We expose! Literary hoaxes and forgeries. The most famous photo fakes Collection of Balkan songs

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).

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 own 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 from 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. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - 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 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 surname of Germanus, reported that Diana Vaughan, daughter of the supreme devil Bitra, was betrothed to the commander of 14 demonic regiments, voluptuous Asmodeus, for ten years, and 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 returning 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 spoke about the fact 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, and 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.

He returned from Vienna, where the museum of fakes was opened in 2005, I really liked the idea - after all, you need to have a gift to create an ingenious copy of a masterpiece. And today, fakes of great counterfeiters cost fabulous money! .com/index.htm

The most famous falsifiers of painting of all times and peoples.

escaped punishment

This man was born in Budapest in 1906 in a family of aristocrats, but even this cannot be said for sure. He called himself too many names in life: Elmyr de Hory, Elmyr von Hory, Elmir Herzog, Louis Kassu, Dori-Boutin - you can see the false brilliance of a fake diamond in them ... The great forger was in his seventies when he was exposed and ... planted. But de Hory was able to convince the court that he was just an interpreter of the great artists of the twentieth century, a modest admirer of the modernists, whose passion was taken advantage of by bad people. And won. He was released after two months!

Victim of fascists and communists

Elmir de Hory spent his youth in the cheerful city of Paris, where he studied painting with Fernand Leger, but did not show much hope. Only once, in 1926, did he manage to exhibit a couple of his works in galleries. However, no one ever bought them. However, the novice artist was not too upset. In 1932, for family reasons, he returned to his homeland, to Hungary and ... was imprisoned by the local fascist regime, and then completely sent by the Nazis to a concentration camp. All the property of the de Hory family was confiscated first by the Germans, and after the war by the communists. However, fate kept Elmir, and he managed to escape back to Paris. From this moment begins the most exciting chapter of his life.

Lucky case

In Paris, de Hory eked out a miserable existence of a loser: there was no money - no one bought his work. To the poor artist, the future seemed frightening and uncertain. And then fate threw a chance that determined his whole future life. Once a rich Englishwoman wandered into Elmir's studio and bought one of his drawings, mistaking Picasso for work. And I paid $40 for it! And then de Hori accidentally found out that his Picasso was resold to a dealer for three times the price! It was then that the half-educated artist and it dawned on him. He stocked up on a solid pack of pre-war drawing paper and set off on a trip to European capitals. De Hori stayed in the most expensive hotels, led an aristocratic life, and in the morning over a cup of coffee he created fakes with which he paid for staying in apartments. The proceeds were enough for a ticket to America.

Elmir went to the States "to see the world", but stayed for 11 years. All his attempts to sell his own work ended in failure, and de Hory decided not to tempt fate again. He concentrated entirely on making fakes, mainly interpreting Impressionist and Post-Impressionist graphics. In an incomprehensible way, the dexterous artist (the European aristocrat Baron de Hory, as he presented himself) managed to make acquaintances with the cream of high society: oil magnates, industrialists, bankers and movie stars. He sold his "masterpieces" to them.

scammed picasso

De Hori's insolence knew no bounds. He even managed to sell several fake works of the great Spaniard to the official representative of Picasso in New York and make good money on it. Picasso himself was working in Paris at that time and was not even aware of his "double".

Then the hoaxer came up with the idea to offer his work to the largest museums and galleries in America. He simply flooded them with drawings, gouaches, watercolors and small oil paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Derain, Bonnard, Degas, Dufy, Vlaminck, Modigliani, Renoir. And he got away with it all! In two years, American museums and private collections have been enriched with 70 "masterpieces" of French painting and a myriad of drawings and watercolors.

In the late 1950s de Hory returned to his beloved Paris as a very wealthy man. But he wanted to become even richer. Realizing that in France it would be more difficult for him to sell "fake", he entered into an agreement with two dealers who agreed not only to certify the "authenticity" of de Hory's works, but even managed to sign several of his drawings from real authors, which he forged!

exposure

Everything was revealed in 1968 due to the banal greed of an overgrown crime syndicate. The incomparably higher prices for painting than for graphics tempted swindlers to create large canvases by Chagall and Matisse. But unlike gouaches and watercolors, which dry quickly, painting takes years to do so, and here it is much easier to detect deception.

The scandal was great! The venerable art lover turned out to be a world-class swindler. How many fake chagalls and modigliani he made is still unknown. And if it weren't for the greed of de Hory's companion, a certain Fernand Legros, if Marc Chagall hadn't accidentally come to an opening day in a New York gallery, the world would never have known about the great forger Elmir de Hory.

All participants in the scam went to jail, and after his release, de Hory woke up famous. In Hollywood, they shot the sensational film “How to Steal a Million” about de Hory.

In the meantime, he continued to draw Matisses and Modigliani, but now he signed with his own name!

Posthumous glory

De Hori died in 1979, and in 1990 a special auction of his works took place, where the price of imitations reached 7,000 pounds. To have something from a Hungarian baron in a private collection has become a kind of chic among connoisseurs of painting.

Elmyr de Hory left behind about a thousand sheets of graphics and paintings, the amount of which is sold in the US, Europe and Japan is more than a hundred million dollars! And many undisclosed "masterpieces from de Hory" probably still adorn the walls of many European and American museums to this day.

OLD AS WORLD.

Talented fakes have considerable artistic and historical value.
Hans van Meegeren, an artist of the early 20th century and the owner of apartment buildings in Amsterdam, is considered the most brilliant forger of all times and peoples. He created his fakes under the Dutch masters from scratch, using old paints, canvases and subtly copying the technique.

Meegeren became a falsifier involuntarily: the trauma after the failure of his solo exhibition affected. Then the art critic Abraham Bredius, a passionate admirer of the Dutch artist of the 17th century, Jan Vermeer, especially mocked the young artist. Bredius was sure that unknown masterpieces of the master would soon be found. Knowing this, Meegeren decided to subtly take revenge. Looking for masterpieces? Will!

Meegren earned £20 million on fakes
The very first picture of the forger “under Vermeer” delighted Bredius. The world-famous expert was flattered that his predictions came true. The painting depicting Christ was bought by the Boyman Museum in Rotterdam for £50,000. In total, Meegeren painted seven paintings of the "early Vermeer", that is, of the period that is always the least known in the artist's work and the most difficult to verify. In total, the fakes brought him 2 million pounds - that's about 20 million in modern prices.

The exposure of Meegeren occurred simultaneously with the fall of the Third Reich. In the personal museum of the chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, a painting by Vermeer "The Seduction of a Married Woman" was discovered. The police determined that this painting was sold to Goering for £160,000 by none other than Meegeren. The artist was immediately arrested and began to “soap the rope” - in Holland, for collaboration with the Nazis, the death penalty was due by hanging. Cornered Meegeren split. He declared that he was honestly undermining the economic power of Germany by foisting fakes on the Nazis. In order to convincingly expose himself and avoid death, Meegeren, under police guard, painted a picture under Vermeer - "Young Christ preaching in the temple." Europe experienced something like an art history shock. As a result, the great forger was given a year in prison for fraud.
During the Third Reich, in the personal museum of Hermann Göring in Berchtesgaden, among other masterpieces, hung the painting “The Seduction of a Married Woman” by Jan Vermeer (Jan Vermeer). When, after the war, they began to deal with the cultural heritage of the Luftwaffe chief, the Dutch police found that Vermeer's masterpiece was bought by Goering's agents for 160 thousand pounds from the millionaire Hans Van Meegeren, the owner of tenement houses, hotels and nightclubs in Amsterdam. Meegeren was arrested. Because in the Netherlands in those years there was only one punishment for cooperation with the Nazis “on an especially large scale” - the death penalty by hanging. However, Meegeren did not want to hang in a noose.

