Known forgeries. We expose! Literary hoaxes and forgeries

Art counterfeiting is a highly developed industry today, with billions of dollars in circulation every year. The potential profit is high, and many fakes remain undetected. But history also knows such falsifiers who worked “on a grand scale” and became world famous personalities. They will be discussed in our review.

1. Elmir de Hory

Elmir de Hory is an artist of Hungarian origin who became famous as one of the most famous art forgers. His works are still exhibited in many museums, and curators believe that these paintings were created by great masters. In 1947, the artist moved from Hungary to New York, where he found a very good income. His own paintings were never successful, while his detailed copies of other artists' paintings sold almost immediately.

De Hori began to pass off his copies as original paintings and this continued until 1967, when a huge scandal erupted in the art world. It took so long for the fakes to be noticed because De Hory paid close attention to the smallest details. During his career, he sold thousands of fakes.

2. Eli Sakhai

Eli Sakhai's career as an art forger shed light on the worst aspect of the art world: many knew there was something wrong with the "original" paintings, but no one wanted to report the problem. Paintings by fairly well-known artists are often resold without verifying their authenticity. This is what the unscrupulous art dealer Sakhai used, who bought the original paintings, then ordered copies of them (it is still unknown who made the fakes) and sold them as originals. Moreover, he often sold the same painting (naturally, different copies) to different clients.

3. Otto Wacker

Today, Vincent van Gogh's work is regularly sold at auction for millions of dollars, and Van Gogh himself has been recognized as one of the world's greatest artists. In fact, his paintings were so valuable that a German named Otto Wacker was able to stage a major Van Gogh scam in 1927.

When Wacker claimed he had 33 van Goghs, dealers lined up. Over the next five years, a number of experts, curators and dealers studied these paintings, and Wacker was convicted of forgery only in 1932. It took so long to analyze because Wacker used the latest developments in chemistry to create fakes. 6 paintings were at all recognized as originals.

4. Pei-Shen Qian

Pei-Shen Qian arrived in America in 1981. For most of the decade, he was an obscure artist who sold his paintings in Manhattan. His career began innocently enough: in his homeland, in China, he painted portraits of Chairman Mao. That all changed in the late 1980s, when Spanish art dealers José Carlos Bergantiños Diaz and his brother Jesus Angel failed to notice the rare detail in Pei-Shen Qian's paintings. After that, they began to order copies of famous paintings from him, and Jose Carlos bought only old canvases and old paint at flea markets, and also artificially aged the paintings with tea bags. In the 1990s, the scheme was uncovered, the Bergantiños Diaz brothers were convicted, and Pei-Shen Qian fled to China with millions of dollars.

5. John Myatt

Like many other forgers, John Myatt was a talented artist who could not sell his own paintings. In the 1980s, Myatte's wife left him, and he was left with two children. To contain them, the artist decided to start painting fakes. Moreover, he did it in a very original way - Myatt gave an advertisement in the newspaper about the creation of "genuine fake paintings of the 19th-20th centuries for £ 250." These forgeries were so good that they caught the attention of John Drewe, an art dealer who became Myatt's partner. Myatte ended up selling more than 200 paintings over the next seven years, some for more than $150,000. Later, Dreve's ex-girlfriend accidentally let it slip and Myatte was convicted. After Myatt was released from prison, he began a new career at Scotland Yard, where he taught how to spot counterfeits.

6. Wolfgang Beltracchi

Wolfgang Beltracchi lived in a $7 million villa in Freiburg, Germany, near the Black Forest. While the house was being built, he lived with his wife in the penthouse of a luxury hotel. Beltracchi could afford this lifestyle, as he was, according to experts, the most successful art forger in history. For most of his life, Beltracchi was a hippie who traveled between Amsterdam and Morocco and smuggled drugs.

His ability to copy the paintings of famous masters appeared quite early: somehow he shocked his mother by drawing a copy of a Picasso painting in one day. Wolfgang was self-taught, which is especially remarkable given his ability to imitate many styles. He skillfully copied the old masters, surrealists, modernists, and artists of any school. The most prestigious auction houses in the world, such as Sotheby's and Christie's, sold his work for six-figure sums. One of his paintings, a Max Ernst forgery, was sold for $7 million in 2006. Only 14 of his paintings were mentioned in the indictment, for which Wolfgang fetched a staggering $22 million.

In 2001, Kenneth Walton, Scott Beach, and Kenneth Fetterman created 40 fake eBay accounts and worked together to inflate the prices of the art they auctioned. They did it with over 1,100 lots and earned over $450,000. Greed ruined them - scammers sold a fake Diebenkorn painting for more than $100,000.

8. Spanish painting forger

Unlike the other scammers on this list, the Spanish forger was never caught. Nothing is known about him - neither his personality, nor his motives, nor even his ethnicity. No one knows how long he worked or how many fakes he made. In 1930, the work of a Spanish forger was first discovered when Count Umberto Gnoli offered to sell a painting titled "The Betrothal of Saint Ursula" to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for £30,000. Believing that the painting was created in 1450 by maestro Jorge Inglés, Gnoli gave it for examination. Because Ingles was a Spanish artist, the person who painted the forgery was called a "Spanish forger". By 1978, William Vauclay, associate curator at the Morgan Library, had collected 150 forgeries attributed to the Spanish forger. It is generally accepted that he did most of his work at the turn of the 20th century.

