Telling the fake from the real

Look for traces of glue or gouache, say experts, and study the work carefully

by Suneet Chopra

THE question of authenticity is always a troubling one as far as art is concerned. Recently, two Goya paintings have been called into question in a museum in his native Spain. There is no end to quibbling on this issue. The reason is that unscrupulous dealers tend to pass off works of lesser-known contemporary artists as those of better ones.

This was the time-tested method of passing off fakes. There are cruder methods, of course. Getting people to do copies is one; but by and large, the techniques and material tend to give them away. This has led to the use of older material by the copyists. For example, old pages from manuscripts, court proceedings or even a account books are glued together to create a genuine-looking base for miniatures, many of which are copies from folk-art, and easy enough to reproduce.

Two things are a give-away in the general market variety. The first is the glue, and the second the fact that most of these are painted in gouaches while the traditional miniature is painted in hand-ground stone colours and then burnished to give them the glow. But in carefully done fakes even these cannot be made out.

Recently, a work by Jamini Roy was brought to me for identification. I looked closely at the base. It had aged evenly. In fakes, the marks of ageing are highly uneven. But, I was not satisfied with that. There was a problem of style. The drawing was that of a traditional folk painter, and even a little decorative. But the brushwork on it was definitely Jamini Roy’s, and was comparable to that of his impressionist work. This created the problem.
Normally, it is easy enough to tell a fake Jamini Roy from a real one by his use of cylindrical French drawing rather than the flat rendering of a traditional Patua. Here, it was in reverse. But the brush-work was definitely that of the artist. And brush-work is very difficult to copy. So I came to the conclusion that the work belonged to the period of transition from impressionism to the folk idiom, when the artist, more or less copied folk imagery and then embellished it in his inimitable style. Later, the stamp would be stronger in the drawing and the meticulous brush-work would often be missing, as many of the later works were filled in by assistants.
In effect, where the history of works is not known in a very detailed manner, it is often impossible to tell fakes apart from the genuine works.

Therefore, if a collector wants to be sure, his or her best bet is to go for the works of living artists. And these too, ought to be covered by a note of authentication, giving the size, medium and description of the work concerned under the artist’s signature.

However, it is unfortunate that galleries and dealers are not yet prepared to take the trouble to do this. In fact, while most galleries do maintain records, it is only for accounting purposes that they do it, rather than using it as a method of authentication. It is evident that the policy of making a quick buck is still uppermost in the minds of a majority of gallery owners and dealers.

It is worthwhile then that serious collectors take the trouble to catalogue their collections systematically (as Mr E.A. Alkazi of Art Heritage has done) and have well-documented lists of the works they own. And, should they off-load certain works, they can at least give notes of provenance with them. These practices take time, but they will help to simplify the procedure of authentication considerably.

The simplest rule is for collectors who are unsure of the history of a work to buy one painted by a living artist rather than a dead one; to prefer a good lesser known artist to a well-known one; and to concentrate a good deal of effort to establish younger artists by buying their works consistently over a period of time. This will make collecting that much easier without the heartburn of having been taken for a ride by glib gallery-owners and dealers.

As for specific works that are to serve as highlights for a collection, it is better for a collector to pay more for a reliable work than buy from doubtful sources.

A number of artists like MF Husain already provide written authentications of their works, so there is no reason why a Husain canvas should be bought without one. Recently, some early Raza works have surfaced with Gade. They have been exhibited and sold; but the artist has not even seen the works, much less certified them. The works, or most of them at least, are genuine; but certification of such a large cache of old works would have helped a great deal in putting our contemporary art market on a sound footing.

Unfortunately, this did not happen. So it is the collector who must rely on his or her own resources for sometime to come as far as authentication.

There are cartels of galleries claiming to provide such services; but as yet nothing fool-proof seems to have emerged. So caveat emptor is the best policy to follow today; let the buyer be on his guard.