“I can't be executed! shouted the frightened millionaire. - Why hang me? After all, it was I myself, with these hands, who painted the picture for Jan Vermeer. I should not be executed, but should be rewarded for handing the fake to the damned murderer Goering." And then he told the police how he became the highest paid forger in the history of art.

The beginning of the artistic career of Hans van Meegeren, an architecture student at the Delft Institute of Technology, was promising. In 1916, for one of the watercolors, he received a gold medal, which was awarded every five years for the best student work. However, his first solo exhibition in The Hague in 1922 ended in failure. The venerable art historian Abraham Bredius especially mocked the works of the young artist. Dr. Bredius was an admirer of the then little-known and only coming into fashion Dutch artist of the 17th century, Jan Vermeer. Bredius was sure that sooner or later unknown masterpieces of the master would be found that would make Vermeer the greatest representative of the Dutch school of painting.

Offended by Bredius and the whole world, the young artist Meegeren decided: since the world needs the masterpieces of some half-forgotten line-scriber from the 17th century, let the world get these “masterpieces”. The very first picture of Meegeren under Vermeer caused an enthusiastic reaction from Dr. Bredius, who was flattered that his predictions came true and humanity found a true masterpiece. The painting depicting Christ was bought by the Boyman Museum in Rotterdam for £50,000.

In total, Meegeren painted seven paintings - five under Vermeer and two on behalf of another master of the old Dutch school de Hooch. In total, these fakes brought Meegeren 2 million pounds (20 million in modern prices). Meegeren created his last masterpiece especially for the police and completely free of charge.

Why? Because the police did not believe his story about the forgery for Goering, and in order to save his life, the defendant Meegeren wrote under guard in his Amsterdam studio “The Young Christ Preaching in the Temple.” The impression from the brush of the “master of the 17th century” was such that he was cleared of all charges of collaborating with the Nazis, although Meegeren received a year in prison for cheating, and a month and a half later he died in a cell - his heart could not stand it.

Supper” by Jan Vermeer of Delft is the main creation of Hans von Meegeren
1945 Tormented, wounded Europe meets the first peaceful spring. It was a spring of joy and hopes, many of which, however, were never destined to come true. The clear sky was won at too high a price, and the place under it should have belonged to those who fought for it and did not stain their honor with the shame of cooperation with the enemy. It is time to ask those who sold the interests of the Motherland to the occupiers for nothing.
On May 29, 1945, a car stopped at the mansion at 321 Kaisersgracht in Amsterdam. It was embroidered by officers of American intelligence and the Dutch military police.
- Mr. Han Antonius van Meergen?
A deadly pallor spread over the face of a respectable, elegant man with a short mustache.
- The arrest warrant.
After some time, the artist van Meergen was sitting in the office of the state inspector Vooing. The first interrogation began. A solitary cell in an Amsterdam prison, five paces long, three wide. Small window with bars. Overseer's steps in the corridor. For a month and a half, the artist locked himself in, wagged, twisted. But the facts were inexorable. With documents in hand, the investigator closed all the loopholes for salvation.
- Do you plead guilty to collaborationism and aiding the German occupiers? Do you admit that in 1943, through the mediation of the German-controlled antiquarian firm Goodsticker and Göring's agent banker Nidl, you sold a painting by the artist Jan Vermeer of Delft "Christ and the Sinner" to the collection of Reichsmarschall Heinrich Göring?

Goering paid 1,650,000 guilders for this painting, of which you received a million guilders after commission. Is everything right?
In the corner, the secretary tapped out the protocol of the interrogation on a typewriter. The defendant with difficulty squeezed out of himself:
- Yes.
Single cell again. Again nightmares at the mere thought of the verdict. Van Meergen was well aware of what threatened him: not only did he sell abroad a painting by one of the greatest masters of the past, he sold it to Goering, the man on whose orders thousands of bombs were dropped on the Netherlands. Shame, prison, in general, come what may, just to stay alive ...
- No, the national treasure of Holland was not damaged. Goering gave his money not for a masterpiece, but for a fake. "Christ and the Sinner" was written not by Vermeer, but by me, van Meegeren.
The prisoner did not hold back a triumphant smile and raised his head, as if expecting honors worthy of a national hero. The inspector just chuckled. Cheap welcome! To take a little blame and thereby try to deflect serious accusations... The move is not new enough. And this number is unlikely to pass here.
- Take the prisoner away.
The most amazing thing is that this time Han van Meegeren told the absolute truth.
He was very vain and morbidly ambitious. All his life he dreamed of the glory of the great artist, imagined how his works hang next to the canvases of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jan Vermeer and others. Pride ate him back in his native Deventer, where he spent his youth, and in Delft, where he served as an assistant in drawing and art history. Even poverty did not oppress the young artist as much as the bitterness of non-recognition. At 75 guilders a month it was still possible to somehow survive, but to be an inconspicuous painter...
Van Meergen could not reconcile himself to this fate. In 1913, the Delft Art Institute awarded him a gold medal for a 17th-century watercolor in a competition. The very next day he had to pawn it in a pawnshop, and soon no one even remembered his first success.
Van Meergen moved to Prague. He worked hard, hard, with the perseverance of the obsessed. He painted portraits, paintings on allegorical and biblical subjects. He spent long hours and days in museums, trying to uncover the secrets of the old masters of Netherlandish painting. In 1922 he arranged a solo exhibition. Gradually he becomes known as a gifted portrait painter. Orders went, fees, trains to Belgium, France, Italy, England ... The aristocracy was impressed by his careful, pedantic manner of the Dutch painter, his smooth writing and ability to give the portraits of his contemporaries the brilliance and aroma of bygone eras. Customers appeared from the other side of the ocean, the kings of oil and stewed pork also wanted to be like real kings ...
Time of need has sunk into oblivion. But the dream of youth has not been forgotten. Years later, van Meegeren was as far from realizing it as before. He was praised, willingly received in high society, appreciated as an amiable painter, willing and able to please the customer. But they didn't take him seriously. At exhibitions, his paintings went unnoticed, and reviewers gave them only a few lines in their reviews. Serious criticism, on the other hand, either generally passed him over in silence, or reproached him for lack of independence and imitation of the artists of the past. Museums, too, have so far refrained from acquiring paintings; the chosen place near Rembrandt and Frans Hals (Remember the film "The Return of St. Luke" with Basiashvili, Sanaev and Dvorzhetsky?) was occupied by others. Meegeren deeply experienced failures, but did not lose hope. He believed that one day he would be able to grab a capricious fortune, become recognized In the depths of his soul, he was convinced of his genius: the opinion of critics and art connoisseurs explained their myopia or envy.
- Yes, I deceived Goering and his experts. The picture, which everyone recognized as the work of Vermeer of Delft, was painted by me, me!!
Stubbornly, with desperation, van Meergen repeated the same thing during all interrogations.
- And not only "Christ and the sinner." I wrote five more "Vermeers" -

"Foot washing" at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum,

"Head of Christ"

And The Last Supper in the van Beuningen collection,

"Blessing of Jacob" in the van der Vorm collection.