9 Fake Portrait Of Mary Todd Lincoln

For years, an iconic portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln hung in the governor's house in Springfield, Illinois. It was allegedly written in 1864 by Francis Carpenter as a gift from Mary Todd to her husband Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's descendants discovered this painting in 1929, purchased it for several thousand dollars, and donated it to the governor's mansion in 1976. She hung there for 32 years until she was sent for cleaning. It was then that the painting was discovered to be a fake. As a result, it was established that the portrait was painted by the swindler Lew Bloom.

The Medum Geese is one of the most iconic paintings in Egypt and has been dubbed the "Egyptian Gioconda". Discovered in the tomb of Pharaoh Nefermaat, the frieze painting was allegedly painted between 2610 and 2590 BC. The Medum Geese was considered one of the greatest works of art of that era due to its high quality and level of detail. Unfortunately, experts have recently suggested that this could be a hoax.

Researcher Francesco Tiradritti, who is also the director of the Italian archaeological mission in Egypt, said after a detailed study of the artifact that there is irrefutable evidence that the painting is fake. He believes that "Geese" was written in 1871 by Luigi Vassalli (who first allegedly discovered this frieze).

Can you tell the fake from the original? Hundreds of various images and photographs have flooded all social networks and it is not always easy to figure out what is true and what is false.
Air France Flight 447

It was rumored that this was a photo from the crash of Air France flight 447. In reality, as it turned out, this is a frame from the well-known television series Lost.
Tsunami in the Indian Ocean


This is one of the many photos that have been circulating online since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In fact, this is the city of Antofagasta in Chile, and the waves are taken from a completely different photo.
Children at computers


This photo appeared on the Internet immediately after the terrible flood in the Philippines in 2012. Quite a few people noticed the fake, seeing that the children and their reflections in the water do not match.
Tourist on the tower during the 9/11 attacks


This photograph is perhaps one of the most famous hoaxes. For a long time, people firmly believed that this picture was taken from a camera located almost at the very epicenter of the explosions. Later it became clear that it was photoshop.
shark vs helicopter


For most people, the presence of the “hand” of a Photoshop master is quite obvious, but many could not come to terms with this fact for a long time.
Fairy from Derbyshire


Conceived as an April Fool's joke, a photo of a fake fairy taken by Dan Baines from Derbyshire made a lot of noise. After Bason was forced to admit that the photo was a fake, there were some kind of defenders of fairies who condemned him for revealing to people the unromantic "truth".
Reading upside down


As mockingly funny as this photoshop is, it's just photoshop.
Sharks in Kuwait


No, and no, there were no sharks in Kuwait. This is a "slightly" edited photo of one of the subway stations in Toronto.
View of Earth, Mercury and Venus from Mars


This photo was generated by one of the special astronomical computer programs.
rainbow owl


This most common, as it turned out, owl has already been dubbed the rarest species. And this miracle of nature is found, according to legend, only in the forests of China and the States.
Oil platform, tornado and lightning


The oil platform is pure photoshop, while the part of the photo with the tornado and lightning is quite real. This part of the photo was taken by Fred Smith on June 15, 1991 in Florida.
Irish island castle


This photo is one of those in which interest rises and falls from time to time. This is actually a photograph of a German castle combined with a photograph of a rocky island in Thailand.
baby foot


In order to see such outlines of the legs, the baby must have at least the strength of Hercules.
Mystic Tree


According to legend, this is one of the most mystical trees on earth. But in reality, this is an artificial Tree of Life in Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida.
Fennec hare


One of the April Fool's joke photos of a transformed kitten.
polar bear cub


As real as this teddy bear toy looks, it's just a plush toy that you can buy online.
blue watermelon


Many claimed that the photo shows a piece of the rarest blue watermelon from Japan. We may disappoint you, but there are no blue watermelons in nature.
John Lennon playing guitar with Che Guevara


Would you believe that one day Lennon sat down and played guitar with a famous revolutionary and Marxist (as well as a trendy T-shirt print)? There has never really been anything like it.
This picture is an ordinary photoshop, with the help of which the face of Che Guevara was "imposed" on the head of guitarist Wayne "Tex" Gabriel.


Marilyn Monroe and John F Kennedy hugging


And this is also a fake, created by Alison Jackson, known for his photographs using celebrity look-alikes.
In the actual photograph on the right, taken on May 19, 1962, Monroe and Kennedy attend a Democratic fundraiser in New York City. And the pictures where the couple hugs or shows other signs of falling in love, in fact, never happened.
People in smog-shrouded Beijing admire an artificial sunset


Even a real photo can lie due to lack of information. This image from the Getty photo stock, which was distributed by the Daily Mail, depicts the gloomy life of Beijing, where even the Sun can only be seen through a digital monitor screen. The smog in Beijing is truly terrible. But photography is misleading.
In fact, the picture shows a promotional video for Chinese tourism for Shandong province, which was played on giant screens in Tiananmen Square. The sun appears in the video for a few seconds and is part of the advertisement. This advertisement is played in Beijing year-round, regardless of the density of smog.
Photo from a Soviet psychiatric clinic in 1952


The picture on the left is not some kind of paranormal activity that took place in a Soviet-era mental hospital. This is a dance show by Pina Bausch called Bluebeard. And the screenshot on the right is another shot of the performance, taken in 1977.
American Horror Story borrowed this quirky look for Season 3.
Photo of John F. Kennedy and his daughter Caroline


