Twentieth-century fakes

Springfield reveals the art of deception

by Leon Nigrosh

TREASURES OF DECEIT: ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE FORGER'S CRAFT At the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, 220 State Street, Springfield, through August 22.

Pick up this Sunday's New York Times Magazine to see the lengths forgers will go to deceive curators, collectors,

and auction houses -- even the famed Christie's -- with bogus reproductions of such masters' works as Ben Nicholson, Picasso, and Le Corbusier.

John Drewe, whose clever deception of the art world is depicted by Times writer and artist Peter Landesman, was convicted this year of dealing and profiting from fake work (made from household paint and K-Y Jelly; products developed long after Picasso's Blue Period).

Authenticity has always been the critical component of master work. A "provenance" -- the paperwork that accounts for ownership and any sale of a piece -- accompanies works, often serving as the only link to the real. And that's what made Drewe's scheme so captivating: Drewe, Landesman reports, went so far as to alter museum catalogues and to make up untraceable ownership. Such prestigious institutions as the Tate Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum were duped; the art world, the Times reveals, is still trying to access how many phony paintings Drewe pushed, though estimates range in the hundreds.

Yet the Tate and V and A aren't alone. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City has been stung by expert forgery. Rather than get caught up in scandal, the Nelson-Atkins, after scientific and artistic detective work, prepared "Treasures of Deceit," which is now on display at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.

Ancient works are shown alongside 20th-century forgeries with explanations of the methods used to expose the fakes. Sometimes all it takes is a good, thorough look. Two carved marble heads sit side-by-side with large magnifying glasses in front of them. The first, a 2nd-century Roman head, is authenticated by the marble's sugary crystalline structure. Look through the other glass and see that the modern forger must have spent hours with a chisel, tapping away, to give his sculpture a similar, weathered look.

Two interactive light boxes show how ultraviolet light is used to determine whether an object was tampered with. Ancient pigments contain chemical compounds unlike contemporary ones, and are detected under UV light. A 3000-year-old Iranian terra cotta vase has been touched up to enhance its sale value, while an ancient Greek statuette is proved genuine because it glows with a rosy hue, having been painted with rose madder.

X-rays confirm that a supposed 6th-century silver dish decorated with a striding griffin was actually soldered together -- a 20th-century technique. In another display, gamma radiography (which is more powerful than x-ray and can penetrate stone) proves that a Roman 3rd-century marble head was extensively repaired by a 20th-century mechanic, having re-carved the hair, replaced the top of the head, and bolted the neck together. Ultraviolet photography reveals that the chin, nose, and ear were replaced as well.

Why do forgers take the risks? Aside from the cash benefits, they produce high-quality fakes because they can. They come to each work with an expert degree of skill and craftsmanship and -- believe it or not -- personal pride.

One of the few known forgers, Italian sculptor Alceo Dossena (1878-1937), went so far as to take photographs in his studio of his finished works like the head of a Gorgon included in this exhibit. He created imitations of Renaissance and medieval sculptures that were unwittingly purchased by museums, but he was so popular among the Italians that when he went to court, claiming his dealer had cheated him out of tens of thousands of lira, he won. Dossena avoided prosecution himself by stating that he never made these works to be sold as originals. In later years, he attempted to sell his sculptures in their own right, but he was never as financially successful.

Like Dossena's and Drewe's work (though Drewe prayed on a hapless British artist, who was also convicted, to paint the forgeries), each of the exhibit's objects comes with its own fascinating story. Some are filled with intrigue and others, now that they've been exposed, are almost laughable. But just to keep us on guard, a carved head of Hammurabi is presented as having its provenance still unproved -- and as a test of our own powers of perception, we are left to guess if two other time-encrusted sculptures are genuine or not.

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Call (413) 263-6800.