And even the famous "Christ at Emmaus", which is in the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam. To the same Boeningen Worm I sold two paintings by Pieter de Hooch, I also made them. The prisoner's voice broke off, as if choking on such an unusual confession. Van Meegeren knew that the question of his fate was being decided, he had nothing to lose...
- Quit locking up. We have heard this many times before. Here is the final conclusion of the restorers Leitwiler and van Bachemen. They assure that "Christ at Emmaus" is a work of an artist of the 17th, and not of the 20th century.
- No, I painted the picture. In Roquebrune, near Nice, where I lived before the war, sketches, sketches, and the very dishes that I depicted in the picture should still be preserved in the basement of my villa.
- Okay, let's check.
- I will prove that I wrote these "Vermeers" and "de Hoochs". Give me an old canvas, badger hair brushes, the paints that I will indicate, give me the opportunity to work, and I will paint a Vermeer before your eyes, and no expert will distinguish it from the genuine.
The artist understood what would happen to him in case of failure, and yet he was not afraid of such a risky experiment. Now, in the investigator's office, his whole past life seemed to him like a thorough preparation for this decisive exam.
Indeed, he prepared for a long time, without hurrying. Somewhere in his 20s, he developed a plan of action, and he carried it out with rare purposefulness. For more than one month, he carefully and in-depth studied the biographies and works of the great Dutch artists of the 17th century, their style of writing, and the peculiarities of technology. In the silence of the library halls, he indefatigably leafed through old
manuscripts, rewrote intricate recipes for primers, paints, varnishes. In casual conversations with his friend, the restorer Theo van Wiingarden, he unearthed the secrets of the painting technique of the 17th century. I persistently searched for the same brushes made of real badger hair, which the old masters used to paint, rubbing paint in a faience mortar for days on end. For a huge amount of money - 12,000 guilders, he bought a small bag of precious azure, an amazingly pure paint that still sparkles in the paintings of the masters of the past. In antiques, I bought a painting by an unknown artist of the 17th century "The Resurrection of Lazarus", the painting could be washed off, and the old canvas and frame could be used.
This was the hidden life of an artist, "in the world" Han van Meegeren was known as a cheerful, successful portrait painter, earning good money and not shying away from joys. In 1923 he moved from Holland to the French Riviera and settled in Roquebrune in a secluded villa. The former fees ensured several years of a quiet and comfortable existence. The entrance to his studio was closed to everyone, including the artist's wife. There, behind closed walls, van Meegeren served as a priest. The first experiments, however, did not bring the desired success. First, the artist painted a "Portrait of a Man" in the spirit of the 17th-century Dutch artist Gerard Terborch. Then the "Drinking Woman" in the style of Hals - and again a failure. These works were too imitative and dependent, the closeness to their models was too conspicuous. Nevertheless, Antonius did not back down. He was especially attracted to the paintings of the painter Jan van der Meer from Delft, or, as he is usually called, Vermeer of Delft. Along with Rembrandt and Hals, he belongs to the greatest artists of Holland. Like most of his contemporaries, Vermeer was a chronicler - he depicted genre scenes or allegories in a genre guise. Amazing landscapes of his brush have also been preserved. But in many ways, Jan van der Meer stood apart among fellow artists both as a person and as an artist. He differed from most Dutch masters in the range of problems that interested him. Vermeer was occupied with the transmission of atmosphere, natural light, pure color relationships. He avoided the tonal (subordinate to a certain tone) scale, as well as the local scale (when each object is painted in a certain color, regardless of the influence of the light and air environment). Anticipating the painters of subsequent centuries, he strove to convey the finest color nuances caused by the refraction of color in a light-air medium. In search of this kind of effects, Vermeer came to a peculiar painting technique, subtle and meticulous. His paintings are fanned with special poetry and spirituality; they are saturated with amazing overflows of clear daylight and transparent shadows, pure, sonorous colors and musical harmony of silvery halftones. What is surprising in the fact that the artist created only a few dozen paintings in his life? We have reached about forty. Is this comparable to the hundreds painted by any other Dutch master forced to work for the market?
Contemporaries did not understand, and could not understand Vermeer. In addition, few of his works were drowned in the mass of works by Terborch, Metsu and his other compatriots. Critics of the middle of the last century "discovered" Vermeer, and he was exalted by artists and theorists of impressionism. Then the feverish search for his works began. But they are almost gone. Each Vermeer was literally worth its weight in gold, that's where the masters of fakes could profit, but Vermeer is a "tough nut", he was too tough for them. And this painter, whose paintings are difficult to even copy, let alone fake, was chosen by van Meergen as a model. No obstacles could stop the daring and self-confident artist.

"Music lady" (work by Vermeer),

"Reading lady" Meegeren.

"Woman playing the mandolin" (work by Vermeer),

"Woman Playing the Mandolin" by Meegeren.

From one painting to another, the skill of van Meegeren improved, and yet none satisfied the exacting forger. These were not “new Vermeers” yet, but only more or less skillful compilations from the famous paintings of the great painter: a model was taken from one, a compositional scheme from another, a costume or furnishings from a third. Van Meegeren, of course, added something from himself, but at that time he still could not overcome the artificiality and far-fetchedness of the fake. Instead of spontaneity and quivering life - a constrained pose, instead of internal unity and unique originality - a mosaic of well-known images and details. It was a dead end, and the artist understood this. The finished but unsigned paintings were put aside in the corner of the workshop, where the dusty "Terborch" and "Fals" were already standing. It was necessary to look for another, fundamentally different path to success. And the exit found by van Meegeren does him credit, if one can speak of the honor of a forger at all.
The life and work of Vermeer of Delft remain largely unknown to this day. Entire periods of his biography fall out of sight. Who was his teacher, was the artist in Italy (something speaks in favor of this hypothesis)? Why was he, a resident of Protestant Delft, a Catholic? Did he become one in Italy? It was in this lacuna of biographical ambiguities that van Meegeren decided to catch his luck by the tail.
Indeed, why didn't the Catholic Vermeer leave us religious compositions? It was this "gap" that the forger decided to fill by creating a completely "new" field of creativity of the great Dutchman. Fortunately, these religious compositions have nothing to compare with, except perhaps among themselves, one fake with another!
In search of a plot, van Meegeren settled on the well-known evangelical story about the appearance of the resurrected Christ to his disciples at Emmaus. As a model, he chose the composition of the picture

"Christ at Emmaus" by the Italian artist Caravaggio, written by him on the same theme. The most important thing remained - to paint a picture, and it had to be painted in such a way that no one had any doubts that it belonged to the brush of a great painter.
Khan Antonius carefully foresaw and thought out everything, did not forget about every little thing. The old painting was washed away from The Resurrection of Lazarus, the canvas was ready, it was even nailed to the stretcher with small carnations of the 17th century. Soft brushes made of real badger fur, ancient recipes, precious azure, hand-rubbed paints used in the time of Vermeer and his contemporaries, still life dishes of that era. Van Meegeren was confident the painting would stand up to any scrutiny.
He worked long, patiently and carefully. The most difficult thing is to check "for style", that barely perceptible aroma of the time that always enchants in genuine canvases, some special spirituality inherent in only a few masters of Dutch painting of the 17th century. Van Meegeren did not recognize any concessions to them here. He copied the head of Christ alone four times, and he practiced the movement by which Jesus breaks bread for ten days. The local baker must have thought that they only eat bread in the villa, since orders for it have increased dramatically at that time ...
The painting required seven months of daily and hard work. And finally, the last strokes. The artist again and again takes a careful look at his creation. The picture was a success, Vermeer himself would not be ashamed to put his signature under such a one! But this signature, of course, should be without a hitch, even the slightest, imperceptible to the naked eye, delay in the inscription of letters can alert suspicious experts and graphologists ...