A historical photography website recently published a picture (left) of John F. Kennedy and his daughter Caroline wearing masks. With the help of Photoshop, the president's face and Caroline's mask were swapped for some reason.
Children sent by mail


Are people really capable of sticking stamps on their children and sending them by parcel to another city? It wasn't quite right.
In fact, in the early 1910s there were cases of so-called "mailing lists" of children, but with only two important caveats. Firstly, the pictures are not evidence that the children were sent by mail - these funny photos were created solely for the sake of laughter. Secondly, the "mailing list" of children is not at all what many people mean by this.
For example, 6-year-old Maya Pierstoff was "sent" on February 19, 1914 from Grangeville, Idaho to her grandparents for 73 kilometers. However, she was under the care of a relative who worked for the railway company. In fact, it was cheaper to send the girl in a "package" than to buy her a ticket.
In 2009, Ekaterina Steinberg gave her explanations on this matter: “Obviously, many were amazed and even frightened by these photographs. I met with Nancy Pope, a historian at the National Postal Museum. She explained that the pictures were actually staged. And there was very little evidence that the children were sent by mail. Only two cases are known in which children were sent as “cargo” in a train car due to the high cost of tickets.”
Syrian child sleeping near the graves of his parents


The photo on the left went around the world under the heading "An orphan from Syria sleeping between the graves of his parents."
This heartbreaking photo was part of an art project by a Saudi Arabian photographer. The author of the picture, Abdul Aziz al-Oteibi, simply wanted to show the boundless love of the child for his parents. This photo has nothing to do with the current humanitarian crisis in Syria.
Ella Fitzgerald was denied a concert at the Mocambo nightclub because she was black


In 1954, American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald faced racial discrimination in West Hollywood. However, Marilyn Monroe said that she had reserved a table to watch the singer's performance and the issue was settled.
This story is partly true: Monroe actually helped Ella Fitzgerald get to a concert in 1954. But skin color had nothing to do with it (the club was visited by many black performers). The manager of the Mocambo Club, Charlie Morrison, considered the singer "not glamorous enough." And Monroe was a fan of Fitzgerald and helped the manager change his mind.
The man who made the death masks of World War I soldiers


These masks, hanging on the wall, were actually intended for World War I veterans whose faces were disfigured during the battles. They gave the soldiers a little self-confidence. Francis Derwent Wood opened a clinic that created special masks for soldiers who had returned from the war and were maimed by plastic surgery. The effect of such a mask was similar to the effect created by plastic surgeons. “A person had a sense of dignity and self-confidence, he again began to be proud of his appearance,” Wood said.
Carved Buddha statue at Nguyen Khang Takxang Monastery


The photo on the left was taken in Photoshop by an art team called Reality Cues as part of the Graffiti Lab project. But the photo on the right shows the Wulingyuan Scenic Area in the Chinese province of Hunan.
The first mobile phone, filmed in 1922


In the old archives of the Pathé film studio, a film was found, filmed in 1922 under the name "Eva's Cordless Telephone". The video was shown even by the most respected media and became alleged evidence of the existence of the first mobile phone in those days. In fact, it was just a portable radio.
In the early 1920s, the term "cordless telephone" referred to radio technology. Then the radio was just gaining momentum and making the transition to commercial broadcasting. There is no evidence in the video that the device can be used to call anywhere. Women just walk and listen to the radio.
Photograph of the Fairy Basin taken on the Isle of Skye in Scotland


It so happened that this photo was taken in New Zealand near the Queenstown River, and all the trees were painted purple using Photoshop. However, even the original photo is striking in its beauty.

The history of world literature, knowing about the falsification of many of its monuments, tries to forget about it. There is hardly at least one researcher who would argue that the classics of Greece and Rome that have come down to us are not mutilated by scribes.

Erasmus bitterly complained as early as the 16th century that there was not a single text of the "fathers of the church" (i.e., the first four centuries of Christianity) that could be unconditionally recognized as authentic. The fate of literary monuments is perhaps just as unenviable. At the very end of the 17th century, the learned Jesuit Arduin argued that only Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, Pliny, Horace's "Satires" and Virgil's "Georgics" belong to the ancient world. As for the rest of the works of antiquity ... they were all created in the XIII century AD.

It is enough to raise this question about the authenticity of the manuscripts of the classics in order to recognize the complete impossibility of establishing where in the past the “genuine” classic ends and the falsified one begins. In essence, the true Sophocles and Titus Livius are unknown... The most subtle and strict criticism of the texts is powerless to detect later distortions of the classics. The traces that would lead to the original texts are cut off.

It is also worth adding that historians are extremely reluctant to part even with works whose apocryphal nature has been proven by themselves. They number them according to the category of the so-called pseudo-epigraphic literature (pseudo-Clement, pseudo-Justus, etc.) and do not hesitate to use them. This position is absolutely understandable and is only a logical development of the general attitude towards “ancient” monuments: there are so few of them that it is a pity to exclude even the dubious ones from circulation.

No sooner had the first printing press been made in Italy in 1465 than a few years later the history of literature registered a forgery of Latin authors.

In 1519, the French scholar de Boulogne forged two books by V. Flaccus, and in 1583 one of the remarkable humanist scholars Sigonius published passages from Cicero unknown to him before. This simulation was done with such skill that it was discovered only two centuries later, and even then by chance: a letter was found by Sigonius, in which he confessed to falsification.

