Stolen Truths. The Art of Counterfeiting

Museo: Mostra Verità rubate. L’arte della contraffazione

Welcome!

The Cassa di Risparmio Foundation of Padua and Rovigo and the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua welcome you to the exhibition "Stolen Truths. The Art of Counterfeiting" curated by Luca Zamparo, Monica Baggio, and Monica Salvadori. In Italy alone, over the past ten years, more than 2,500 people have been reported for the crime of art forgery, allowing for the seizure of approximately 70,000 objects which, if placed on the market, would have caused an estimated damage of over 5 billion euros, not to mention the ethical and cultural implications. To address these genuine deceptions, which still exist today, the Cultural Legal Lab project was launched, a space for promoting a culture of legality, for understanding often hidden phenomena, and for disseminating best practices for the protection of cultural heritage. This mission is part of a scientific research path started several years ago following the testamentary bequest of lawyer Bruno Marchetti. This, however, is not an unusual fact in the history of the University: since the eighteenth century, in fact, multiple collections of artifacts have been received as gifts and are now part of the University's cultural and museum heritage. The Marchetti donation, however, involved dealing with previously unpublished material lacking a history that would narrate its origin and provenance, fundamental elements for archaeological and historical-artistic research. Within our brief journey into the world of forgery, you will find authentic objects and imitations from the ancient world: will you be able to recognize the originals from the fakes? The solutions are provided at the end of the visit!

What is a fake?

The phenomenon of forgery of artworks and cultural goods is inherent in the history of archaeology, artistic production, and art history itself. In the most widespread conception, when speaking of a 'fake,' it also implicitly refers to intent to deceive, thus defining a 'fake' only in the presence of deception. The term derives from the Latin falsum ("to put one's foot wrong," "to deceive") and expresses its main meaning: partial or total alteration of the 'true.' If authentication is considered as the operation by which an object is recognized as authentic and its originality is declared, forgery moves on the opposite plane, that is, the mental, artificial, and manual operation by which a technical artifice is designed, created, or developed to make an object appear to be what it can never actually be. Thus, a 'fake' is defined as an artifact generated and intended by the human mind, which implies a production process based on more evolved technical and formal capabilities and is situated in a specific social and economic context, representing the fashions and tastes active at the specific time of its creation. In this first display case, two fish plates are exhibited: if both were original, they would date back to the 4th century BCE and would represent Apulian red-figure pottery production. In your opinion, what are the elements to identify the fake artifact?

The spread of fake objects

The falsely created object is linked, in the past as today, to the economic law of supply and demand and responds to the desire to possess something one craves, for the purpose of self-gratification and personal recognition, typical of collectors of all times. On the other hand, the fake is the emblem of the imitative capacity understood by some as a virtue, as well as an eternal manifestation of the constant relationship of societies (modern and contemporary) with Antiquity. All of this, through commerce, also enters museums and the collective imagination, still unable today to recognize the deception. Precisely because of its deceptive purpose, the fake work is like a lie that possesses the ability to always find someone ready to believe it. In this second display case, various ceramic artifacts are exhibited in the style of Gnathia, a simple production that spread predominantly in southern Italy between the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE: the authentic vases exhibited here come from the Merlin Collection displayed a few meters away in the Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art of Palazzo Liviano, while the other objects are part of the Educational Collection of the Department of Cultural Heritage. Are all these objects the same?

Ceramic production in the ancient world

Some of the vases on display were made between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE in Greece and Southern Italy (Magna Graecia). The main element that unites the original and fake objects exhibited here is the material with which they were created, clay, particularly suitable for being modeled and decorated. It is easy to find and the procedure for making a vase was not particularly complex even in the ancient world. Ceramic production has distant origins, but much information comes to us especially from the Greek world, although we do not know anything precise about the organization of a vase workshop: it must have been part of the potter's own dwelling, and its management must have been family-based, with the presence of a hierarchical structure, at the top of which was a master, assisted by apprentices. There were two most important professional figures: the potter, who made the vase, and the ceramographer or painter, who painted it. In this display case, there are two artifacts that differ in size, but... how many elements do they have in common? The original artifact is an Apulian Panathenaic amphora with red figures featuring a scene, on the main side, of an offering at a funerary aedicula.