(Above 16 signatures of Vermeer of Delft, below close-up of 6 signatures of van Meegeren). And finally the picture is finished and signed. Then van Meegeren completely covered it with brown varnish, which gave it the patina of time. Pure, radiant colors faded, the masterly made signature disappeared, but the canvas acquired a special, "museum" flavor, now inherent in the works of old masters. Another important stage of work was ahead - the picture had to be "aged" by three hundred years. The forger, without flinching, subjected his best work to the most severe tests. He dries caritna at a temperature of 100-120 degrees, rolls the canvas onto a cylinder, but the craquelures turned out to be simply excellent - just like real ones. To cover all traces, the artist carefully tinted the cracks with ink. Now let all the critics come, none of them will recognize the fakes.
There was one more thing left... How to make it public, how to present the newly created Vermeer to the public? Apparently, our van Meegeren did not suffer from poverty of imagination, so he told one of his friends, the Dutch lawyer K. A. Boon, a romantic and rather convincing story about how he, van Meegeren, found "Christ at Emmaus" in Italy , as if smuggling, bypassing customs laws, transported the painting on some sailboat, almost at the risk of his life in Monte Carlo. Boon, as van Meegeren expected, did not make a big secret of this story, and after some time the news of van Meegeren's discovery became public.
On the French Riviera in those years lived one of the greatest connoisseurs of Dutch painting, the author of major works that have not lost their significance to this day, Dr. Abraham Bredius.

Having carefully read the picture and opened the signature, he came to the conclusion that "Christ at Emmaus" is a genuine and, moreover, first-class work of the early Vermeer of Delft. In the autumn of the same 1927, Bredius published an article about the sensational discovery of Vermeer's masterpiece in the reputable English magazine Burlington Magazine.
The car was given a move, and it rolled. Art historians, critics, antiquarians started talking about "Christ at Emmaus". Van Meegern now only had to regulate the course of events and choose the most advantageous from the offers. The art dealer D. A. Hugendijk rushed to Roquebrune for negotiations. Interested in "Christ at Emmaus" and the "Rembrandt Society of Dutch Art Lovers", which acquired works of art for museums in the Netherlands. In the end, for 550 thousand guilders, the painting was bought on behalf of the society by the collector D.G. van Beuningen. "Christ at Emmaus" was donated to the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam; van Meegeren received 340 thousand, and Hoogendijk, as an intermediary, the rest.
In the museum, the painting fell into the hands of an experienced restorer, for three months he observed its condition, carefully cleared away the darkened varnish and layers of "time", brought a new canvas under it. In September 1938, the painting was shown to the general public for the first time at an exhibition among 450 masterpieces of Dutch painting. The success was amazing. An enthusiastic audience constantly crowded in front of Karina. The vast majority of experts and critics declared "Christ at Emmaus" one of the best and most perfect creations of Vermeer. "The miracle of the phenomenon became the miracle of painting," wrote the art critic de Vries. The German researcher Kurt Rlitzsch placed reproductions of the painting in his detailed monograph on the work of Vermeer of Delft. Few people did not succumb then to the charm of this picture, few people were not convinced by its richness, the peculiar spirituality of the characters, the wonderful beauty of color. These advantages diverted at first the attention of researchers from the artist's minor mistakes, in-depth artistic, stylistic and technological analysis of the painting. Everyone seemed to be struck by a sudden shock, the joy of a big discovery. Actually, the forger also counted on this, and this calculation was brilliantly justified.
True, there were in a barrel of honey and a fly in the ointment. In 1939, the "discoverer" Abraham Bredius, having doubted the belonging of "Christ at Emmaus" by Vermeer, abandoned his hasty attribution. But his statement was taken then as a whim of an old scientist and did not pay any attention to it. The warnings of a few experts calling for caution were simply not audible in the friendly choir of diferambs...
Yes, it was a triumph, a long-awaited triumph, for which ten years of his life were given. The goal was achieved, van Meegeren could celebrate a complete victory. The artist fell silent, tired of the long story. Inspector Wooning listened without interrupting.
- Okay, let's say that's exactly what happened. Your painting was recognized as a work by Vermeer of Delft, acquired by a major museum, and now you had every opportunity to reveal your trick and make fun of critics and connoisseurs to your heart's content. Is not it? But you didn't do it, did you?
- Yes. I kept working on fakes. I wanted my paintings to hang in the best national museums. I regarded my activities as a protest against the humiliation that I had to endure at the hands of a cabal of critics. And besides, I really love the painting of the old masters ...
- A fortune of five and a half million guilders, too, from this passionate love?
During the interrogation, van Meegeren did not find what to answer, but now, left alone in the prison cell, he could not forget the inspector's ironic grin. He lied. Lied during interrogation. Lied everything to myself last years. But after all, you can’t run away from yourself anywhere ... No “lofty” motives could hide his true motives ... His painting was able to withstand the test, but the artist himself could not resist the test of wealth. Money, money and more money!
In 1938-1939, van Meegeren painted two paintings in the spirit of genre paintings by the outstanding Dutch artist of the 17th century, Pieter de Hooch. Compared with the same "Christ at Emmaus" it was a step backwards: compilation, the use of already known techniques, details of images. But buyers were found immediately. One of the pictures

"Feasting Company" - acquired by van Beuningen, already known to us, another

"Company playing cards" - Rotterdam collector W. van der Vorm. The forger pocketed approximately 350,000 guilders.
With the outbreak of World War II, van Meegeren returns to Holland and buys a cozy estate in Laren. The tragedy of his homeland, occupied by the enemy, did not touch the artist too much, the hardships of the war did not touch him, rich people can settle down under any government ... Moreover, the atmosphere of military confusion, when the German "Kulturtragers" shamelessly plundered the conquered countries, when the most valuable works of art perished, and the demand for paintings by the old masters continued to grow - this situation was the best conducive to the conceived scams. After all, there was no longer enough time for deep, thorough examinations, and many things could have come under the guise that in peaceful years would have aroused suspicion, especially since the new fakes were much lower in execution than Christ in Emmaus. Van Meegeren, as they say, seized the moment, the gold-bearing vein discovered by him was still far from exhausted. In three years - five new "Vermeers", and all on religious themes. True, at about the same time there were rumors that something was not clean here, why suddenly there were so many Vermeers in the same hands? Yes, and Meegeren's own paintings were suspiciously similar in style, although few people paid attention to all these conversations then, they were remembered later.
"Head of Christ" bought van Beuningen. The Last Supper was sold to him through the mediation of antiquarians Hoogendijk and Streybis. V. va der Vorm, not wanting to lag behind his rival, acquired the Blessing of Jacob. In 1943, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - the largest museum in Holland - buys "Foot Washing". And, finally, "Christ and the Sinner" ends up in the collection of Goering himself.
The investigation was not yet completed, but van Meegern was released on bail pending trial. An old canvas, the necessary brushes and paints were delivered to his workshop on the Kaisersgracht.

The artist went deep into his work. It was his last trump card in the game, in a game in which not another million was at stake, but his life. Van Meegeren wrote his seventh and last Vermeer

Picture "Christ among teachers". The police were constantly on duty in the workshop, curious crowds crowded behind the artist, in general, the conditions were still the same, of course, this affected the quality of the work, but the main thing was achieved: the largest experts recognized that Han van Meegeren could be the author of fake Vermeers.
But was he? This question was to be answered by an authoritative commission of experts, headed by the director of the Brussels Institute of Artistic Heritage, Professor Paul Coremans. Prominent art critics, restorers, experts in the technique of the old masters have studied in detail six Vermeers and two de Hoochs. The arsenal of researchers included all kinds of technical means - X-ray, microchemical analysis, etc. Thread analysis showed that the canvas was old. X-rays, having passed through the upper layers of the painting, revealed the remains of the old one, on top of which van Meegeren painted his fakes. X-ray revealed one more circumstance: the craquelures of the lower and upper layers did not match. In other words, they arose in two clearly separated periods, and the material of painting in both cases was different. Even a superficial chemical analysis showed that the counterfeiter used ink, rubbing it into artificial craquelures to give them a more "ancient" look. So, the painting material of the upper and lower layers was not the same, microchemical analysis explained the difference. The primary picture was painted, as it was supposed to be for the Dutch of the 17th century - in oil. Van Meegeren was afraid to use this technique. He knew that at the first test with alcohol, a fresh oil painting would dissolve and thus the fake would give itself away. And van Meegeren, in everything else adhering to the old technique, here departed from it and applied a modern binder - synthetic resin. It is not affected by alcohol, but it also does not dissolve in acids, and oil painting, even centuries old, cannot resist them, and if acids do not take paint, then it is of modern origin. Thus, the forger was in any case trapped. To top it off, chemical analysis of dyes and resins found in van Meegeren's house, and analysis of the paint layer of the studied paintings, indicated the identity of these materials. The creator of fakes was identified, I note that it was the most difficult case, where a great professional, a subtle artist, an excellent connoisseur of old painting and a specialist in the field of art history, took up the matter. And even in this case, scientists did not have to use their entire arsenal of tools ... Finally, the commission published its conclusion: all the paintings were executed by the artist of the middle of the 20th century - Han van Meegeren.
A few months later, on October 28, 1947, the trial of the forger began in the fourth chamber of the Amsterdam Court.