In the same century, one of the first German humanists who introduced Germany to the Roman classics, Prolucius wrote the seventh book of Ovid's Calendar Mythology. This hoax was partly caused by a scholarly dispute about how many books this work of Ovid was divided into; despite indications on behalf of the author that he had six books, some Renaissance scholars, based on compositional features, insisted that there should be twelve books.

At the end of the 16th century, the question of the spread of Christianity in Spain was little covered. To fill the unfortunate gap, the Spanish monk Higera, after a great and difficult work, wrote a chronicle on behalf of the never-existing Roman historian Flavius ​​Dexter.

In the 18th century, the Dutch scholar Hirkens published a tragedy under the name of Lucius Varus, supposedly a tragic poet of the Augustan era. Quite by accident, it was possible to establish that the Venetian Corrario published it in the 16th century on his own behalf, without trying to mislead anyone.

In 1800, the Spaniard Marhena amused himself by writing pornographic discourses in Latin. Of these, he fabricated a whole story and connected it with the text of the XXII chapter of Petroniev's Satyricon. It is impossible to tell where Petronius ends and Markhena begins. He published his passage with the Petronian text, indicating in the preface the imaginary place of the find.

This is not the only forgery of Petronius' satires. A century before Marchen, the French officer Nodo published the “complete” Satyricon, supposedly “based on a thousand-year-old manuscript that he bought during the siege of Belgrade from a Greek,” but no one has seen either this or the older manuscripts of Petronius.

Catullus was also reprinted, forged in the 18th century by the Venetian poet Corradino, who allegedly found a copy of Catullus in Rome.

The 19th-century German student Wagenfeld allegedly translated from Greek into German the history of Phoenicia, written by the Phoenician historian Sanchoniaton and translated into Greek language Philo of Byblos. The find made a huge impression, one of the professors gave a preface to the book, after which it was published, and when Wagenfeld was asked for a Greek manuscript, he refused to submit it.

In 1498, in Rome, Eusebius Silber published on behalf of Berosus, "a Babylonian priest who lived 250 years before the birth of Christ", but "who wrote in Greek", an essay in Latin "Five books of antiquities with comments by John Anni". The book withstood several editions, and then turned out to be a fake of the Dominican monk Giovanni Nanni from Viterboro. However, despite this, the legend of the existence of Beroz did not disappear, and in 1825 Richter in Leipzig published the book “The Chaldean stories of Beroz that have come down to us”, allegedly compiled from “mentions” to Beroz in the works of other authors. It is surprising that, for example, Acad. Turaev has no doubts about the existence of Beroz and believes that his work "for us in high degree valuable."

In the twenties of our century, the German Sheinis sold several fragments from classical texts to the Leipzig Library. Among the others was a page from the writings of Plautus, written in purple ink, the curators of the Cabinet of Manuscripts of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, quite sure of the authenticity of their purchase, praised it: “The beautiful handwriting bears all the features characteristic of a very old period. It can be seen that this is a fragment of a luxurious book; the use of purple ink indicates that the book was in the library of a wealthy Roman, perhaps in the imperial library. We are sure that our fragment is part of a book created in Rome itself.” However, two years later, a scandalous exposure of all the manuscripts submitted by Sheinis followed.

Scientists of the Renaissance (and later times) were not content with the “finds” of manuscripts of writers already known to them, they informed each other about the “discoveries” by them and new, hitherto unknown authors, as Murea did in the 16th century, who sent Scaliger his own poems under the name of the forgotten Latin poets Attius and Trobeus. Even the historian J. Balzac created a fictional Latin poet. He included in an edition of Latin poems published in 1665 one that praised Nero and allegedly found by him on half-decayed parchment and attributed to an unknown contemporary of Nero. This poem was even included in the anthologies of Latin poets until a fake was discovered.

In 1729, Montesquieu published a French translation of a Greek poem in the style of Sappho, stating in the preface that these seven songs were written by an unknown poet, who lived after Sappho, and found by him in the library of a Greek bishop. Montesquieu later confessed to the hoax.

In 1826, the Italian poet Leopardi forged two Greek odes in the style of Anacreon, written by hitherto unknown poets. He also published his second forgery - a translation of the Latin retelling of the Greek chronicle dedicated to the history of the Church Fathers and the description of Mount Sinai.

The famous forgery of the ancient classics is the hoax of Pierre Louis, who invented the poetess Bilitis. He published her songs in the Mercure de France, and in 1894 he released them as a separate edition. In the preface, Louis outlined the circumstances of his "discovery" of the songs of an unknown Greek poetess of the 6th century BC. and reported that a certain Dr. Heim even sought out her grave. Two German scientists - Ernst and Willowitz-Mullendorf - immediately devoted articles to the newly discovered poetess, and her name was included in the "Dictionary of Writers" by Lolier and Zhidel. In the next edition of the Songs, Louis placed her portrait, for which the sculptor Laurent copied one of the terracottas of the Louvre. The success was huge. Back in 1908, not everyone was aware of the hoax, since that year he received a letter from an Athenian professor asking him to indicate where the original songs of Bilitis were kept.

Let us note that almost all the exposed hoaxes of this kind belong to the new time. This is understandable, because it is almost impossible to catch the hand of a Renaissance humanist who invented a new author. By all accounts, therefore, it must be expected that at least some of the "ancient" authors were invented by humanists.

Fakes of the new time

Closer to modern times, not only ancient authors were inventing. One of the most famous falsifications of this kind are the Ossian poems composed by MacPherson (1736-1796) and the poems of Rowley Chatterton, although these forgeries were rather quickly exposed, their artistic merit ensures their prominent place in the history of literature.

