almost every year.
Even a cursory glance at the overall criminal picture in the field of
art forgery enables one to say that the manner in which such
crimes of art fraud and forgery are committed is becoming more
and more differentiated, more and more varied in form, and hence
more difficult to survey, However, even nowadays, forgery is still
also following the old, traditional, well-worn paths, as it has done
without variation ever since the days of Michelangelo, whom
legend names as one of the first art forgers of repute. The old
forgers' and swindlers' tricks are still being used - burying faked
works in the ground or concealing them in castles or in chapels
and having them discovered there by connoisseurs and collectors.
Originals are still being secretly and fraudulently replaced by
copies of less value, and unsigned works by unknown painters are
still having the signature of a famous artist added and being sold
for fancy prices to the gullible as one of the latter's masterpieces.
On the other hand, in the present overall picture of art forgery
we find many new traits of criminal activity, which also prove
that art forgers and art swindlers are able to keep up well with the
general development of crimes of fraud and forgery. There has
been a striking increase in the number ofcases in which the forging
of the work of art is closely rela ted to the other types of crime,
either masking these offences or making them easier or at all
possible. Thus, for example, not very long ago a band of thieves
in Bavaria stole valuable old objets d'art from churches, replacing
them with copies they had brought with them, perhaps in the
belief that it would make no difference to the devotion of the
faithful whether the revered picture of the saint was an original
or a forgery! It is more serious when, as in the last few decades,the
use of generally forged paintings becomes one of the means of
accomplishing vast fraudulent manoeuvres. An art fraud is now
sometimes even accompanied by a complicated credit or bank
swindle, or is associated with tax and foreign-exchange offenees.
A few years ago, for example, in the Federal Republic ofGermany,
particularly in Baden-Wrttemberg, forged works of art were
the object ofa fraud organised on a gigantic scale, in which a large
number of German industrialists, some of them well-known men,
20
were involved. These industrialists were offered generally forged

paintings of little value for high prices by the skilful accomplices
of an international band of art dealers from Paris, Monte Carlo,
Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, etc., it being suggested to them at
the same time that there were already foreign buyers for these
paintings who would be able to pay even higher prices if the
original buyer wished to sell again but who wished to buy only
by private sale, In many cases the swindler won the confidence of
the German industrialists only after acting as the representative
of a foreign government or placing supposed foreign orders,
sometimes for as much as 250,000 dollars, Decoyed in such a refined manner, the industrialists bought the generally forged paintings from the accomplices acting as sellers, in the hope ofmaking
a large profit on reselling the paintings abroad, as arranged. But
neither the sharpers nor the supposed foreign buyers were ever
seen again, and the victims were left with the valueless paintings
for which they had paid so dear, The totalloss inflicted by this
fraud was estimated by the criminal police to be more than eight
million DM.
These cases are instructive insofar as they show that, at the
present time, fakes can be the object of vast fraudulent manoeuvres, almost reminiscent of American conditions, involving
many accomplices at horne and abroad, each with his own role
to play. Moreover, these cases show us that forging and swindling
by no means stop now at national boundaries, but are organised
largely on an international scale, In the past it has admittedly been
known for a statuette, for example, to be produced fraudulently
in Italy, given a deceptive patina in France and finally disposed
ofin the United States. But the international character ofcriminal
art forgery has now become such an important feature of this
crime that even state prosecution can only promise success if it
proceeds along the path of elose international co-operation against
the offenders, above all with the aid of Interpol in Paris.
Ir we ask how crime in the field of art swindles and art forgery
can have increased and spread so greatly, we can first of all find,
in the cultural and sociallife of our own time, aseries ofcrimogenic
factors, such as the expertise system, auctions, etc., to which I
refer again later. But independent of these - and by no means
least - the spiritual conditions of the time, overall economic development,
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
first penallaw reactions, when for example the copying ofDrer's

famous monogram on woodcuts or prints was punished with a
fine, As regards the forging of paintings, however, only since the
nineteenth century have the facts constitutingfraud, counterfeit of
documents, forging of signatures, urifair competition and the copyright
laws offered usable methods in public criminallaw for punishing
effectively acts in the field of criminal art forgery according to the
degree of guilt and dangerousness involved. I should like to touch
brieflyon a number of legal problems of German and Dutch penal
law arising from the application ofthe facts constituting fraud and
forgery to acts of art forgery.
First we have to examine the facts constitutingfraud, which can
play the major role in penallaw's fight against art forgery.
An art dealer, for example, deliberately and with all kinds of
tricks suggests to a collector that a painting which he is interested
in buying is undoubtedly a genuine Rubens, whereas it is in fact
only an inferior copy. If the buyer pays the normal high price for
a genuine Rubens, this can be seen as an accomplished fraud. The
crux of such a fraud lies, in both German and Dutch law, in the
deceiving and misleading of the victim of the act. At this point an
essential difference appears between German and Dutch law.
According to the Dutch provisions relating to fraud (Art. 326)
the deceitful means are restricted, alternatively and with a
limitative character, to the use of a false name, a false attribute or
the use of deceitful tricks or fabricating a tissue oflies. In German
law, on the other hand, any show offalse facts is sufficient ( 263).
The distinction between the two systems of penallaw becomes a
practical one with regard to the problem of whether they also
cover a fraud committed by the seller's simple "silence" about the
genuineness or otherwise of a work. In the Netherlands neither a
simple lie nor mere silence in the course of the fraudulent act is
regarded as sufficient ground for conviction for fraud. It is quite
different in German law ! If the seller employs no specialoutward
tricks in order to deceive the buyer, but fails to mention, for
example, that areport by a recognised expert has declared the
picture to be a fake, then in German law the difficult question
arises of whether the seller did not have a legal obligation to
disclose to the buyer the entire actual state of affairs, for example
the well-founded doubts as to its authenticity. Such an extensive
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Fig . 3.
Fig.4.
23
obligation to give and reveal information is nowadays accepted,

at least when special conditions of trust exist between collector
and dealer. This was put forward on the basis ofthe standards of
"mutual trust" obtaining in commerce, since the art trade is
certainly based on the mutual trust and trustworthiness of the
parties involved. The stress placed on such socio-ethical points of
view in business life should not, however, be allowed to go so far
as to drive back speculative interest and the profit motive too far
from their position as the main actuating forces behind presentday art trade. On the other hand, according to current legal concepts, the inexperienced person too deserves a certain degree of
legal protection against being taken in when buying works of art.
Taking advantage of an inexperienced person's mistakes might
appear even more reprehensible than iftwo equally expert parties
come face to face.
The second, highly controversial characteristic of the facts
constituting fraud, and one that is often difficult to prove, is the
material damage suffered by the victim or a third party. Here too
the Dutch concept of fraud differs in certain respects from the
German one. Thus for punishment for fraud, Dutch law does not
require material damage. That the completed property transfer
might possibly lead to material damage is taken as sufficient to
establish guilt. In Germany, on the other hand, fraud has, since
.the nineteenth century, been adefinite "property offence." This
means that the occurence of material damage forms an unavoidable precondition of criminal fraud. To answer the question
as to whether the person acquiring the forgery has in fact suffered
such material damage, it is often necessary to determine more
accurately the economic value of a work of art. The criterion is the
"market value" of a picture, to be determined in accordance with
objective standards, and which is based on the relation between
supply and demand on the art market. With a work of art, however, even ifit must nowadays be regarded as a trade commodity,
account must also often be taken, within certain limits, of its
"affective or amateur value".
Finally, in both systems of law, the intent to deceive on the part
of the person committing the art fraud has to be proved. This is
not always very easy. The person who sold the fake work of art
will almost always plead that he himself was convinced of its
24
authenticity. Ajudge or counsel for the prosecution who accepts