The accusation of collaborationism was dropped from him; there was only the forgery of works of art for the purpose of profit. The defendant pleaded guilty. On November 12, the verdict was announced: one year in prison. In his last speech, van Meegeren asked the court to allow him to paint portraits in prison: now he has become more famous than ever, more than enough custom. The convict did not look dejected, having escaped with such a rather lenient punishment, he made big plans for the future. But these plans never came to fruition. On December 30, 1947, Han Antonius van Meegeren, a prisoner in the Amsterdam prison, died suddenly of a broken heart...
Three years later, an auction was held at which the works of the "great forger" were sold, as van Meegeren was called in the newspapers. "Christ among the teachers" went for three thousand guilders; the rest of the fakes - up to three hundred guilders each ...
Well, it seems that you can put an end to it, but the matter did not end there. The victims of the forger suffered enormous moral and material damage. "Masterpieces" in their collections have depreciated, and the reputation of art connoisseurs has been heavily tarnished. Not everyone was able to come to terms with such consequences. Immediately after the death of van Meegeren, the collector van Beuningen initiates a process in a Belgian court against the chief expert, Professor Paul Coremans, no arguments can convince van Beuningen, he wants to prove that at least two paintings - "Christ at Emmaus" and "The Last Supper" - belong not to van Meegeren, but to Jan Vermeer of Delft. Actually, the scientific truth has already been established, and it is difficult to dispute it. However, all the time there are people trying to refute the conclusion of experts and the confession of van Veegeren himself, who is posthumously credited with megalomania. In 1949, P. Coremans published a book in Amsterdam: "Fake Vermeers and de Hoochy van Meegeren". In response to it, another book was published in Rotterdam: "Vermeer - van Meegeren. Return to Truth." But this "return to the truth", an attempt to prove the authenticity of the fake paintings, turned out to be an attempt with unsuitable means. A. Lavacheri, the author of the book "Vermeer - van Veegeren. Fake and Genuine", published in 1954, fully supported the point of view of Coremans and his colleagues.
In general, demand creates supply, and as long as art is treated as a means of obtaining profit, the products of such van Meegerens will always be in demand. In principle, if it were not for the recognition of the forger and his connections with the first persons of Nazi Germany, we might never have known about these fakes. It is curious, but how many undisclosed fakes remained, where the case did not have such a loud resonance?

Modern experts note that everything is thought out in the works of van Meegeren: the technology of painting a picture, from the base to the cover varnish, style. In terms of forgery, these are truly masterpieces. Moreover, now the paintings of the forger themselves have considerable artistic and historical value.

In April 1996, a personal exhibition of works by Hans van Meegeren was held in Holland, where fake Vermeers were also exhibited.

GENIUS FAKE.

Natalia Golitsyna, London
“Every tenth painting of the 20th century is a fake”

Great forger John Mayat (pictured) shares the secrets of creating fake masterpieces

London's The Air Gallery hosted an exhibition of perhaps the most famous painting forger, John Mayat. Many of his fakes experts took for originals. The English artist sold his works through the London art dealer John Dru, who, in turn, forged certificates of authenticity. The international art market was flooded with fake paintings by Monet, Matisse, Chagall, Picasso and other famous contemporary artists. Director of the New York Museum of Modern Art Glen Lowry called Mayat's activity "one of the most massive cases of falsification in the history of painting." In the end, in 1999, John Miat landed in prison, but, being released a year later, he continued to create skillful fakes, however, now without deceit. Having become famous, Mayat is now receiving a huge number of orders. A correspondent of Ogonyok is talking to a brilliant forger.

Mr Mayat, how did it happen that you began to forge paintings by famous artists?

My wife and I had two children. However, she left me with the children when one of them was three years old, and the other one and a half. I had to look after and educate them myself. I tried to find some source of income, but still stay at home. I advertised in a magazine that I was offering "genuine fakes" of 19th and 20th century paintings for about £200. It seemed to me quite easy money, because usually most people are not averse to buying copies of the works of Monet, Picasso and other artists. One day I got a call from a customer who introduced himself as Professor Dru. He started ordering me a lot of paintings. And their number is constantly growing. After I painted 14 or 15 paintings for him (and I must say that he knew little about art), he asked me what I would like to paint myself. I replied that I would like to paint some paintings in the style of obscure cubists. Having written them, I thought that our cooperation would end there. However, after two or three weeks he came to see me and said that he had shown these Cubists to experts at Christie's or Sotheby's and was told that they could sell them for 25,000 pounds. Drew asked if I would be willing to receive £12,500, half their value, if they were sold. I agreed. At the time, this seemed like a good idea to me - a way out of need. That's how it all started for us, that's how I became a criminal. I painted picture after picture, and he sold them.

How did Professor Drew manage to get false certificates of authenticity for your fakes?

The problem he faced when he sold the first three or four paintings was that the buyers wanted to know the history of these paintings, their past. And he began to create this story by working in the archives and fabricating fake certificates of authenticity. To do this, he found already closed galleries in London and inserted reproductions of my paintings into supposedly their websites on his computer. So he showed non-existent previous sales of paintings that I painted for him.

How many fakes have you managed to sell in all this time?

I would say about 250 - 300.

Why did you prefer to forge only modern paintings?

From the very beginning it was obvious that the more modern the picture, the easier it is to invent its story. For this, it was not necessary to climb into the depths of centuries. Now I am painting in the style of the masters of the 17th - 19th centuries, but at that time I did not do this. Simply because it was very difficult for John Drew to create the history of a two-hundred-year-old painting.

And experienced experts and famous art historians could not distinguish your fakes from the original works of the artist you imitated? How do you explain this?

It is difficult for me to understand this, if only because I have never used authentic materials in my work and have never even painted in oils, but used quick-drying emulsion paints - the kind that are used to paint kitchens and bedrooms. I just can't believe that when John Dru showed my paintings in auction houses, the experts took them for the originals. For me, this is too surreal a situation.

Well, modern experts are simply incompetent?

In some cases, they still noticed a fake. But most of my paintings passed for originals. The experts did not like some of them, and John Drew offered them others. At that time - in the late 80s - the first half of the 90s - there was a boom in the art market. Prices have skyrocketed. A lot of art dealers sought to get and sell running paintings. To be honest, it's hard for me to explain all this. I must say that some of the experts were quite professional. I didn't offer them copies. At that time, as, indeed, now, I studied the technique of a certain artist and painted in his style a completely new picture - whether it be Giacometti, Ben Nicholson or someone else. Of course, we tried to somehow age the painting, give it a not-so-new look, making craquelures, patina, or using an old canvas. So at first or second glance, the picture could deceive you.

Did you also forge the artist's signature?