Forgeries of Lafontaine, letters of Byron, Shelley, Keats, novels by W. Scott, F. Cooper and plays by Shakespeare are known.

A special group among the forgeries of modern times are writings (mostly letters and memoirs) attributed to some celebrity. There are several dozen of them (only the most famous ones).

In the 19th century, fakes "antique" continued, but, as a rule, they were not associated with antiquity. So, at the end of the 19th century, a manuscript “found” by the Jerusalem merchant Shapiro allegedly of the 1st millennium, which tells about the wandering of the Jews in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt, caused a sensation.

In 1817, the philologist Vaclav Ganka (1791-1861) allegedly found parchment in the church of the small town of Kralev Dvor on the Elbe, on which epic poems and lyrical songs of the 13th-14th centuries were written in ancient letters. Subsequently, he "discovered" many other texts, for example, an old translation of the Gospel. In 1819 he became the curator of the literary collections, and from 1823 he was the librarian of the National Czech Museum in Prague. There was not a single manuscript left in the library that Ganka did not put his hand to. He changed the text, inserted words, pasted sheets, crossed out paragraphs. He came up with a whole "school" of ancient artists, whose names he entered into the original old manuscripts that fell into his hands. The exposure of this incredible falsification was accompanied by a deafening scandal.

The famous Winckelmann, the founder of modern archeology, became the victim of a hoax by the artist Casanova (brother of a famous adventurer), who illustrated his book "Ancient Monuments" (and Winckelmann was an archaeologist - a professional!).

Casanova supplied Winckelmann with three "ancient" paintings, which, he assured, were taken directly from the walls in Pompeii. Two paintings (with dancers) were made by Casanova himself, and the painting, which depicted Jupiter and Ganymede, was made by the painter Raphael Menges. For persuasiveness, Kazakova composed an absolutely incredible romantic story about a certain officer who supposedly stole these paintings from the excavations secretly at night. Winckelmann believed not only in the authenticity of the "relics", but also in all of Casanova's fables and described these paintings in his book, noting that "Jupiter's favorite is undoubtedly one of the most striking figures that we have inherited from the art of antiquity ...".

Kazakova's falsification has the character of mischief, caused by the desire to play a trick on Winckelmann.

The well-known mystification of Merimee, who, being carried away by the Slavs, has a similar character, he planned to go to the East in order to describe them. But this required money. “And I thought,” he himself admits, “first to describe our journey, sell the book, and then spend the fee to check how right I am in my description.” And so, in 1827, he released a collection of songs called "Gusli" under the guise of translations from the Balkan languages. The book was a great success, in particular, Pushkin in 1835 made a pseudo-reverse translation of the book into Russian, turning out to be more gullible than Goethe, who immediately felt the hoax. Mérimée prefaced the second edition with an ironic preface, mentioning those whom he managed to fool. Pushkin later wrote: "The poet Mickiewicz, a sharp-sighted and subtle connoisseur of Slavic poetry, did not doubt the authenticity of these songs, and some German wrote a lengthy dissertation about them." In the latter, Pushkin is absolutely right: these ballads had the greatest success with specialists who had no doubts about their authenticity.

Other falsifications

Examples of fakes, hoaxes, apocrypha, etc. etc. can be multiplied indefinitely. We have only mentioned the most famous ones. Let's look at a few more disparate examples.

In the history of the development of Kabbalah, the book "Zohar" ("Radiance"), attributed to Tanai Simon ben Yochai, whose life is shrouded in a thick fog of legend, is well known. M.S. Belenky writes: “However, it has been established that the mystic Moses de Leon (1250-1305) was its author. About him, the historian Gren said: “One can only doubt whether he was a mercenary or a pious deceiver ...” Moses de Leon wrote several works of a Kabbalistic nature, but they did not bring either fame or money. Then the unlucky writer came up with the right means for wide disclosure of hearts and wallets. He set about writing under a false but authoritative name. The cunning forger passed off his Zohar as the work of Simon ben Jochai... The forgery of Moses de Leon was successful and made a strong impression on the believers. The Zohar has been deified for centuries by the defenders of mysticism as a heavenly revelation.

One of the most famous Hebraists of modern times is L. Goldschmidt, who spent more than twenty years on the critical edition of the first complete translation into German of the Babylonian Talmud. In 1896 (when he was 25 years old) Goldschmidt published an allegedly newly discovered Talmudic work in Aramaic, The Book of Peace. However, almost immediately it was proved that this book is a translation of Goldschmidt's Ethiopian work "Hexameron" pseudo-Epiphanius.

Voltaire found a manuscript commenting on the Vedas in the Paris National Library. He had no doubt that the manuscript was written by the Brahmins before Alexander the Great went to India. The authority of Voltaire helped to publish in 1778 a French translation of this work. However, it soon became clear that Voltaire fell victim to a hoax.

In India, in the library of missionaries, forged commentaries of the same religious and political nature were found on other parts of the Vedas, also attributed to the Brahmins. By a similar forgery, the English Sanskritologist Joyce was misled, who translated the verses he discovered from the Purana, outlining the story of Noah and written by some Hindu in the form of an old Sanskrit manuscript.

A great sensation was caused at the time by the discovery of the Italian antiquary Curzio. In 1637, he published Fragments of Etruscan Antiquity, allegedly based on manuscripts he found buried in the ground. The forgery was quickly exposed: Curzio himself buried the parchment he had written to give it an old look.