Interest in ancient vases

The passion for ancient vases has spanned centuries from the Renaissance to our days. Although ancient ceramics were already present in some collections of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was during the following century, thanks to the discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii and the new attention to the ancient world, that interest in figurative vases spread among rulers and important aristocratic families, not just local ones. This international interest represented the true beginning of the art market as we know it today. Collectors wanted to possess a memento of those past times, and merchants were not always able to satisfy the countless requests. The solution was easily found: numerous manufacturers in France, England, and in the Italian Kingdoms began to rework ancient schemes and images, creating new objects, copies, or imitations. This production never stops and is still strongly active. While copies and imitations declare themselves as such in relation to the original they refer to, fakes are objects that deceive the user, taking possession of a history that does not belong to them. So much so that anyone who creates fake objects, in order to obtain a profit, is prosecutable by law. In this display case too, two almost identical artifacts are exhibited, two red-figure volute kraters. One comes from the Intesa Sanpaolo Collection exhibited at the Gallerie d'Italia in Naples, while the other is part of the heritage of the University of Padua.

Is everything we see in museums real?

The history of museums is now particularly long, and many of them preserve collections created over the centuries. As we have seen, however, forgery is not only a recent phenomenon and, often, in the various museum collections, there may be hidden some objects acquired incautiously over time that deceive reality. The most concerning estimates suggest that up to 30-40% of objects preserved in museums are fake, while other studies, considered more realistic, report this number to be around 10-15%. Fortunately, research never stops, and analyses on many artifacts have yet to be initiated or are still ongoing. An interesting case comes from the University's Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art: artifact No. 15 should be an Attic red-figure lebes gamikos. It has recently been the subject of investigations for some of its characteristics (from the surface rendering of the coating to the decoration rarely referred to similar objects) that raise several questions about its authenticity. Next to it, we find the pseudo-Apulian specimen, also with red figures, from the Marchetti Collection, which has been the subject of studies from 2015 to the present day.

A matter of details

In recent years, the combination of humanistic diagnostics and technological-scientific analyses has allowed the development of innovative approaches and operational protocols: based on formal, stylistic, compositional, chronological, epigraphic, and decorative analysis, fakes can now be revealed. The dimensions, shape, colors, graphic rendering, attention to detail, construction of the depicted images, and coherence between the individual parts and the whole are the fundamental elements to take into consideration. In the panel behind our two displayed vases, you can find the answers to all your questions: how many fake objects had you identified? Before you start reading, in front of you, you can find the Apulian red-figure pelike from the Merlin Collection preserved at the Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art: this vase is dated to the end of the 4th century BCE and is richly decorated with a scene of amorous courtship. The original artifact, in this case, is the starting model for a contemporary reproduction, made through additive manufacturing techniques, that is, thanks to a computerized 3D relief. This second object is now used for museum education purposes, thus putting scientific research at the service of all visitors.

A matter of method

A cultural professional called to express an opinion on the authenticity of an artifact must carry out a complex process of study and research that involves three different types of investigations: documentary analyses on the provenance of the object, visual technical-formal analyses, and, finally, technological-scientific analyses. While the first focus on reconstructing the history of the artifact from its discovery to the present day, following its possessions and transfers, the visual technical-formal analyses include the study of the object from its creation to its dispersion or deposition. These analyses are possibly followed by multidisciplinary examinations that can determine potential inauthenticity by verifying the presence or absence of particular components, ascertaining the dating, checking the production methods, and evaluating the conservation profiles. In the display case, two Italiote vases are exhibited, decorated with a winged plastic figure which is in turn decorated with polychrome overpainting. These artifacts have been analyzed by a multidisciplinary team that highlighted the authenticity of artifact No. 17 while raising several doubts about specimen No. 18: the pigments used on the latter were not compatible with those widespread in the ancient world. Is this second object completely fake, or have the colors been added in modern times to an authentic vase to increase its value during the sale?

We've reached the end!

The last vase in this room is a bell krater from the workshop of the Pisticci Painter, an exceptional artifact of Lucanian red-figure production from the late 5th century BCE. Preserved at the Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art, this vase represents the emblem of rites of passage from youth to adulthood and, in our context, is a reference to the very evolution of archaeological, historical, and artistic disciplines in recent centuries and the long road they still have to travel to try to answer the questions that society asks itself daily. After this journey we've taken together, we are sure that this question will never be missing: what I am looking at, is it real or fake?