Does this mean that modern painting is generally difficult to attribute?

Probably yes, it's difficult. Many contemporary artists are associated with galleries that publish catalogs of their lifetime work. These catalogs record all their work down to the last sketches. However, there are always paintings that, as it were, "fell through a crack in the floor."

Based on your experience, what do you think about the collections of modern paintings in major museums: what is the percentage of fakes there?

Of course, this is just an assumption ... I would say that 10 to 20 percent of the 20th century painting in them does not correspond to what it is given out for. I think that every tenth painting of the 20th century is a fake.

It is known that in prison you were called Picasso... Why? Did you manage to paint even in prison?

In prison, this was the only artist they heard of. Picasso is one of the most famous artists, and that's why this nickname stuck to me. In prison I did not write, but I drew a lot. Writing was forbidden, but I had pencils. A lot of time was spent on portraits and drawings, the use of brushes was not allowed. I didn't even have a pencil sharpener. I had to go to the prison office to sharpen them. England has pretty strict laws about what you can have in prison. It is possible that if I had served a long term, I would have been allowed to write.

Have you ever faked Russian painting?

I had to, but I can't remember the names of the artists. I remember that John Dru was very interested in Russian artists. I remember that one of them was a Russian abstract painter.

Do you write now for yourself, just for fun?

Yes, I paint a lot of portraits. I love portraits. I do not copy. Many people come and ask me to write a copy, but I refuse. This is a very boring, not giving any pleasure occupation. It's much more interesting to create another Van Gogh painting that he could have done but didn't. Any artist can make a copy; I try not to do them.

How did your second creative period start - after prison?

When I got out of prison, I decided that I would never paint again. But a few days later, a policeman called, who at one time arrested me and sent me to prison. By the way, he sent pencils to me in prison. He asked if I would agree to take an order for his portrait with his family, and offered me good money. He convinced me that I was a very good artist and that I should not give up painting just because I had made a mistake earlier. I painted his portrait with his wife and three children, and after that he introduced me to a lawyer who was interested in my case and was at the trial. He also commissioned a painting. Then two more lawyers involved in my lawsuit commissioned paintings. That's how it went. I was visited by journalists from television and interviewed. After two or three months, it became clear that there was a demand for my work. But thanks to this policeman, I resumed painting. Without him, I would not have started writing again.

Recently in one of the London galleries there was an exhibition of your fakes...

I like to have exhibitions every two or three years. Spectators come there who buy or do not buy my work. I think if you know that you have a fake in front of you, then an amazing feeling arises. After all, many often get lost at the sight of a work of art, they need an expert to guide them. However, when you have a fake in front of you, you do not need an expert and have to rely on your own judgment. That's why I love what I do. Everyone knows that I create fakes.

I must say that some of my customers do not hide at all that they have a fake hanging on their wall, but many do not want others to know that their Monet or Picasso was actually painted by me. They even ask me not to tell anyone about it. And this is also part of the pleasure that I get.

Do you still pass off your fakes as original works of other artists?

I don't do it anymore. There is my signature on the reverse side of the canvas of paintings, and a special microchip is embedded in the canvas itself, which certifies that you have a fake in front of you. If you want to remove it, you will have to cut the canvas. At the same time, it serves as an identification mark of my work. In addition, all my works are registered. So not only during my life, but also during the life of my children, no one will be able to sell my paintings as originals of other artists. I tried to prevent it.

WHO KILLED THE BIGGEST FORGER ERIC HIBBORN?

At the beginning of this year, at the age of 61, the most famous "specialist" in the forgery of paintings, Eric Hibborn, died in Rome under circumstances not fully clarified. The world-famous painting forger was discovered last week with a broken head in one of the Roman quarters, and a few weeks later he died in the capital's hospital.

Eric Hibborn left as a legacy to his contemporaries thousands of drawings recognized by experts as "previously unknown" works by Brueghel, Piranesi, Van Dyck. At the age of 24, Eric Hibborn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Artists of Great Britain. The last 30 years of his life, this tall, large Englishman with a thick black beard spent in Italy.

In his book The Forger's Handbook, Eric Hibborn stated that he did not see anything reprehensible in this craft. "I am also an artist," he said at the launch of the book, "and it's not my fault if some art critics are unable to distinguish my work from the original." At least 500 of his drawings, Hibborn said, are exhibited in private and public collections and galleries under the names of famous masters. He performed them on paper extracted from old books of that era, made primer and paints from the same materials used by real authors.

SOVIET COPYISTS WERE NOT INCLUDED IN THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS

Probably no other country (except, perhaps, China) can boast of so many "applied" paintings, which in an incredible number of copies adorned the public places of the former Soviet empire. From monumental palaces of congresses and culture, from regional committees and district committees, to hospitals, schools, kindergartens, hotels and military enlistment offices - everything was decorated with copies of paintings. In addition to the quite official "combines" of decorative and applied arts, there was also a huge number of handicraft, sometimes semi-underground artels, which were engaged in the same copying (as well as making sculptures and decorating interiors in the spirit of the time, but to the taste of the customer) in the Russian and all-Union outback.

The number of copied paintings in the 20-80s of our century in the USSR is incalculable. Probably, we need to talk about hundreds of thousands or millions of individual, "manual" copies, which have always been valued higher and more expensive than any reproductions.

At one time, Pavel Tretyakov banned the work of copyists within the walls of his gallery by a special order.

Fake. Pitfalls of the antique market
“In an atmosphere saturated with excitement, in an environment where art is only a screen covering other activities, only a mask hiding the real face, a phenomenon should arise that naturally and logically follows from this. Counterfeits are a long-standing evil of the art market, but never before have they turned into such a scourge of mankind as they have become in our time, because the temptation to fake has never been so great as at today's dizzying market prices.

The history of fakes is closely connected with the history of great collections.

At first glance, it may seem that the statement that we have taken as an epigraph belongs to our contemporary: it sounds too relevant. However, these words were written in 1928 by academician of painting I.E. Grabar in his essay "An Epidemic of Counterfeiting". Thus, 80 years ago, the problems of falsification of painting were as acute as they are now. True, then fakes were not the main reason for sensations and forcing the situation on the antique market, as is happening now.

It is no coincidence that today numerous television and radio programs, newspaper and magazine publications are devoted to this topic. Moreover, two volumes of the "Catalogue of forgeries of painting" have been published, around which disputes between art critics and art dealers have not ceased for several months. So much is said and written about fakes that it is clear even to an inexperienced person: this problem seems to be one of the most complex and acute problems for the modern art and expert community.

Because of all this hype, it may seem to a person taking their first steps in the antiques market that collecting antique paintings is too risky. These fears are picked up by gallerists and art dealers, and blown up into a kind of "horror stories"; and in order to insure against forgery, these figures are advised to buy actual art (which they mainly sell). But if you look at the situation with a calm look and try to understand the problem without hype, you can understand that fakes are a completely natural phenomenon and an invariable companion of the art market. They are characteristic of him, as the shadow is characteristic of every object. In order to understand the essence of the problem, it is necessary, as always, to turn to the history of art, an integral part of which is the history of forgeries of works of art.

“The world wants to be deceived” - these words from the book “Ship of Fools” by Sebastian Brant, written at the end of the 15th century, could become an epigraph not only to the history of falsification, but also to the history of scams in any area of ​​human activity. As we will see below, people prefer to turn a blind eye even to fully proven facts of fakes.

The first mention of fakes dates back to the 15th century. Even during the lifetime of Albrecht Dürer, numerous copyists repeated the paintings of the great Nuremberg artist, and put his monograms on them. And the Austrian Archduke Leopold Wilhelm acquired 68 fakes of Durer, considering them to be originals. However, these were still only isolated cases. Great artists also "dabbled" in forging masterpieces of the past. In previous reviews, we have already written about Michelangelo, who made the "antique sculpture", or about Raphael, who wrote under Perugino. However, these were nothing more than jokes of geniuses. Counterfeiters showed their true scope only in the 17th century, when the trade in fakes acquired the size of a real industry.