In 1762, the chaplain of the Order of Malta Vella, accompanying the Arab ambassador to Palermo, decided to "help" the historians of Sicily find materials to cover its Arab period. After the ambassador's departure, Vella spread the rumor that this diplomat had given him an ancient Arabic manuscript containing correspondence between the Arabian authorities and the Arab governors of Sicily. In 1789 an Italian "translation" of this manuscript was published.

Three Indias. In 1165, a Letter from Prester John to Emperor Emmanuel Comnenus appeared in Europe (according to Gumilyov, this happened in 1145). The letter was allegedly written in Arabic and then translated into Latin. The letter made such an impression that in 1177 Pope Alexander III sent his envoy to the presbyter, who was lost somewhere in the vastness of the east. The letter described the kingdom of Nestorian Christians somewhere in India, its miracles and untold riches. During the second crusade, serious hopes were placed on the military assistance of this kingdom of Christians; no one thought to doubt the existence of such a powerful ally.
Soon the letter was forgotten, several times they returned to the search for a magical kingdom (In the 15th century, they were looking for it in Ethiopia, then in China). So it was only in the 19th century that scientists came up with the idea to deal with this fake.
However, to understand that this is a fake - it is not necessary to be a specialist. The letter is full of details typical of European medieval fantasy. Here is a list of animals found in the Three Indies:
“Elephants, dromedaries, camels, Meta collinarum (?), Cametennus (?), Tinserete (?), panthers, forest donkeys, white and red lions, polar bears, white whiting (?), cicadas, eagle griffins, ... horned people , one-eyed, people with eyes in front and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, giants, cyclops, a phoenix bird and almost all breeds of animals living on earth ... "
(cited by Gumilyov, “In Search of a Fictional Kingdom)

Modern content analysis has shown that the letter was composed in the second quarter of the 12th century in Languedoc or Northern Italy.

Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a collection of texts that appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and became widely distributed in the world, presented by publishers as documents of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Some of them claimed that these were the protocols of the reports of the participants of the Zionist congress held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. The texts outlined plans for the conquest of world domination by the Jews, penetration into the structures of state government, taking non-Jews under control, eradication of other religions. Although it has long been proven that the Protocols are anti-Semitic hoaxes, there are still many supporters of their authenticity. This point of view is especially widespread in the Islamic world. In some countries, the study of the "Protocols" is even included in the school curriculum.

The document that split the church.

For 600 years, the leaders of the Roman Church used the Donation of Constantine (Constitutum Constantinini) to maintain their authority as stewards of Christendom.

Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor (306-337) to convert to Christianity. He was said to have donated half of his empire in 315 CE. e. in gratitude for gaining a new faith and miraculous healing from leprosy. The deed of gift - a document in which the fact of donation was evidenced - gave the Roman diocese spiritual authority over all churches and temporary authority over Rome, all of Italy and the West. Those who try to prevent this, it is written in the Donation, "will burn in hell and perish with the devil and all the wicked."

The donation, 3000 words long, first appeared in the 9th century and became a powerful weapon in the dispute between the Eastern and Western churches. The dispute culminated in the split of the church in 1054 into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Church.

Ten popes quoted the document, and its authenticity was not in doubt until the 15th century, when Nicola of Cuza (1401-1464), the greatest theologian of his time, pointed out that the Bishop of Eusebia, a contemporary and biographer of Constantine, does not even mention this gift .

The document is now virtually universally recognized as a forgery, most likely fabricated by Rome around 760. Moreover, the falsification was not well thought out. For example, the document gives the Roman diocese power over Constantinople - a city that as such did not yet exist!

It is not surprising that the French philosopher Voltaire called it "the most shameless and amazing falsification that has dominated the world for many centuries."

The hoaxer and prankster Leo Taxil

In 1895, Taxil's essay "The Secrets of Gehenna, or Miss Diana Vaughan*, her exposure of Freemasonry, the cult and the manifestations of the devil" caused a particularly great stir. Taxil, under the fictitious name of Germanus, reported that Diana Vaughan, the daughter of the supreme devil Bitra, was engaged for ten years to the commander of 14 demonic regiments, voluptuous Asmodeus, made a honeymoon trip to Mars with him. Dr. Hux soon demonstrated Diana Vaughan to a large clerical audience.

Having repented of her "delusion" and returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church, the "wife of the devil" Wogan corresponded with major church leaders, received letters from Cardinal Parocha, who gave her the blessing of the pope.

On September 25, 1896, in the Italian city of Triente, on the initiative of Taxil, an international congress of the anti-Masonic union, created by Leo XIII, was held. There were 36 bishops and 61 journalists at the congress. The portrait of Taxil hung on the podium among the images of the saints. Diana Vaughan spoke at the convention as living proof of Masonic Lucifernism.

However, articles have already appeared in the press ridiculing the "wife of the devil." In July 1896, Margiotti broke off relations with his comrades, threatening to expose them.

A few months later, an article by Hux, who turned out to be the author of the anti-religious essay The Gesture, appeared in German and French newspapers, in which it was reported that "all exposures of Freemasonry were pure blackmail." “When the papal message came out against the Freemasons as allies of the devil,” Hux wrote, “I thought it would help extort money from the gullible. I consulted with Leo Taxil and a few friends, and together we conceived the Devil of the 19th century.

