Michelangelo and other talented forgers who managed to deceive the art world

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Art has long turned into a profitable business that brings in millions for especially experienced people. After all, real masterpieces are worth huge sums. The dealer gets his share, the auction house gets the commission, and the buyer gets the picture he wants. And in this chain, it is not beneficial for anyone to let someone know that in fact the painting is a fake. Therefore, such incidents, as a rule, are silent.

Experts believe that on the international art market, about half of the paintings can be fakes, and in large museum collections, about 20% are fakes. For example, in April 2018, a museum in France discovered that 82 out of 140 paintings by Etienne Terrus in his collection were fake. The forgeries were only discovered when a keen visitor noticed that some of the buildings depicted in the paintings were built after the artist's death.

1. Khan Van Megeren

In 1932, the Dutch artist Han van Megeren, stung by criticism that his work was "unoriginal", decided that he would create a "new and original work" by copying a painting by the great master Johann Vermeer. According to his idea, Khan wanted to confess to the deception as soon as the picture was appreciated by leading scientists. As a result, the artist created his painting, entitled "Dinner at Emmaus", using genuine 17th century canvas and pigments that were available at the time. He added Bakelite to the paints, which made them dry, giving the impression of antiquity.

The painting was declared a masterpiece and acquired by a Dutch gallery, becoming the centerpiece of its exhibition. Van Meegeren, instead of announcing his forgery, decided to write another copy. And then another, and so on. In 1945, Van Meegeren made the mistake of selling one of his Vermeers to the Nazi leader Hermann Goering. When the war ended, he was charged with high treason for selling a work of national importance to a Nazi party member. The artist was forced to admit in his defense that the work was a forgery. He quickly became famous not only as the world's best art critic, but also as "the man who deceived Goering." Without this recognition, Van Meegeren might have continued to deceive the art world for the rest of his days.

2. Michelangelo

Michelangelo began his career by falsifying art objects. He created several statues, including one called "The Sleeping Cupid" (or simply "Cupid") when he was working for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici. Di Pierfrancesco asked Michelangelo "to make the sculpture look like it had been in the ground for a long time," intending to sell it as an ancient work (naturally, he did not even suspect then that Michelangelo's original works would one day cost much more).

This statue was sold to Cardinal Raffael Riario, who, upon discovering that his purchase had been artificially aged, demanded that the money be returned to di Pierfrancesco. However, the cardinal was so impressed with Michelangelo's skill that he did not press charges of fraud against him, allowed Michelangelo to leave his fee and invited him to come to Rome to get a job at the Vatican. Michelangelo's Sleeping Cupid was later bought by the English king Charles I, and is believed to have been destroyed in a palace fire in 1698.

READ ALSO: Mayan Crystal Skull Mystery: Ritual Props of Priests or Archaeological Fake

3. Reinhold Vasters

Reinhold Vasters was an accomplished German jeweler as well as a talented forger. Many of his works ended up in private collections and museums, and Vasters won a number of prizes for his work, including the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. He specialized in the creation of religious works of gold and silver. It is believed that the German began creating forgeries in order to support his children after the death of his wife. He was especially successful in Renaissance jewelry, and several pieces even appeared in the Rothschild collection.

In 1984, the Metropolitan Museum of Art discovered 45 Vasters forgeries in its own collection, including the Rospiliosi Cup, which had previously belonged to Benvenuto Cellini. And the Met was not alone in its disappointment. The Walters Museum acquired a vessel in the shape of a sea monster, which experts believed was carved by Alessandro Miseroni and framed in gold by Hans Vermeien in the early 17th century. But this turned out to be another work of Vasters. Counterfeits were discovered only 60 years after the death of the jeweler, so today it is no longer possible to determine how many of them he created, which clearly tickles the nerves of collectors.

4. Elmir de Hori

Elmir de Hori is an artist of Hungarian origin who became famous for numerous falsifications. After World War II, he moved to the United States, posing as an exiled Hungarian aristocrat who survived a concentration camp and is now forced to sell heirlooms in order to survive. He is said to have sold over 1,000 knockoffs during his career, many of which are still in collections today. After an unsuccessful career as a painter, de Hori sold his pen and ink drawing to a woman who "mistook him" for Picasso, and so began his new career.

He began selling "Picasso drawings", claiming that they were part of his family collection. The Hungarian also forged works by Matisse, Modigliani and Renoir, etc. However, suspicions arose when de Hori sold Matisse to the Fogg Art Museum, and then offered them Modigliani and Renoir, which looked suspiciously similar in style. In 1955, de Hori was charged with fraud after selling a work of art by mail. However, he continued his career, moving from city to city and selling off his "family heirlooms". De Hori's career ended ingloriously when he began collaborating with Fernand Legros, who began selling his paintings. Legros, unlike de Horey, was not careful and slipped 56 forgeries into a Texas oil tycoon who clearly did not like it. De Hori was ordered to extradite, and he committed suicide in 1976 to avoid going to jail. Ironically, the works of Elmira de Hori himself are in demand at auctions all over the world today, and even “fakes of forgeries” began to appear.