Thus, the Dutch antiquarian Uhlenborch organized a whole workshop where young artists, in accordance with their taste and abilities, were engaged in writing works of "Dutch" and "Italian" painting. This clever businessman in 1671 sold 13 paintings by "Italian masters" to the Elector of Brandenburg. And what is interesting: when the fake was discovered, a heated sport began between fifty (!) Experts. Some declared the paintings fake, others claimed that they were genuine. As the reader will be able to see in what follows, this story has been repeated many times in history; the same is happening today.

Forgers responded vividly to all the trends and needs of the art market. For example, when Rembrandt regained popularity in the second half of the 18th century, "rediscovered works by Rembrandt" immediately appeared in abundance. In the 19th century, paintings by the Little Dutch were in great demand. Then almost all German artists began to work in this manner. At the same time, they imitated it so accurately that even today, in the presence of a huge arsenal of technical means, it is possible to distinguish a fake only by the state of the base, canvas, type of wood, and the chemical composition of paints.

The history of forgeries is closely connected with the history of great collections. Suffice it to recall that our famous compatriot Pavel Tretyakov assembled his first collection from such “small Dutch”. When it turned out that all these were fakes, Tretyakov turned to collecting Russian art, and he bought only paintings by his contemporaries, as they say, "from under the brush." Modern art dealers often appeal to his example; but we note that it was much easier for the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery to navigate the world of art than for modern collectors. At that time, the criteria of artistic quality had not yet been violated and perverted, and there were no powerful PR campaigns capable of “sculpting” a genius of contemporary art from a person who does not have at least a small amount of talent and skill.

However, let's continue our tour. In 1909, the director of the Berlin Museum, Wilhelm Bode, purchased for the Museum of the Emperor Friedrich a wax sculpture "Flora", recognized as the original by Leonardo da Vinci. A huge amount for those times was paid for it - 150,000 marks. Some time after the purchase, a number of articles appeared in the London newspapers proving that, under the guise of the original, Bode bought a statue made in the 19th century by the English sculptor Richard Lucas. Lucas' 80-year-old son made a statement to the newspaper, confirming that Flora was sculpted by his father. Moreover, Lucas Jr. indicated the picture from which his father sculpted this masterpiece. German museum workers replied that the old man had "out of his mind", and that in 19th century England there could not be an artist capable of even the slightest approximation to the great Leonardo. Then one of the students of Richard Lucas spoke in print. He confirmed that Lucas sculpted "Flora" from a painting by one of da Vinci's students, an artist named Luini. This picture was found; a comparison of the canvas and the statue showed that the similarity between them is undeniable. Copying the shape of the head, Lucas even fashioned two roses to the left of the parting in the goddess's hair. And here, Lucas the son also found a photograph of Flora, taken during the life of his father. It clearly showed both completely intact hands of the statue, as well as a clear, smooth surface of the wax. On the statue Bode bought, the hands were damaged, and the wax darkened and looked very old. But the main evidence was the presence of a piece of a newspaper from 1846 inside one of the layers of the sculpture. However, even after that, most of the German museologists refused to recognize the fake. But Lucas became a celebrity. A monograph was published with his works, which stated that in his sculptural work he often processed the motifs of paintings by great masters - Rembrandt, Dürer and others.

The next wave of fakes came in the years after the First World War. In the late 1920s European and American museums were seriously alarmed by the discovery of a number of fakes. Thus, the Metropolitan Museum acquired in Venice from the antiquarians Fasolli and Palesi "the rarest archaic Hellenic figurine." When, in order to clarify the dating, museologists tried to find out from the sellers the history of the discovery of this statue, the latter could not clearly explain where it came from. This aroused suspicion, and the directorate of the museum commissioned the well-known archaeologist Marshall (an American living permanently in Rome) to conduct an investigation. Marshall, however, was in no hurry. He decided: since the sculpture was sold for a very impressive amount, the success should undoubtedly inspire the authors of the scam. So he simply returned to Rome and waited, and his guess was soon confirmed. The museum was asked to purchase a tombstone by Italian Renaissance sculptor Mino da Fiesole for $300,000. Comparison of the "Hellenic figurine" and this tombstone reinforced Marshall's doubts, since in both cases the artistic style and manner of marble processing were similar. Similar were the methods of breaking and crushing the stone in order to give the works a more ancient look. In addition, Marshall also noticed one interesting feature, which, in principle, is characteristic of all masters of falsification of works of art. The author's pride prevented the sculptor from making breaks and losses of marble in places that were most spectacular and successful in a purely artistic sense. However, Marshall did not have time to unwind the entire criminal chain, as he soon died. By this time, the Detroit Museum of Fine Arts alone had purchased another "ancient Greek statue" by the same author for $110,000, and a "bas-relief of Donatello" for $200,000. Despite the fact that Marshall questioned the authenticity of 10 fake statues during his lifetime, experts were in no hurry to admit the fact of falsification. Some considered them originals, others, like Marshall, were convinced that they were fakes. And, as happens quite often, the artist himself, the author of fakes, exposed the scam. It turned out to be the unknown Neapolitan sculptor Alcheo Dossena. Need forced him to reveal the truth. The fact is that the clever antique dealers for whom Dossena made his sculptures paid him mere pennies, sufficient only for survival. And when the sculptor's wife (and he was already well over 50) died, he simply had nothing to bury her with. Turning to his patrons Fasolli and Palesi, he was refused on the grounds that the money they owed him for his work had long been paid. Thus, with their greed, they simply signed their own sentence. The sculptor had nothing to lose, and he contacted a young art historian who was employed in the Italian embassy in Washington. Through him, Dossena publicized the story of his collaboration with Fasolli and Palesi. Thus, many dozens of “brilliant sculptures” were discovered, which for many years delighted not only the ordinary public, but also recognized connoisseurs. There was even a personal exhibition of Dossena, where both his original works and his fakes were presented. The public was delighted, and the opinions of art critics were divided. Some recognized him as a brilliant sculptor, others condemned him for the lack of individuality, secondary and monotonous manner. But, as they say, everything is strong in hindsight.

This dramatic story clearly shows that the main attackers on the art market are not counterfeit artists, but those who directly sell works of art - antique dealers, gallery owners, art dealers. It is they who own 80% of the ideas for creating fakes, and it is they who get the fattest "pieces of the pie", from which the artists get only miserable crumbs.

Coin counterfeiting The best way earn, but it all depends on which coins you decide to copy. Counterfeiting dimes won't break the bank, but there are a few coins that are worth a lot of money. For example, a 1933 $20 Double Eagle could make a collector a millionaire.

A counterfeiter known as the "Omega Man" minted almost exact copies of this coin. Nearly accurate? In fact, the coins are indistinguishable - except for one symbol. The Omega Man deliberately puts it on the coin as a trademark. This is a tiny image of the omega sign, visible only under a microscope. It is treated as a manifestation of the arrogance of the Omega Man, because without a mark, even experts cannot distinguish a fake. In fact, copies are made so carefully and in detail that some collectors knowingly pay thousands of dollars for his replicas. Even if the millions that these coins are worth are not enough for him, he can be proud of himself. But not everyone who counterfeits coins gets away with it.

Children who made coins from toy soldiers

Counterfeiting coins isn't the most efficient way to make money by today's standards, but for a kid with a pocket full of shiny coins, it could very well feel like a millionaire. Can a child be blamed for wanting to be independent?