“When I invented incredible stories, for example, about the devil, who in the morning turned into a young lady who dreamed of marrying a freemason, and in the evening turned into a crocodile playing the piano, my employees, laughing to tears, said: “You are going too far! You'll blow the whole joke!" I answered them: “It will do!”. And it really did." Hux ended the article by declaring that he was now ceasing all myth-making about Satan and Freemasons, and with the proceeds from the spread of anti-Masonic fables, he was opening a restaurant in Paris where he would feed sausages and sausages as plentifully as he fed the gullible public with his fairy tales.

A few days later, Margiotti appeared in print and announced that his entire book, The Cult of Satan, was part of a hoax conceived by Taxil. On April 14, 1897, in the huge hall of the Paris Geographical Society, Taxil told that his anti-Masonic writings are the greatest hoax of modern times, which aimed to ridicule the gullible clergy. "The Devil's Wife" Diana Vaughan turned out to be Taxil's secretary.

The scandal was huge. Pope Leo XIII anathematized Taxil. In the same 1897, Taxil published a satire on the Old Testament - "The Funny Bible" (Russian translation: M., 1962), and soon its continuation - "The Funny Gospel" (Russian translation: M., 1963).

Reasons for fraud

The reasons for falsifications are as diverse as life itself.

Little is documented about the urge to forge in the Middle Ages. Therefore, we are forced to analyze this issue on the basis of the materials of modern times. However, there is no reason why the general conclusions drawn from this material are not applicable to more distant times.

1. An extensive class of fakes is made up of purely literary hoaxes and stylizations. As a rule, if a hoax was successful, its authors would quickly and proudly reveal their deception (the Mérimée hoax, as well as the Luis hoax, is a prime example).

The passages from Cicero apparently falsified by Sigonius belong to the same class.

If such a hoax is done skillfully, and for some reason the author has not confessed to it, it is very difficult to reveal it.

It is terrible to think how many such hoaxes were made during the Renaissance (on a bet, for fun, to test one's abilities, etc.), which were subsequently taken seriously. However, one might think that such "ancient" writings belonged only to "small-format" genres (poems, passages, letters, etc.).

2. Close to them are falsifications in which a young author tries to establish his "I" or test his strength in a genre that guarantees him protection in case of failure. To this class clearly belong, say, the forgeries of McPherson and Chatterton (in the latter case, a rare pathology of complete identification with adored ancient authors manifested itself). In response to the theater's inattention to his plays, Colonne responded with a forgery of Molière, and so on.

It should be noted that, as a rule, the most famous falsifiers of this type were not distinguished by anything special in the future. Ireland, who forged Shakespeare, became a mediocre writer.

3. Even more malicious are the falsifications made by a young philologist in order to quickly become famous (for example, Wagenfeld). More mature men of science falsified in order to prove this or that position (Prolucius) or to fill gaps in our knowledge (Higera).

4. "Filling" falsifications also include biographies of fantastic personalities like "Saint Veronica", etc.

5. Many falsifiers were motivated (in combination with other motives) by considerations of a political or ideological nature (Gank).

6. The monastic falsifications of the “fathers of the church”, the decrees of the popes, etc., must be considered a special case of the latest falsifications.

7. Very often a book was apocryphal in antiquity because of its accusatory, anti-clerical or free-thinking character, when publishing it under one's own name was fraught with grave consequences.

8. Finally, last but not least is the factor of elementary profit. There are so many examples that it is impossible to list them.

Exposure of falsifications

If the falsification is done skillfully, then its exposure presents enormous difficulties and, as a rule (if the falsifier himself does not confess), it happens purely by chance (an example is Sigonius). Since history tends to forget its falsifications, with the removal of time, it becomes more and more difficult to expose falsifications (an example is Tacitus). Therefore, there is no doubt that a lot of falsifications (especially humanistic ones) still remain unrevealed.

In this regard, information about the circumstances of the finds of certain manuscripts is of particular interest. As we have seen in the case of Tacitus and will see later in the case of many other works "discovered" in the Renaissance, this information is very scarce and contradictory. There are almost no names in it, and only “nameless monks” are reported, who brought “somewhere from the north” priceless manuscripts that had lain “in oblivion” for many centuries. Therefore, it is impossible to judge the authenticity of the manuscripts on its basis. On the contrary, the very inconsistency of this information leads (as in the case of Tacitus) to serious doubts.

It is very strange that, as a rule, there is no information about the circumstances of the finds of manuscripts even in the 19th century! Either unverifiable data is reported about them: “I bought it at the oriental bazaar”, “I found it in the basement of the monastery secretly (!) From the monks”, or they are generally silent. We will return to this more than once, but for now we will only quote the famous scientist Prof. Zelinsky:

“The past year 1891 will long remain memorable in the history of classical philology; he brought us, not to mention minor novelties, two large and precious gifts - Aristotle's book on the Athenian state and everyday scenes of Herodes. To what a happy accident we owe these two finds - this is observed by those who should know, stubborn and significant silence: only the very fact of an accident remains undoubted, and with the establishment of this fact, any need to ask oneself a question is eliminated ... ".

Ah, hey, it wouldn't hurt to ask "those who need to know" where they got these manuscripts from. After all, as examples show, neither high academic titles, nor universally recognized honesty in everyday life guarantee against fakes. However, as Engels noted, there are no people more gullible than scientists.