5. Robert Driessen

Robert Driessen began his artistic career selling art to tourists in Holland and then switched to painting “in the style of other artists”. Soon Robert began to paint and sculpt outright forgeries. The Dutchman became especially famous for his copies of the work of Alberto Giacometti, whose art can be sold for millions of dollars. The scammer has become extremely wealthy, collecting millions of dollars from his jobs. Robert Driessen moved to Thailand in 2005 after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Germany. It is estimated that there are still over 1,000 Driessen forgeries in circulation, most of which have yet to be found.

6. Tom Keating

They wrote about Tom Keating that he was the most "untwisted" falsifier of the 20th century. He specialized in the production of watercolors by Samuel Palmer and oil paintings by the old masters. Unable to achieve fame as an artist, Keating abandoned art galleries, which he considered "completely rotten." He believed that galleries and dealers were taking advantage of artists and making millions by paying artists a pittance. In his opinion, forgeries were "a means of restoring balance." Moreover, Keating wrote crude comments on canvas with white lead in all of his paintings before starting to paint (you can see them when you look at the paintings in X-rays). He also deliberately made obvious mistakes on the canvases and used materials that did not correspond to the period.

The Englishman even painted one of the paintings “backwards”. Anyone other than the fast money-hungry art dealers should have discovered the forgeries. But this did not happen, and Keating created more than 2000 pieces "in style" by 100 different artists. He was arrested along with partner Jane Kelly in 1977 when 13 very similar watercolors by Samuel Palmer raised suspicion. Kelly pleaded guilty, but Keating's trial was stopped due to the forger's ill health. He continued to appear on TV and wrote a book about his career as a forger before passing away in 1984.

7. Yves Chaudron

Yves Chaudron was a French forger who is believed to have made six copies of the Mona Lisa in order to steal the original of da Vinci's masterpiece from the wall of the Louvre, and then sell six copies to potential buyers, each of whom would believe he bought the stolen original. The plan was brilliant because even if the counterfeits were discovered, buyers would not be able to report it to the police. The original was stolen in 1911 and was missing for two years before being found at the bottom of the chest. At this time, "La Gioconda" became world famous. It is rumored that the painting, which was returned to the Louvre, was one of six forgeries. No one has ever admitted to buying a fake Mona Lisa, and the history of the greatest fraud in art has never been proven.

8. Eli Sahai

Eli Sahai was not an artist himself, but he hired several artists to create forgeries for him. He owned an upscale art gallery in New York City and was said to have been making forgeries for over 20 years before he was caught. Sahai quite legitimately acquired genuine works of art by renowned artists such as Renoir and Gauguin from respectable auction houses. He then hired artists to make copies of these paintings, after which he sold forgeries with original certificates of authenticity.

We found out about this by chance when Christie's and Sotheby's put up for auction the same painting by Gauguin at the same time. One of the paintings that were sold belonged to Sahai, the other to a private seller who bought the painting from Eli Sahai ten years ago. Further investigations revealed that many more forgeries were sold from the Sahaya gallery and he was charged with eight counts of fraud. It is believed that he managed to pocket more than $ 3.5 million in his machinations. In 2005, Sahay pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, a $ 12.5 million fine, and confiscation of 11 original works of art from which copies were made.

9. John Myatt

John Myatt began his career selling "genuine knockoffs" for £ 150. However, when one of his clients returned to him, told him that he had sold the painting for £ 25,000 and invited them to do business together, John began a new life. Mayatt is said to have created over 200 fakes of paintings by famous 19th and 20th century artists. He and his partner were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud in 1999, and Mayatt was sentenced to one year in prison, although he only served four months behind bars.

When the forger left the prison, they began to ask him to draw "legal copies" of various paintings. Although there are still about 120 unknown forgeries of Myatt on hand and the artist refuses to say where they are, John Myatt continues to create paintings "in the style" of Monet, Van Gogh and Vermeer. His paintings are regularly exhibited for sale through the gallery, although they are now clearly identified as Mayatt's own work.

10. Wolfgang Beltracki

Wolfgang Beltracki is probably one of the most famous masters of fake art in the world (and also one of the richest). Beltracchi has forged paintings by some of the world's most famous artists, and his work has been, and probably still is, in some of the world's most famous galleries. One of his paintings even graced the cover of Christie's catalog, although at the time the specialists of the auction house did not know about it. A talented artist, he spent years studying the work and styles of the artists he copied. He never copied existing paintings, but wrote works that the artist could really paint, after which a "previously unknown" new work of the master appeared.

Beltracchi's paintings were sold by his wife, auctioning off "family items" and forging the origin. The couple lived in luxury, owning several houses, high-speed cars and even a yacht. It all ended, however, when Beltracchi created a painting by Heinrich Campendonck using titanium white paint. When the painting was analyzed, it turned out that at the time when it was allegedly made, such a pigment was not available. He and his wife were arrested and sent to prison. Since his release, Beltracchi has resumed painting, this time signing his works with his own name. When asked if he would change anything in his life, Wolfgang replied, "I would never use titanium white."

And in continuation of the theme, a story about 10 "ancient" artifacts, the value of which scientists clearly overestimated.