Obviously you can, because in 1962, three kids from Tennessee, aged 16 or 17, decided to make their own coins by melting lead soldiers. The authorities quickly put an end to this, not allowing a cent to be spent. All three ended up in juvenile court. In fact, the government took it so seriously that it ended up with the intervention of the Secret Service. It should be noted that the teenagers were also arrested for robbery, so perhaps the police did the right thing by taking on them in full.

money artist

Imagine for a second that you can write a number on paper and, as if by magic, it will turn into a bill of these denominations. Welcome to the world of artist D.S.D. Boggs.

Boggs became famous for hand-drawn "reproductions" of American money, which he then exchanged for goods and services. This story began in 1984, Boggs was sitting in a cafe, harmlessly drawing an image of a one-dollar bill on a napkin, later a waitress approached him and took the napkin, believing that it was a payment for coffee. Since that day, Boggs has traveled the world, exchanging his "money" for everything from food to hotel stays.

In several countries, he was accused of counterfeiting. However, formally, his “activities” could not be prosecuted by law, since he did not try to pass off his money as real. The artist generally painted only one side of the banknote, and left his fingerprint and signature on the other. So it was pretty hard to blame him for anything.

The counterfeiter caught by Newton

Isaac Newton is one of the greatest minds the world has ever known, but few people know that along with formulating his brilliant ideas, he was the head of the Royal Mint and for several years fought against an equally brilliant counterfeiter.

William Chaloner was one of the "best" counterfeiters in the UK. He spent a fortune to transform himself into an urban gentleman despite no visible signs of legal income. If this is not impudence, then here's another: once he offered his services to the Mint to find out all their secrets. The attempt failed.

When Chaloner was arrested personally by Newton, he connected his connections and was instantly released. Constantly tempting fate, Chaloner decided to ridicule Newton by calling him a fraudster who paid for pamphlets out of his own pocket. Enraged by his behavior, Newton collected irrefutable evidence against the fraudster for a whole year and a half, which ultimately led Chaloner to execution.

good samaritan counterfeiter

Most people become counterfeiters out of greed. Why not make your own money if you need a lot of it? But Art Williams is not like that - he counterfeited money for fun.

Williams is famous for producing first-class $100 bills that are as good as the legendary counterfeit "Super Bills" that look like real $100 like two peas in a pod. But we would like to pay attention to the lesser known side of his life. While Williams' forgeries were indeed of outstanding quality, what really deserves attention is what he spent them on.

Williams bought goods and provisions with his fake hundreds, which he immediately sent to charity. However, nothing lasts forever, and Art was eventually arrested. Unfortunately, during an interview in 2002, he stated that he was proud of his actions. Because of this, he was punished even more severely, regarding his statement as “lack of remorse”. The lesson here seems to be this: "never help anyone."

Random counterfeiter

Counterfeiting money is a crime that requires careful planning, tons of materials and detailed knowledge of the subject. No one can just, by chance, take and start forging ... or maybe? The answer is, of course, yes.

This story takes place during the Great Civil War. Her hero was Samuel Curtis Upham, nicknamed “Honest Sam”, who accidentally flooded the Confederacy with thousands of counterfeit banknotes.

How? When the war started, old Honest Sam wanted to make some money and decided to make a counterfeit version of the Confederate $5 bill as a decorative souvenir. However, Upham's money turned out to be so realistic that people decided to cut off the warning that Upham put on all the bills and spend them like real ones.

After the $5 bills sold out, Upham decided to try again with $10 bills because the higher-denomination toy money looked even funnier. When Upham finally discovered what had happened, he nevertheless decided to continue issuing counterfeits, as they debased real Confederate money.

Upham's fakes were so good that by the end of the war his "banknotes" were virtually identical to the real ones. In an attempt to combat it, the Confederation instituted the death penalty for counterfeiting. But since Upham did not live in the Confederacy, this did not threaten him at all.

The lady who "cooked" money in the kitchen

Historically, counterfeiting has been a predominantly male occupation. However, there are a few women who have also learned this trade. Among them, Maria Butterworth is a lady who has become a real queen of counterfeiting, making fakes in her kitchen.

Butterworth's method was simple: using nothing but an iron and a pen, she could transfer the design of a banknote to a sheet of paper, which she then, at her leisure, outlined in detail. By 1723, Butterworth had expanded her business to include half of her deranged family.

Unlike virtually everyone else on this list, Butterworth was never caught. The police, however, conducted a search of her house after seven years of stamping counterfeit money, but did not notice anything suspicious (you can’t arrest someone for having an iron). Butterworth thanked the stars and left the underworld, having lived to be 89 years old in harmony with the law.

Failed Nazi plan

Perhaps one of the most ingenious Nazi plans was Operation Bernhard, a plot to destroy the British economy by flooding England with millions of counterfeit pounds.

But before the operation began, the British spies managed to find out about it. When the first few counterfeit notes were discovered, notes worth more than five pounds were withdrawn from circulation and the plan was hacked to death. By the end of the war, there was nowhere to distribute counterfeit money, so the Nazis unceremoniously threw most of the banknotes into Lake Teplitsa.

If you are wondering how similar the counterfeit bills were to the real ones, then judging by the samples that made it to the UK, the fakes were of exceptional quality.

Inkjet counterfeiter

"Inkjet Counterfeiter" is the nickname of Albert Talton, who, with the help of an inkjet printer, know-how and diligence, in the middle of the 2000s, put into circulation about seven million counterfeit dollars.

He used a multi-step process of impressive ease, but with one big drawback - all banknotes bore the same serial number. Still, he pulled off the scam with a printer you could buy at the store for 200 bucks.

It was his love of experiments that helped Talton advance in this. Early on, Talnot discovered that a real $100 bill would turn yellow when swiped across it with a special authentication marker, and since most retailers checked it this way, it was really the only thing he needed to implement to do it. their forgeries are convincing.

So Talton bought a marker and started checking every piece of paper he came across with it. Toilet paper turned out to be a material capable of deceiving the marker-detector. Or, more accurately, recycled paper.

With this information, Talton bought as many printers as he could fit in his house and began literally printing out his own money. Toilet paper money printed on an inkjet printer.

Old man drawing his own dollars

Unlike Boggs, who created his money out of curiosity, Edward Muller created his out of necessity.

Most of the characters in this article spent hours painstakingly recreating banknotes with perfect accuracy, while the Secret Service called Mueller's money a “funny fake” - he may have drawn them in pencil. Despite this, he remains the longest-serving forger in American history, from 1938 to 1948.

Years later, the 62-year-old Mueller's equipment deteriorated, and his dollars became noticeably worse in quality. Ultimately, an unsuccessful repair attempt resulted in a misspelling of Washington's last name as "Washington". It got even funnier when the government finally tracked down this elusive criminal. Hundreds of people who came across these banknotes decided to keep them as souvenirs, instead of exchanging them for real ones. Which, no doubt, allowed Muller to continue to live his quiet, harmless life for several years longer.

However, all good things must come to an end, and Mueller was eventually caught when his house burned down and the children found equipment in the ashes.

What was the punishment? He was imprisoned for a year and one day, and issued a ridiculous $1 fine.

But the story doesn't end there - when XX Century Fox executives heard Mueller's story, they immediately bought the rights to it, paying Mueller a large enough sum so that he could live the rest of his days without needing anything.

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 Hori

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 revealed 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

The self-taught English painter and restorer Thomas Patrick Keating has for years sold to art dealers and wealthy collectors superb copies of Pieter Brueghel, Jean-Baptiste Chardin, Thomas Gainsborough, Peter Rubens and other famous brush masters. 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 painting 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, convinced their Chinese comrade to take over the creation of "previously unknown" paintings by the abstract artist and author of the most expensive painting in history 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.
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