It should be noted that the above is only very brief an excursion into the history of fakes (besides, only literary ones, but there are also epigraphic, archaeological, anthropological and many, many others - further posts will be devoted to several of them), in which only some of them are presented. In reality, their much more and that's just the famous ones. And how many fakes have not yet been disclosed - no one knows. One thing is certain - many, very many.

As a rule, very talented, but unsuccessful artists, whose independent work, for some reason, is not interesting to anyone, decide to falsify paintings.

Another thing - the ever-living classics of fine art, whose famous names give value to even the most insignificant things. How can you miss this opportunity and not earn money by replicating their limitless talent?

The heroes of this article, who became famous as amazing art falsifiers of the XX-XXI centuries, argued in a similar way.

Han van Meegeren

At the beginning of the twentieth century, this Dutch painter made a fortune on a skillful imitation of the paintings of Pieter de Hooch and Jan Vermeer. In terms of the current rate, van Meegeren earned about thirty million dollars on fakes. His most famous and profitable painting is considered to be "Christ at Emmaus", created after a number of fairly successful canvases in the style of Vermeer.

However, Christ and the Judges has a more interesting story - another "Vermeer" painting, the buyer of which was Hermann Goering himself. However, this fact turned out to be a symbol of recognition and collapse for van Meegeren at the same time. The American military, who studied the property of the Reichsmarschall after his death, quickly identified the seller of such a valuable canvas. The Dutch authorities accused the artist of collaborating and selling the cultural heritage of the nation.

However, van Meegeren immediately admitted to making fakes, for which he received only one year in prison. Unfortunately, one of the most notorious forgers of the twentieth century died of a heart attack a month after the verdict was announced.

Elmir de Hory

This Hungarian artist is one of the most successful masters of art falsification in history. After the end of World War II and until the end of the 1960s, de Hory managed to sell thousands of fake paintings, passing them off as original works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Pierre Renoir. Sometimes de Hory forged not only paintings, but also catalogs, illustrating them with photographs of his fakes.

However, twenty years after starting his career, de Hory was forced to stop making fakes. The fraudulent nature of his activities was exposed with the participation of the American oil tycoon Algour Meadows, who filed a lawsuit against de Hory and his representative Fernand Legros. As a result, de Hory switched to creating his own paintings, which became very popular after his death in 1976.

Interestingly, some supposedly independent works of de Hory, which were sold at auctions for solid money, also aroused suspicion among experts in their true origin.

Tom Keating

English self-taught artist and restorer Thomas Patrick Keating has been selling to art dealers and wealthy collectors for years superb copies of Pieter Brueghel, Jean-Baptiste Chardin, Thomas Gainsborough, Peter Rubens and others. famous masters brushes. During his work, Keating produced over two thousand fakes that spread to many galleries and museums.

Keating was a supporter of socialism, therefore he considered the modern art system "rotten and vicious." Protesting against American avant-garde fashion, greedy merchants and venal critics, Keating intentionally made minor flaws and anachronisms, and also made sure to make the inscription "fake" before applying paint to the canvas.

In the late 1970s, Keating gave an interview to The Times magazine, revealing the truth about his craft. The looming prison term was avoided only for health reasons and the sincere confession of the artist. Subsequently, Tom Keating wrote a book and even participated in the filming of television programs about art.

Wolfgang Beltracchi

One of the most original art forgers is the German artist Wolfgang Beltracchi. The main source of inspiration for him were such avant-garde and expressionists as Max Ernst, André Lot, Kees van Dongen, Heinrich Campendonk and others. At the same time, Wolfgang wrote not only trivial copies, but also created new masterpieces in the style of the aforementioned authors, which were later exhibited at leading auctions.

The most successful forgery of Beltracchi is "The Forest" by Max Ernst. The quality of the work made a huge impression not only on the ex-head of the Georges Pompidou National Center for Arts and Culture, where Ernst's work is the main specialization, but also on the widow of the famous artist. As a result, the picture was sold for almost two and a half million dollars, and a little later it was repurchased for seven million for the collection of the famous French publisher Daniel Filipacci.

During his career, Beltracchi forged, according to various estimates, from fifty to three hundred paintings, in the sale of which his wife Elena and her sister Jeannette helped him. In 2011, they all went on trial together: Beltracchi received six years in prison, his wife - four years, her sister - only a year and a half.

Pei Sheng Qian

Chinese artist Pei-Shen Qian began his career in his homeland with portraits of the sun-faced Mao Zedong. After immigrating to the US in the early 1980s, Qian mainly traded his art on the streets of Manhattan. However, a few years later, Pei-Shen met enterprising art dealers, which changed his life forever.

Two cunning Spaniards, José Carlos Bergantinos Diaz and Jesus Angel, persuaded their Chinese friend to create "previously unknown" paintings by the abstract artist and author most expensive painting in the history of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Using various methods of artificial aging, Qian deftly produced several dozen fake paintings by iconic American artists, which were successfully sold by Spanish art dealers.

Many years later, the deception was uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to competent sources, Qian and his accomplices, using the services of front companies, earned about eighty million dollars from copies of the paintings.

How to distinguish a fake from a masterpiece?

The most interesting thing is that the main protagonist of this scam still managed to escape punishment! While Diaz and Angel were preparing for prison terms, Qian, along with thirty million dollars, safely disappeared into the expanses of his native China, from where, as you know, they don’t give their citizens to the clutches of someone else’s justice.

At the moment, Pei-Shen Qian is well over 70, and he continues to do what he loves.
Subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen