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All about Fakes.

PAGE  2  CONTENTS:

Fake Paintings

Van Gogh - The Bridges at Asnieres

Poussin

Courbet

Our Top Ten Fakes

Insurance Fraud

Fake Ceramics and Fake Pottery

Limoges Porcelain Egg

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FAKE PAINTINGS

Vincent Van Gogh Fake  # 1

 

Freemanart recently investigated this watercolour drawing on paper on the right supposedly replicating the Bridges at Asnieres by van Gogh which was this time presented in portrait form as part of an antique letter.

It depicts a bridge over a river, executed in a loose style and is inscribed

and signed with the name of Vincent.

The paper on which the watercolour is painted is folded several times to form the shape of an envelope as an antique letter would have been sent in the time frame and cleverly bears an address and post mark inferring that this letter was posted to the recipient, 'Paul Gaugin,' in Paris who was a great friend of Van Gogh.

This fake letter is actually a facsimile of a work known to have been executed by Vincent Van Gogh in the year 1887


Fake

Bridges at Asnieres

Legitimate

Bridges at Asnieres


Gaugiuins address

The original art work was entitled: The Bridges at Asnieres, it's an oil on canvas. 52.5 x 65 cm. painted in Paris {De la Faille 380}. This only one of a number of similar forgeries we have heared of.  The paper, quality and style of workmanship simply don't add up.

Forensic investigations showed the signature, post mark & handwriting were illegitimate.


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Poussin

 

An Old Master Drawing???

This old master drawing on paper, claiming to be by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)  This is a pen and ink drawing in sepia and heightened in white. The suposedly old master pen and ink drawing is executed on paper and pasted to board. Measuring 8 ½ x 10 "Depicting according to incription:  St. Jerome beneath a tree within a rural landscape with bridge beyond.

However, the paper on which this piece is executed was no older than about 1840.

That's some 200 years after the artist was working.

So this drawing could never have been executed by Nicolas Poussin.

Fake Poussin?

We also discovered a further inscription which we were able to image enhance when we removed the drawing from its backing board. Forensics showed, the pen nib which created these marks is identical to the marks of the nib of the pen which created the actual drawing!  See the date is 1853.

That's 200 years out

 

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Gustav Courbet:

An OIL PORTRAIT

 

   

 

 

  

The Portrait (above left) bearing an indistinct inscription, was revealed by photographic and computer enhancement as: ‘Au sculptour Dupuis. G Courbet.’

Only one vaguely similar oil portrait, is noted in the catalogue by Marie Therese de Forges as #39 portrait D’Hippolyte (illustrated) and held in the Rijkesmuseum and another Auto portrait 1852 Held at the Musée de Besançon.

    

As to the sitter, our sculptor Dupuis, in the purported Courbet oil portrait, the only one we could source was a medal designer?

The portrait painting itself is so dissimilar to the actual hand of Courbet as to cause some amusement and no consternation amongst the Courbet experts of the world who dismissed it as a fake.

Interestingly this work turned up at auction in Canada not so long ago listed in the catalogue as by Courbet !!!!!
 

 

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Our Top Ten Fakes                             The top 10 most faked art we see.

 

Number 1- Pablo Ruiz Y Picasso. Prints, Paintings and Drawings

Number 2 - Salvador Dali

Number 3 - Marc Chagall / Joan Mirò

Number 4 - Autographs and celebrity photos

Number 5 - Eastern European Icons

Number 6 - Poussin or other Old Masters

Number 7- Edgar Degas - Vincent Van Gogh & Thomas Gainsborough

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Number 8 - Barbizon School - Corot and Dutch Paintings
Number 9 - Courbet and John Constable

Number 10 - Miniatures , miniature portraits, hand coloured prints and Maps

 

 
     

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INSURANCE FRAUD

'Madchen am Meer'

Erich Heckel Fake 1883-1970 - German.

Coorect Catalogue listing of his original: Madchen am Meer - [from:Elf 

Holzschnitte 1912-1919] - Woodcut - 1918 -

Edition 40 - DW314.B - 610 x 480mm -

23·13/16 x 18·3/4in - Signed in pencil -

The original on wove paper- Dated in pencil - Printer's Signature.

 

The Heckel Fraud.

 

Genuine original prints and legitimate works of art by the German Expressionist Erich Heckel, are highty prized and sought after by collectors internationally

 

This particular very rare art print by German artist Erich Heckel certainly had some 'provenance' and was therefore traceable back to the auction from which it was originally purchased.


This serious oversight was to be bad news for the owner! 


At the original auction where it was bought by its owner who was the claimant in an insurance claim folowing its reported theft, it was actually catalogued and sold by the auctioneer 'without' a date or a signature at that time.
Simply as a reproduction print and bought for under $100.00

 

When a claim was made to our client (the insurers), after its purported 'theft' along with two other works of art, the Erich Hekel print he had bought from the auction some years earlier had magically developed both a signature and a date for the claim form. Increasing the repro value from $100.00 to a figure of around $20,000.00

 

 

 
 

 

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Fake Ceramics, Porcelain and Pottery.

 

'LIMOGES?'  Or decorative only!

   Limoges Porcelain Egg

Faux limoges

A legitimate finely crafted hand decorated Limoges porcelain egg (centre) and (right) its fake or 'faux' LIMOGES friend. Much less well crafted and decorated and a rather poor counterpart overall.

Buy them as decorative only and not as legitimate pieces.

 

 

Decorative as it may be, beware the Far Eastern made  fake or faux 'Limoges.'

These marks above are a sure fire indicator that the piece it wasn't made anywhere near France.

All genuine Limoges boxes made in France are signed “Limoges-France".

If it isn't signed, or just signed "Limoges" or " Limoges - China" you can be pretty sure it's a fake or at least repro! 

It depends on how it was sold to you!!!!

 

Fake SATSUMA

Fake MOORCROFT

To follow

 

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