without question such a plea ofcredulity with regard to assurances
of authenticity will hardly ever succeed in unmasking an art
swindler. The prosecuting authorities have the difficult but
indispensable task of tracing with the utmost care the origin of
a fake, its "provenance," a time-consuming and expensive task
which often takes them beyond their national boundaries and
which all too often leads nowhere,
As rega rds crimes offorgery in the realm of works of art, Dutch
law has the great advantage of having available the special
provision ofArt. 326 bis of the Criminal Code for dealing with the
frequent phenomenon ofthe forging or faking ofthe signature on
a work of art. In German law, on the other hand, the forging of a
signature falls under the facts constituting counterfeit of documents ( 267). A work of art, e.g. a painting, is a document according to German law only if it bears the artist's mark or name. By
putting his signature to the work the artist made it known that
the work was a finished one, ready for circulation, the maturity
and authorship of which he guaranteed.
A further penal-law problem connected with the fight against
art forgery is that of the withdrawal andconfiscation of fakes or forged
pictures in art-forgery trials. What is the use ofpunishing swindlers
and forgers when their forgeries can continue to be sold and can
go on causing fresh damage? An extremely restrictive effect is
exerted on both German and Dutch law by the regulation whereby
the fake employed for or in the crime may be withdrawn or
confiscated, as the case may be, only ifit belongs to the perpetrators
or accomplices. This condition will, however, seldom apply to
fraudulent sales to third parties. And areport that has appeared
in the press shows that even confiscation by the court is not always
an effective method of cutting the ground from under the forgers'
feet; when the nu mb er offorged pictures confiscated by the courts
in Paris grew so large that the space available for their storage in
the Law Courts was no longer sufficient, it was decided to sell the
pictures again, And so the whole business could start again!
25
IV
We shall now select SOme typical phenomena of modern artistic life

which help to prepare the soil for the commission and spread of
fraud and forgery, and describe them in their criminological and
partly also in their criminalistic aspects. They are: fraudulent
copying, forging of signatures, the certificate system and the restoration
of paintings.
(1) Copying
There have always been elose connections between copying and
forging. Formerly, as the basis of art teaching, there was nothing
objectionable about copying, all the more as for a long time despite the growing striving for originality - a good copy was still
admired by the world. When, however, in modern times the value
attached to original works rose to unimagined heights, a more and
more negative value was attached to the copy as such. Skilful
copyists now took advantage of the farne of the original, creative
masters and forged their works in vast numbers, impelled by need
or the desire for profit.
If we turn our attention to fraudulent copying at the present
time, we can see that this crime adapts itself to all the changes in
general artistic taste and to the corresponding requirements of
the art market. Works ofthe French and German Impressionists
or by famous names in modern art, such as Nolde, Dufy, Utrillo
and Picasso, are being forged nowadays in large quantities, which
is hardly surprising in view of the fantastically high prices now
paid for works by these painters. There is a widely-held misconception that it is easier to forge these works of modern art than
other works of more remote periods. But these forgeries of works
of modern art show the same great internal gap which has always
existed between an original and an imitation of it. This becomes
quite obvious when we put the original side by side with the fake:
A forger took the figure of a dancer from one of Degas' famous
drawings. It is a very clumsy-looking imitation, which appeared a
few years ago on the Berlin art market. The forger's figure lacks
the fine, fleeting line and the floating detachment which so
distinguish Degas' ballet figures.
All this emerges quite elearly when we compare the copy with
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.
(2) Forging of Signatures

The artist's mark, or "signature," was, historically speaking, the
first herald of the emergence of art from medieval anonymity to
modern publicity. It originally symbolised that the work was by
the artist's own hand, and later it became an expression of the
complete originality of a work of art. The moment the world
admires above all else what is individual, unique and original in a
work of art, the master's signature acquires a magico-suggestive
power over men as a symbol of the great name. A picture bearing
the artist's signature is no longer required to give constantly
27
renewed proof of its quality: "it inherits the privilege of the

signature" (Mrten). The following case shows what a powerful
inducement to forgery this esteem for the artist's signature has
been in the past and is in the present:
In 1928 the portrait ofa Bavarian officer (Fig. 2) was shown in
the great Leibl exhibition in Cologne . Since it was signed "W.
Leibi," it was regarded as a work by this painter. Suddenly the
painter Blum, then an old man, declared that he had painted
the picture in 1880 and signed it "Hans Blum 1880." When the
former owner of the picture wished to seIl it in 1924 as a work by
"Hans Blum," he obtained only 800 marks for it, After a couple
ofyears the picture reappeared again, on the art market in Rome.
It now bore the famous signature "W. Leibl." A Berlin diplomat
finally bought it in Rome as a work by Leibl for the sum of
110,000 marks! It was never discovered who had replaced the
old signature "Hans Blum" by the new one "W. Leibl."
( 3) The Certijicate System
As economic competition on the art market becomes increasingly
fiercer nowadays, the more often do the majority of art dealers
feel obliged to reinforce their customers' confidence in the works
offered them by producing certificates issued by experts. In this
they are aided by the tendency of many collectors and buyers of
pictures, owing to their own lack ofknowledge on the subject, to
rely on a certificate of authenticity given by outside authorities.
How few people acquire pictures nowadays mainly because of the
esthetic content of the painting! The certificate of authenticity is
more often bought along with the painting because of the famous
name. And not least, many harmful excesses in the certificate
system contribute considerably to the present spread of art
frauds. I would remind you above all ofthe "inflation" produced
by the countless, irresponsibly made-out certificates of authenticity, which as a whole are even gradually bringing art historians
as a dass into a dubious light. It is all too often forgotten that the
giving ofa proper opinion on the genuineness ofa picture requires
serious scientific work and a lot of time. But for many experts it is
much more remunerative to issue as many - but of necessity
extreme!y superficial - certificates as possible. The result of this
practice is that little credence is given nowadays to many of the
28
certificates issued on questions of authenticity. The general

situation of modern expertise is made even worse by the fact that
when judging questions of authenticity, especially when the
methods of art criticism are used, it is often completely impossible
to obtain a unanimous and completely convincing opinion from
the experts. It need not surprise us, therefore, that the great art
connoisseur Berenson, who died recently, said of the art expert:
"In other fields an expert is someone who knows something about
a subject. This is true ofall fields, with the exception of art" !
In fighting art forgeries it is an important fact that the value of
experts' opinions as evidence in art-forgery trials must remain
highly problematical. In what a dilemma the court can be placed
as a result of this inadequacy of present-day expertise in proving
that pictures are fakes and forgeries is shown for example by the
trial of the painter and art-dealer Otto Wacker for forgery in
Berlin in 1931.
Wacker was accused of having brought more than thirty Van
Gogh paintings on to the market, a very small proportion of them
perhaps genuine, but the majority probably forged. The court
had then to determine which of the Wacker paintings were
genuine and which were fakes. When several experts were
summoned to give their detailed opinion on these questions of
authenticity, it became clear what a precarious and extremely
uncertain value as evidence the opinions of even reputable art
scholars have. Not only did the German and Dutch experts called
contradict one another on difficult questions of authenticity, but
it also happened that the one and the same expert changed his
earlier opinion several times when giving his evidence in court,
Faced with such confusion, how was thejudge to give an objective
decision! Some of the paintings involved in this lawsuit will show
the difficulties the court was up against in determining this
question of authenticity:
A Van Gogh self-portrait was declared genuine by almost all the
experts. The quiet clarity and organic unity of expression spoke
in favour of this positive verdict. The painting revealed clearly
the ethereal quality in Vincent van Gogh's personality as an artist,
As against this, almost all the experts saw a second self-portrait
as aforgery, for which the first work might perhaps have served as
a model. Since this second portrait neither possessesthe convincing
29
urgency of expression nor reveals the strongly expressed artistic

ability of genuine paintings by Van Gogh, this negativejudgement
was justified.
With regard to a further portrait, a "Self-portrait at the easel," it
remained a disputed question as to whether it represented a
variant, painted by Van Gogh, of the genuine "Self-portrait at
the easel" which hangs in the Rijksmuseum, or a forgery by
another hand. The experts De la Faille and J usti declared that
the painting was an artistically poor piece of work and thus
probably a fake; while another Dutch expert believed that
although this self-portrait lacked the inner frenzy and passion of
the other self-portraits, it was all the quieter, deeper and maturer
in expression, to be counted in fact among the most important
works by Van Gogh.
Finally, it had to be determined whether a picture "Sower after
Millet" was an original by Van Gogh or a forgery. One ofthe most
sensational events in the criminal proceedings against Wacker
was connected with this painting. The use ofX-ray photography
in deciding questions of authenticity experienced one of its first
triumphs in the fight against forgery. Professor Wehlte took an
X-ray photograph of the head on the genuine painting by Van
Gogh (Fig. 3) and on theforged painting (Fig. 4). The contrast
between the paintings was most instructive.
The X-ray photograph, which allows us to recognise the whole
way in which the picture has been built up, shows for the genuine
painting - as an expression of artistic handwriting - clear contours
in the brush strokes, which have been applied confidently and
unerringly. For Van Gogh every brush stroke has its special place,
its fixed esthetic meaning in sweep and direction, reliefand colour.
Every brush stroke has its own place and value in the composition
of the picture. The sum of the brush strokes shows a harmonie
organisation in the construction of the tonal values and colours,
a rhythmically ordered clarity in the forms.
It is quite different in the forgery. The brush strokes do not
reproduce nature directly, but only the subordinately observed
model; we find an unending chaos of unrelated brush strokes,
forming almost a parody of the concise unity of the original; the
forger lacks the inner vision, the command of nature, the masterly
clarity; his handling of the brush is uneasy, uninspired. His
30
brushwork attracts attention because ofits nervousness and at the

same time exaggerated violence, thereby, in fact, revealing the
uncertainty in the mental condition of the forger.
What strange paths modern expertise can follow was revealed
in Zrich in 1957 in an art-fraud case against the art dealer
Richard Friedlnder. His frauds were based essentially on his having
the same name as the famous expert Max]. Friedlnder. To
extend the similarity to first names also, he added "Maria," which
could be abbreviated to "M." in his signature, to his own first
name Richard. The Zrich Friedlnder, who was a dentist by
profession, also issued certificates on the authenticity ofpaintings
in an extremely dubious manner. He relied on the fact that his
numerous, not very well-inforrned clients could confuse his
certificates with those of the famous Max]. Friedlnder. In
Zrich he founded the "Schweizerischer Kunsthndler- und
Expertenverband" (Swiss Art Dealers and Experts Association).
By putting forward this Association as a neutral body, the former
dentist was certifying paintings for intending buyers which he
himself, through his agents and touts, had arranged to have fall
into their hands. Thus the art dealer selling the paintings was in
fact at the same time the expert giving his opinion on the paintings
purchased! The way in which he endeavoured to give added
weight to his certificates was most refined. When he sold a peasant
scene, supposedly by Breughel 11, Friedlnder issued a curious
certificate ofauthenticity in the name of the Swiss Art Dealers and
Experts Association. In the middle of the document is reproduced
a very brief declaration by the well-known expert Max]. Friedlnder, made only on the basis of a photograph of the picture,
This declaration is framed and as it were confirmed by the
"General Opinion" of the Art Dealers and Experts Association,
while the general arrangement in the style ofa "public document"
with seal attached is designed to give the whole certificate an
official and hence absolutely reliable air,
( 4) Restoration
The more old works are collected in modern times, the greater
becomes the endeavour to preserve them for future generations
in undamaged condition wherever possible. The recent belief
that one should present only something "finished" to the public,
31
has tempted dealers and collectors into extensively painting over

any faulty parts in an old painting. If in so doing the restorer
leaves the path of pure "preservation" of an ancient heritage, it
thus often becomes difficult to distinguish what is genuine from
what is false. In view ofthis we can understand that there must be
many paths leading from the practice oflarge-scale restoration to
conscious forgery. A famous example of this elose association
between forging and restoring is that provided by the Fey anti
Malskat case in Lbeck.
The Marienkirche (St Mary's Church) in Lbeck was badly
damaged by fire during an air-raid in 1942, and medieval
paintings became visible under the layer of plaster on the walls.
After the war the church authorities commissioned the restorer
Fey and the painter Malskat to uncover and preserve the old
paintings in the elerestory of the choir. Working quickly and in
complete secrecy, Fey and Malskat succeeded in painting twentyone almost completely new figures standing on the capitals of
pillars, according to their own invention, using models from art
books. It was later established that at most only 3% had consisted
of the remains of old paintings found under the layer of plaster;
all the rest, i.e. about 97%, was added by Malskat in free composition in medieval style. The desire for recognition and profit
formed the motives for the two forgers, who had also forged and
sold large numbers of works of modern art, until they were
sentenced by the court to fairly lengthy terms of imprisonment.
Not least among the points arising during the trial of Fey and
Malskat was the difficult question as to what extent the restoration
of old paintings was to be considered permissible. One current of
opinion, represented by Preservation of Ancient Monuments and
art scholars, sees an old work of art as in the first place an historieal
document which should be preserved for future generations
wherever possible as the artist created it centuries ago. Pure
preservation should take precedence over restoration. The opposite view, favoured by the churches, sees in the work of art less an
historical document than an artistic unity and whole, which does
not exelude far-reaching completion in the spirit of the old.
U ppermost in their minds is the idea that a work of art in the part
of a church reserved for worship also has to fulfil religious func-
32
tions. With this view, originality, antiquity and genuineness are

reduced to secondary values.
Whether the former or the latter view should have priority is a
matter of a value decision which should not be decided by us.
But if the second course, that of large-scale restoration, which
really means new work based on a small amount of genuine
material, is chosen, this should be made known clearly and
honestly from the first. When the renovated Marienkirche was
being rededicated and a church president said of the choir
paintings which had in reality been forged by Fey and Malskat:
"700 years of history look down at us from these works," then at
least the forgers knew that this historie past, so solemnly invoked,
was no more than a few weeks or months old.
I should like to illustrate with two examples how Fey and
Malskat set about their fraudulent restoration work:
In the choir of the church there is a group of three painted
figures, in the middle Mary with the infant ]esus giving a benediction. It was noticed that Mary is holding the child exactly in
the middle, in the length-axis of her body, This position must be
regarded as hitherto unusual for a Gothic Madonna.
We now know that a twelfth-century mosaic from the apse of
Trieste Cathedral served as Fey and Malskat's model. It is
significant that this model shows strongly Byzantine forms; in his
copy Malskat had conjured these into the art of the Lbeck region,
to the astonishment of art scholars.
The same applies to a second contrast:
Among the forged frescoes there is also the head of an old man,
who was interpreted as being a king, an ancestor ofMary. Once
again there was a suggestion of a non-Gothic type, and here too
Malskat hirnself later revealed his model : he had used an illustration from Benrath's book on painting in the Middle Ages.
The painting in question was an icon, a Coptic figure of a saint
from the sixth-seventh century, a work which still belonged largely
to Late Antiquity in its style of painting. Even down to details,
Malskat had drawn upon this model for the figure in his choir
painting.
CRIMINOLOGICAL AND CRlMlNAL-LAW PROBLEMS
33
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
temporary "heroes" by a world always eager for sensation. In

fact the public often provokes this process of glorification with
regard to the personality of successful forgers. Isn't it almost the
case already that in the opinion of the masses, the criminal - the
murderer as much as the forger - plays much more of a heroic role
than, for example, a fighter for justice? Vanity and thirst for fame
often tend in the direction of naive self-lovein the behaviour of the
art forgers. This not infrequently reveals itself in an unsatisfiable
urge towards "heroic self-portrayal." Many more or less successful
forgers reveal in their "Confessions" the inner play oftheir motives
for forgery and fraud. One must of course take into account that
they will reveal only certain character traits such as self-love,
thirst for fame, desire for recognition and alsoenvy ofcompetitors,
but that other motives such as ruthless greed and desire for wealth
are generally carefully concealed in the depths of the picture they
draw of their character.
Let us listen to what theforgers themselves believe about some of
their motives for forgery and fraud.
The Italian sculptor Alceo Dossena always denied being a forger
in the real sense of the word. He produced his works in the spirit
ofthe past out oflove for the art ofthe national past. "I have never
copied, only reconstructed," he said of himself. After being
unmasked as a forger, Dossena, accompanied by a Viennese art
historian, toured the major cities of the world. In a film entitled
"Creative Hands," shown at the exhibition of his works, the
master forger demonstrated how, with the aid of an electric chisel
invented by himself, he produced works in the Gothic spirit in a
matter of a few minutes. In this tremendous skill, a frequently
observed characteristic of forgers, he had a predecessor in the
field of painting in his fellow-countryman, Luca Giordano, who
was a magnificentimitator. He was called "Fulmine della pittura"
(The thunderbolt of painting), and his avaricious father would
stand behind him while he was copying, spurring him on with the
cry: "Luca, fa presto!"
Like Dossena, Han van Meegeren, certainly the most important
forger ofrecent years, insisted that he faked for pleasure in artistic
creation in the style of a great past, for the satisfaction ofequalling
the famous old masters in ability, under the motto, "Anehe io sono
pittore!" But, he added the feeling of revenge against his contem-
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
forgeries of modern art on the art market. During the celebrations

marking the seven-hundredth anniversary of the Marienkirche
in L beck, Fey the restorer was at the centre of public interest.
During these celebrations Fey told Dr. Adenauer, the German
Federal Chancellor, about the Gothic masterpieces he had uncovered under the old plaster, Konrad Adenauer smiled and said,
"Nunja, da haben Sie den Kunsthistorikern ja eine schne Aufgabe berlassen." (WeIl, you've certainly left a nice piece ofwork
for the art historians). Fey looked up ingenuously and replied with
perhaps unconscious cynicism, "Und ob, und ob, Herr Bundeskanzler!" (And how, sir, and how). Nor during these celebrations
did the restorer and forger Fey have any qualms about accepting,
in the full glare of publicity, an illuminated address and a gift of
money in recognition of his work of restoration in the Marienkirche. And as ifthis were not enough, the German Federal Post
Office went out of its way to issue special commemorative stamps
in honour of the resurrected Gothic art in the Marienkirche in
Lbeck; on these stamps are shown, most effectively, works by
the forger's hand.
VI
Ir, finally, we endeavour to do full justice to the personality of

the forger and swindler whose field of activity is in the art world,
we cannot overlook the fact that problems of law and ofethics are also
involved in judging acts of art forgery,
Do not the actions and the motives of forgers betray a lack of
respectfor the nature ofthe work ofart and ofappreciation for the
true meaning of art in general? In the final resort, a work of art is
never merely an expression of purely individual arbitrary action
of the part of one person, but is always fatefully related to the
spiritual and moral culture of an age. Let us not forget that the
appearance of vast quantities of forged works will gradually
obscure the true general picture of the art of a nation. And as for
the personality of the forger hirnself, we should not overlook bis
high degree of technical intelligence and his ability, bordering
on real artistic ability. But there is a vast distance between forgers
and the original creativity of a true artist. Forgers and swindlers,
38
who, in things of art, take pleasure in lies and dissimulation, form

a sharp contrast to the conscientious attitude and ethical approach
of the truly creative artist. The artist's constant struggle to create
the picture arising out of his own self always allies itself with the
striving for truth in the forms given to the work, This high ethical
demand made by real art, which is so roughly disregarded by all
the brotherhood of art forgers, was once expressed by Albrecht
D rer in the following words:
"Wohl getane Arbeit ist Gott ehrlich,
Dem Menschen nutz, gut und lieblich.
Aber verchtliche Arbeit zu tun in
Knsten, ist strflich und schad und
wird verhasst in kleinen als in grossen Werken."
(Work well done is an honour to God
Useful to man, pleasing and good.
But to do despicable work in
the arts is criminal and evil, and
is hated in small works as in large.)
PROFESSOR DR. W. FROENTJES
Criminalistic Aspects
of Art Forgery
Art forgery seldom comes to the notice of the judiciary or the

police as a criminal offence. If we are to believe the many authors
and insiders, however, the total nu mb er of cases in which paintings
and other objects of art are forged and used to defraud must be
many times larger than the number of such cases which become
known to the public. W rtenberger! says that the real frequency
ofthis species of criminal activity does not permit ofan estimation.
A reason advanced for this state of affairs is that those who, as
art collectors and art dealers, are directly exposed to this danger
are rarely inclined to lodge a complaint with the police when they
have been deceived with a forgery. It seems that they prefer to
fight this evil privately in their own closed circle rather than call
in the police. So much is sure, that when in exceptional cases a
complaint is made, the criminal investigation and the construction
of proof are often extremely difficult.
One of the reasons for this is unfamiliarity with this special
subject, ignorance of what goes on in the world of art and art
business in all its many branches. As many as sixty years ago the
famous Austrian criminologist and criminalist Hans Gross wrote
on this subject as follows, in his book Rarittenbetrug."
Thousandfold experience shows that aJudge who is not acquainted with the
subject of a case will never be able to understand the plaintiff, to question the
witnesses, to cross-examine the accused and to co-operate with the experts.
He is obliged to swim at the surface and remains a stranger to the inner nature
ofthe case. The persons questioned soon notice that he is quite ignorant about
1 Th. Wrtenberger, Der Kampf gegen dasKunstflschertum in der deutschen undschueiarischmStrafrechtspkge, Wiesbaden 195I.
I H. Gross, Der Rarittenbetrug, Berlin 1901.
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.
Another circumstance which may impede the investigation is

that it is seldom possible to obtain trustworthy statements from
witnesses or a confession from the accused, at least not with
reference to the making of the forgery. As regards the "uttering"
of the forgery, however, the case is sometimes less difficult.
The result of all these facts is that the police and the judiciary
often need guidance from experts with special experience in these
matters.
As a rule, the expert will be asked to examine whether the
disputed object is forged or genuine. His commission mayaIso
comprise arequest to supply evidence ab out the authorship ofthe
accused, if a suspect has already been found.
Whether an object of art is genuine or faked is in the first
instance to be judged by the art historian. For art forgery, in its
great diversity, comes within his domain, and on the ground of
his special knowledge he will often be able to reach adefinite
conclusion.
In certain cases it will also be possible for this expert to give an
indication as to the identity of the manufacturer of the forged
object. This will be the case particularly when the suspect is
known as an active artist and when a number of bis works are
available for comparison with the object in dispute with regard to
style and technique. Thus, in the Van Meegeren case, it was
possible for the art historians appointed by the Court as expert
witnesses to draw the conclusion, on the ground ofsuch a comparative examination, that the Vermeer forgeries must have been
painted by Van Meegeren.
However, just as the sharpshooter is not immune from optical
illusions, the art historian - as Van de Waal has shown in his
lecture - is not infallible in his recognition of genuine or forged.
This has become particularly clear from the history and the trials
of a number of major forgeries in the past thirty years, especially
in the field of paintings.
The most important item among the Vermeer forgeries - the
CRIMINALISTIC ASPECTS OF ART FORGERY
41
painting "The Disciples at Emmaus" - had been accepted by the

art world for eight years without any serious doubts being raised,
till Van Meegeren made his confession in 1945. Yet this painting
had been the subject of detailed art history discussions. In the
Wacker case in Berlin in 1932, where a large number of presumably faked Van Goghs were in dispute, the experts were not
only at variance on the genuineness or falseness of certain items,
but even during the proceedings one of the best connoisseurs
among them changed his opinion completely on a number of the
paintings, dec1aring genuine what he had first believed to be
forged, and the other way round.
In addition to the fact that aJudge receives little assistance from
experts who hesitate or contradict one another, we must remember
that the art historian's conc1usion is often ofan essentially intuitive
and consequently unverifiable nature; this means that his findings
sometimes lack the manifest convincing power required by the
Court.
It is, therefore, hardly necessary to point out that in doubtful
cases investigations are no longer confined to an examination
based on art history but are extended to the material structure
of the whole object,
During the last few decades it has been realized that a work of
art, made up as it is ofdifferent materials, each ofwhich may have
been handled according to a certain technique, is eminently suited
to scientific examination. In the course of these years the application of physics and chemistry as adjuncts to art-history and
archeological examinations has developed into a special branch
of science, using the most up-to-date methods for the testing of
materials.'
At present, several museums possess laboratories where the
staffs are engaged in problems which are in the first place connected with the condition, the restoration and the conservation of
works of art, Their field of activity also inc1udes the study of old
techniques and the collection of da ta on materials used in past
periods.
It goes without saying that this new application of natural
science can also be highly useful in the examination ofcounterfeit,
1 Application 01Science in Examination of Worb ofArt, Research Laboratory Museum
ofFine Arts, Boston (M ass) 1959.
42
forged or dubious works of art. Where it is applied to obtain

evidence for criminal proceedings in such a case, we may dass it
with forensie science or criminalistics. Thus we see that where the
individually so different sciences, art history on theone side, and
criminallaw and criminology on the other, meet in the field of
art forgery, we find this applied natural science as an auxiliary
to both of them.
The first time this adjunct was used to furnish proofwas in 1925,
when the District Court at The Hague - in a civil case in which
the genuineness of a Frans Hals was at issue - summoned, besides
two art historians, the professor of chemistry F. E. C. Scheffer! as
a third expert witness. The case concerned the faked Frans Hals
to which Van de Waal also refers in his lecture. The chemical
examination showed that the medium used (glue), as well as
some of the pigments (induding zinc white) were inconsistent
with the attribution to Frans Hals. After this defeat, Hofstede de
Groot, who had discovered the painting, not only attacked his
fellow art historians viciously, but also gave Scheffer some rough
handling in his book Echt ofOnecht? Oog ofChemie?* The resistance
of the art historian of that time to chemical examination of
paintings can be seen dearly from the preface to the book in
question, in which Hofstede de Groot says: "In matters of pictorial
art the eye should be the finaljudge, as in music the ear. The latter
does not depend on the tuning-fork, nor the former on the testtube."
Ifwe now look at the problem ofthe forging ofpaintings from the
forger's point of view, we find that making a "good" fake is no
simple task. Not only must the painting pass as genuine on superficial inspection, but upon critical examination by a connoisseur
ofart it must not arouse suspicion too soon either. This means that
not only must the forger copy the style and composition, the brush
handling and the colour range of the master he is imitating, but
that he must also avoid any conspicuous anomalies or anachronisms in structure and in materials used. The forger who sets out
to imitate a contemporary has fewer difficulties in this respect,
The materials to be used - in our modern times mass-produced
* ( GenuineorForged? The Eye orChemistry?)

1
C. Hofstede de Groot, Echt of necht? Oog ofchemie?, Tbc Hague 1925.
43
articles which can be distinguished only with difficulty, if at all,

from those used by the master - are easily obtainable.
The forger who undertakes to imitate an old master, however,
has to take a lot more trouble to get his work accepted. He takes
an old canvas or panel in the form of a worthless old painting,
because in this way he obtains the old linen, the old priming, and
possibly an old frame with old nails. Next, he often completely or
partially removes the old paint layer and then paints his forgery
on the old layer of priming. However, if he wants it to pass
succesfully for a centuries-old masterpiece, he must also ensure
that the physical condition, appearance and structure ofthe paint
surface is in keeping with the age intended. It is this last requirement in particular which usually causes hirn a lot of trouble, for
in the case of a genuine old painting the layers of paint have
hardened in the course of the centuries, owing to physical and
chemical changes of the medium and the pigments. These
changes have caused the paint film to crack, and this "craquelure"
is in its turn considered as a proof of old age.
Now, in order to give a fresh, and consequently soft, layer of
paint the semblance of old age, forgers through the centuries have
resorted to all kinds of tricks, One of them is to accelerate the
forming of cracks in an abnormal way by choosing a special
medium for the priming and the pigments or for the varnish.
The cracks may then occur even while the paint is still soft. In
this case, however, the structure and the pattern ofthe craquelure
differ clearly from a genuine old one. The forger may also employ
a less difficult method, e.g. by incising a sort of craquelure with a
needle in the relatively too soft paint surface, or by using a lead
pencil or black paint to draw a pattern of lines which gives the
impression of a web of cracks.
The expert's examination will therefore start with a careful
study of the condition of the surface of the paint, its hardness and
the nature of the craquelure. Examination under a good magnifying glass or by binocular stereolenses, combined with the
pricking of the surface with a pin, will often produce sufficient
evidence to show that a craquelure has been produced artificially
and that the hardness of the paint is not in keeping with the age
suggested.
In a fairly recent case examined by us, the forger had started,
44
as usual, from old paintings on which, without removing the old

paint layer, he had painted subjects in the style ofthe 16th century
Spanish master EI Greco. In doing so, he had been careful to apply
the new paint so thinly in some places that the old craquelure
remained quite visible. In other places, however, he had been
obliged to use more paint, which covered the old cracks entirely.
Here he had engraved new cracks in the soft paint with a sharp
object, so that at first sight the painting as a whole indeed made a
natural impression. Microscopic examination, however, revealed
that the old cracks still visible were in several places filled with new
paint. The irregular structure of the edges of the incised cracks
was a further convincing proofoftheir unnatural character (Fig. 1).
Sometimes the forger will attempt to harden the paint film as
rapidly as possible, e.g. by applying glue as a medium, by using
an overdose ofsiccative or by heating the painting. Once a certain
hardness has been obtained, the layer of paint can be broken and
a naturallooking craquelure imitated. Filling the cracks with soot
or other dirt to make them look old forms the finishing touch.
Van Meegeren succeeded in combining a deceptively genuinelooking craquelure with a hard layer of paint by applying a
modern medium, viz, synthetic resin. For this purpose he mixed
his pigments with a solution of a synthetic resin in a volatile
essential oil which hardened with heating, in which way he
obtained a paint suitable for his purposes.! By heating the paintings for some time, he obtained a very hard, fragile, brittle surface,
in which it was easy to make an ancient-looking network of cracks.
By treating these cracks with a black ink, he further attempted to
imitate the dirt which in the course of ages fills the cracks of an
old painting.
Making use of Van Meegeren's confessions, we succeeded
afterwards in verifying this technique. It was then also found that
the liquid black ink was present not only in the cracks, but that
it had also penetrated rather deeply into the paint, causing dark
zones on the sides of the cracks. This was a result of the porosity
ofthe paint, which contained no oil, and ofthe fact that owing to
the heating, apart from the pigments only a kind of skeleton of
synthetic resin was left,
1 W. Froentjes, A. M. de Wild , Chemisch Weekblad 1949, p. 267. P. Coremans, Van
Meegeren's Faked Vemzeers en de Hooghs, Arnsterdam 1948.
45
The person examining works of art will always endeavour to

employ or to develop methods which will avoid damage to the
object. Besides the visual examination in ordinary light with
magnifying glass and microscope there are other non-destructive
methods available for the testing of materials, which make use of
rays that are not directly visible to the eye. It has been found that
several parts of the spectrum, each in its own way - sometimes
with the aid of simple devices and in other cases with the aid of
complicated and expensive equipment -, can provide new information about the materials and the structure of a work of art. In
this way clear proof offalseness or forgery may be produced.
When the surfaceof a painting is exposed to ultraviolet rays,
abnormal fluorescent colours will betray the places where
damaged parts have been retouched with new paint or where it
has been painted over with a view to forging it. By this method it
is also possible to detect the cases in which the original signature
has been removed or painted out and replaced by another signature. This method offorgery is probably most frequent, because it
can be accomplished with considerably less inventive and technical exertion than the painting of a complete counterfeit. In most
cases the signature of a much soughtafter or famous master is
copied on a painting of inferior quality, but resembling the
master's work as regards style and period. Sometimes the original
signature is forged simply by altering it or adding to it. Exposure
to . ultraviolet light is not the only method of detecting these
forgeries: microscopic examination will also often show that the
paint of the faked signature covers the old craquelure entirely or
partly.
In a criminal case which entailed the examination of a faked
Renoir, this method enabled the place where the original signature
(Heyligers) had been painted out to be located. Careful removal
ofthe fresh paint revealed the name ofthe real painter once again
(Fig. 2).
In addition to ultraviolet light, infrared rays are also employed
in the examination of dubious paintings. Unlike ultraviolet rays,
infrared rays penetrate the topmost thin layers of paint to some
extent. The degree to which this occurs depends on the composition ofthe paint and on the wave length ofthe rays. Howe ver, the
infrared picture is not visible to the eye, so in this case special
46
photographic plates have to be employed.* Carboniferous paints

in particular show up distinctly and in this way sketches in
charcoal or black chalk have sometimes been discovered in old
paintings under the visible layer of paint as weIl as alterations in
the original composition of the painting. In several cases this
method has enabled the original signature on a forgery to be
detected under a superimposed layer of paint.
To obtain a general idea of the structure of a painting, it is Xrayed orradiographed. The X-rays which pass through the
object are absorbed to a varying extend, depending on the
thickness of the layer and the composition of the material. The
three-dimensional structure is as it were radiographically projected in the shadowgraph, and the different layers superposed. The
great absorption of the light parts of the painting - which are
usually painted with white lead- and the relatively weaker
absorption of the darker paints result in the X-ray picture's often
bearing a elose resemblance to the visible picture. This simplifies
the comparison of X-ray picture and painting considerably.
X-ray examination may give rise to special and sometimes
spectacular surprises.
Ir, in imitating an old master, a forger uses an old painting,
he may leave the original paint and varnish or remove them
completely or partiaIly. Thus it is possible that an X-ray picture
of a fake will show nothing of the original subject, but it is more
often the case that this shows up completely or partially on the
shadowgraph. If examination by an art historian reveals that the
underlying painting must be attributed to a painter belonging to
aperiod after the one suggested by the signature and the subject
of the top painting, this anachronism elearly proves the falseness
ofthe latter. However, such an interpretation must be made with
the utmost care, because there is a great temptation to draw
unwarranted pictorial conelusions from the shadowgraph.
In the case of the faked EI Greco's, mentioned earlier, X-ray
examination of one of the paintings diselosed that the forger had
used a canvas with a 17th century painting (Figs. 3 and 4). Part
ofa 19th century portrait was discovered under another painting,
Although it is nowadays possible to observe the picture created by infrared rays
visually by means ofan infrared viewer, the photographie method o l l ers considerable
advantages for a painstaking examination.
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. 3. M odem forgery alt er EI Greco ( 154 1- 16 14) .
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.
F ig. 5. Thrce X-ra y d iffra ct ion pa tte rn s. Rea d in g downwards :

I. na tural ultrama ri ne fou nd in V an M eegcrens stud io :
2. ult ramarine fro m a V ermeer Io rg erv by V an M ccge ren ;
3. syn thc ric ui tr a m a rin e.
47
allegedly by the same master. The X-ray pictures ofseveral ofthe

Verrneer forgeries by Van Meegeren likewise disclosed sometimes
smalI, and in one case large parts of the old original paintings.
Here X-ray examination in particular contributed towards
proving that the forgeries must have been painted by Van
Meegeren, because he was able to give a description or sketch of
the original subjects of a number of the old paintings which he
had bought specially for this purpose.
X-ray photography also offers possibilities for examining the
character of the craquelure, because it permits the expert to
establish whether the cracks in the paint are confined to the top
layer or run through all the layers down to the support, as is
normal with a genuine old painting. This method, too, allowed
Van Meegerens method of working to be verified, because the
X-ray pictures offered convincing proof of the presence of two
separate craquelures, namely the original one of the old painting,
and, superimposed on it, the artificial one of the recent painting
in the topmost layer of new paint,
Although X-raying may lead to surprising discoveries, it will
provide only relatively general information about the structure
and the order of the various layers of paint, because in the
shadowgraph the layers are shown one on top ofthe other.
Naturally, a better impression of the three-dimensional
structure and composition of the different layers would be obtained if at some inconspicuous place (e.g, under the frame) the
layers were carefully removed one by one and the composition
of each of them examined. The same aim is achieved by making
a cross section of the paint film, e.g. at the edge of the painting.
A particle of the paint is then fixed in a hardening plastic mount
and polished. Microscopic examination will then provide a good
picture of the layered structure. This method is also employed in
the examination of forgeries. Coremans applied it in the Van
Meegeren case, where it enabled him to identify not only the old
oil paint, but also the synthetic resin medium in the top layers of
paint.
We have now arrived at the destructive methods ofexamination,
destructive not so much in the chemical-analytical sense that a
sampie is destroyed in the examination, but destructive as regards
the object. However, modern microchemical and physical testing
48
PROFESSOR DR. W . FROENTJES
methods require such insignificant quantities of material that it

is possible to take them from the object without causing any
noticeable damage at all to it. As a rule, the results of the test
amply outweigh the extremely small and, to the naked eye,
invisible darnage.
The advantage which these analytical methods offer over the
non-destructive methods discussed earlier is that the analysis of
the pigments and the mediums used in a painting provides much
more accurate information about the materials used.
In the course ofthe centuries the painter's palette has undergone
a number of changes. Certain pigments and mediums were used
only in earlier periods to disappear from the studios later on,
others have been used continuously to the present day, while still
others have been adopted in modern times. Exact knowledge of
the material used in a certain period or by famous painters and
their schools may be collected by examining authentie paintings.
The results can be checked against wh at is known from old
manuscripts about former painting techniques and recipes.!
Research work by Raehlmann, Laurie, De Wild and Corem ans
(to mention but a few) has contributed greatly to our knowledge
of old paints.s
In the case of a chemical examination of a doubtful or possibly
forged painting, this knowledge, supplemented with data drawn
from the history of chemistry concerning the discovery, preparation and early application of colouring materials, forms the basis
on which conclusions about doubt or spuriousness are to be
founded. When pigments or mediums are found which were not
yet or no longer in use in the period to which the painting allegedly
belongs, this anachronism may provide proof offorgery. For this
reason, a forger usually finds out carefully whieh paints he can
use and which he cannot use. However, there are differences
between pigments with the same name, which were formerly
prepared by some primitive method, but which are nowadays
mass-produced in chemical plants, and these differences - which
may relate to the size of the grain or to impurities - may come to
light as a result of careful examination.
1 See e.g. J. A. van de Graaf, Het Mayerne Manuscript als Bron ooor Je Schildertechniek
van JeBarok, Thesis Utrecht 1957.

I See e.g, A. M. de Wild, Het NatuUTWettnschappelijk
The Hague 1928.
Onder~oek
van schilrJerijen,
49
For the analysis ofpigments we may again make use ofX-rays,

but in a way very different from the one discussed earlier. A few
very small fragments ofpaint are exposed to a fine beam ofX-rays,
which penetrate the material and are dispersed in a very characteristic way as a result of the crystalline structure of the material.
The X-rays which have been reflected from their original direction
show up on a photographic film a composition oflines, the pattern
of which is characteristic of the crystalline substance and permits
adetermination ofthe chemical compounds in - and consequently
the composition of - the paint sample. This method is called the
X-ray diffraction method.
In investigating a painting forgery, we succeeded in identifying
a considerable quantity of titanium white as well as white lead in
the X-ray diffraction pattern of a white paint. As the painting
was supposed to date from the 17th century this identification
proved its falseness.
Another typical example is the difference between natural
ultramarine or lapis lazuli - which is often to be found in old
paintings - and the synthetic product of the same name, which
may occur in more recent paintings and in forgeries, and which
was first used about 1830. Being amineral, the former pigment is
always to some extent mixed with accompanying natural impurities, while the latter is a pure product. The X -ray diffraction
pattern shows clear differences between the two (Fig. 5).
In addition to X-ray diffraction, the X-ray fluorescence
technique or X-ray spectrography has also been developed in
recent years. This method permits a qualitative and quantitative
analysis of small samples, but it does not supply any information
about the chemical combination of the elements; this latter purpose is served by the X-ray diffraction technique.
Another very modern method is the exposure of the object to
neutrons emerging from a nuclear reactor, whereby certain
elements are activated (neutronic activation) and start emitting a
radio-active radiation which can be measured. Of this radiation,
the so-called 'Y radiation in particular, is suitable for obtaining
information about the composition of the sample, However, 'Y
spectroscopy requires such expensive equipment and specialized
scientists that its use has been no more than occasional. Hence,
the classical methods of microchemical analysis and light spectro-
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
51
by X-ray diffraction have to give the answer, because these

methods permit adetermination of the quantity and the form of
the admixture.
A careful comparative examination of the paint of a forged
painting and the paints found in the suspect's studio offers a
possibility of reaching conclusions about their similarity or
otherwise. Specific impurities in the paints and the proportions
in which they are present play an important part in such cases,
The conclusions reached by this method may give an indication
as to the origin of the forgery.
An important limitation, especially as regards the interpretation of the results, is the fact that the paints are usually massproduced articles, which may therefore also be found at many
other places. Moreover, the paints are often not used in the form
in which they leave the tube, but are mixed on the palette with
other paints in greatly varying quantities.
While pigments can now be analysed satisfactorily the development of the analysis of mediums has lagged far behind. Better
knowledge of the nature and the composition of the mediums
could certainly provide valuable information about the age and
provenance of a painting, because the mediums are sometimes
characteristic of the period or of the painter. The difficulty lies
chiefly in the fact that these mediums consist of organic natural
substances, such as vegetable drying oils, resins and animal and
vegetable glues which are often mixed up together. Not only are
these substances, by their very nature difficult to identify (especially in the very small quantities available for examination),
but through the action of the pigments and oxidation by the air,
they have also undergone all kinds of - partly unknown - physical
and chemical changes. As a rule they have become insoluble, and
very difficult to separate from the pigments,
Identification of the medium mayaiso be of the utmost importance for the proof offorgery. It has already been pointed out
that in making an old-looking paint film the choice ofthe medium
is important, with a view to rapid hardening of the paint. Apart
from this, the medium must be of such a nature that the paint
- like the paint on most old paintings - will not be affected by
alcohol, as is normally the case with fresh paint.
In the case of the forged Frans Hals mentioned earlier, the
52
forger used an alburninous glue as medium. He thus obtained not

only rather quick hardening of the paint film but also the desired
insolubility in alcohoI. Expert exarnination, however, showed that
the paint ran in water, contrary to the genuine paintings by Frans
Hals, which are painted with oil paint.
In the case of the faked Van Goghs against the art dealer
Wacker, the experts proved that the forgeries contained a large
quantity of resin as medium, whereas the genuine Van Goghs
were painted exclusively in oils.
In the Van Meegeren case the experts succeeded in isolating
small particles ofthe medium from the white paint ofthe spurious
pictures, which were identified as a phenolformaldehyde synthetic
resin, The particles isolated were also compared with the synthetic
resin found in Van Meegeren's studio and it was found that there
was great sirnilarity between both the chernical and the physical
properties of the two substances.
Fortunately, the analysis of mediums has reached a new stage
in recent years. New methods, namely infrared spectroscopy and
liquid and gas chromatography now make it possible to identify
very small quantities of organic substances and to distinguish
related natural substances. A beginning has already been made
with the application of these modern methods to the examination
of mediums. The first results are promising, and these new ways
will no doubt prove their importance in the future in the detection
of art forgeries.
With these considerations on the crirninalistic aspects of art
forgery, and in particular the forgery ofpaintings, we have at the
same time given a short survey ofthe present state ofthe scientific
exarnination of works of art,
The often surprising and spectacular results obtained by this
applied science in the examination of paintings have sometimes
given rise to a certain over-estimation of its possibilities. Fifty
years ago, Raehlmann, one of the first workers in this field, wrote
at the end of his book Ober Farbstoffe der Malereil : "Perhaps the
time is not far off, when we shall be able to recognize the hand of
an old master in a painting by the rnicroscopic analysis of the
paints used and the technique of their application with as much
1 E. v : Raehlmann, Ueber die Farbstoffi der Malerei in tim verschiedenen Kunstperiotim
nachmikroskopischen Untersuchungen, Berlin 1914.
53
certainty as we are now able to identify the writer of a manuscript

by his handwriting." It will be clear from this survey that, now
that fifty years have elapsed, this optimistic prophecy has not yet
been fulfilled, despite the great advances that have been made.
Fr this would mean that it would also be possible to prove the
genuineness of a work of art - i.e. to prove that it was done by a
certain artist and not by anybody else - by scientific examination.
This, however, is and remains the task of art history. But it will
have to make increasing use of scientific methods, because - as
Van de Waal expresses it - the two complement each other in a
most fortunate manner. .
Contents
H . VAN DE WAAL
Forgery as a Stylistic Problem
THOMAS WRTENBERGER
Criminological and Criminal-law Problems

ofthe Forging ofPaintings
15
W. FROENTJES
Criminalistic Aspects of Art Forgery
39

(Strafrechtelijke en Criminologische Onderzoekingen) H. Van de Waal, Th. Würtenberger, W. Froentjes (Auth.) - Aspects of Art Forgery-Springer Netherlands (1962)

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ASPECTS OF ART FORGERY

PROF. DR. W. FROENTJES

PROF. DR. D. WIERSMA

H. VAN DE WAAL (Leiden)

oJ the University oJ Leiden

Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y 1962

ISBN 978-94-017-6302-8 (eBook)

Art forgery is, as far as I am aware, not listed in any criminal

The adoption of Roman Law in Western Europe passed this

Again, the community generally does not have much sympathy

evil." Even then, however, it is a question whether art forgery as

able and good painter - such as Van Meegeren - imitates an

abuse is opened as soon as art becomes commercialised. If it were

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DEWAAL

Forgery as a Stylistic Problem

Why is it that art-historical investigations to determine whether a

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE W AAL

Art-historical analysis of style is based on these phenomena.

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE WAAL

be noted that "own" work in forgery is generally limited to the

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

same year, however, saw the appearance of Malvasia's history of

With regard to Group B (weak originals) we should not forget

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE WAAL

For the rest of our investigation we shall limit ourselves to

Kurz, loc. cit., pp. 148ff.

3. View 01' the succesive fashions in women's dress in th e n ineteenth century.

4 . Painting in the st yle of Vermeer b y H . A. va n M eeger en .

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

completely from the historical "field of force" of the style of our

In 1879 the writer-illustrator Albert Robida (1848-1926)

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE WAAL

manish tendency was already declining, and in the fashion

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

Thus we see that every attempt to escape from one's own,

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE WAAL

made a really quixotic gesture by offering "should I be wrong ...

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

When, in 1932, Bredius published his first Van Meegeren, he

Burlington Magazine 61 (1932), p. 145 (our italies) .

PROFESSOR DR. H. VAN DE W AAL

stellungsformen (WlfHin),ifan entire culture isindeed permeated

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

attention to forgeries made according to an already-known

Vo1. I (1958), p. 613.

FORGERY AS A STYLISTIC PROBLEM

This abuse is a remainder from the speculative atmosphere of

PROFESSOR DR. THOMAS WRTENBERGER

Criminological and Criminal-law Problems

The nature and importance of art forgery in the modern world

PROFESSOR DR. THOMAS WRTENBERGER

The present-day phenomenon of criminal art forgery can be

CRIMINOLOGICAL AND CRIMINAL-LAW PROBLEMS

PROFESSOR DR. THOMAS WRTENBERGER

While the attention and the possessive urge of wide groups of

The development ofacts ofartforgery at the present time is following the

CRIMINOLOGICAL AND CRIMINAL-LAW PROBLEMS

field of activity covered by the administration of penallaw. We

PROFESSOR DR. THOMAS WRTENBERGER

were involved. These industrialists were offered generally forged

CRIMINOLOGICAL AND CRIMINAL-LAW PROBLEMS

PROFESSOR DR. THOMAS WRTENBERGER