Evening star., 1936-03-22

IDENTIFYING COLORS BY
MEANS OF PHOTOGRAPHS.
EACH SHADE OF THE ORIG.
INAL PAINTING IS INDI.
GATED BY CODE.
of the same chemical composition as
those originally employed and has
undergone the same aging process.
Gum, bit of binding thread, scrap
Of ink-any of these will give him
away.
Field Is Wide.
Drawings, etchings, ceramics, glass
ware. alabaster, figures, old manu-
scripts. Egyptian pottery. Chinese
beads, Persian daggers-these and
many other art objects which have
rarity value are grist to the forger's
mill. Antique furniture taxing is an
industry in itself. Fakers in this field
have been known to use the violet ray
in their efforts to beat the art de-
tective. The ray reveals new cuts by
giving different color reaction. But
almost the only mark of age in wood
is on the surface. II the faker uses
old wood, entirely removing the orig
inal surface aging (checking up with
the violet ray to make sure no patina
is left to betray HIM, and refashion-
ing the piece entirely. and aging it all
again artificially, the expert has a
tough job to prove a forgery, even If
he suspects one.
Pictures, howevr, are still the main
stay Of the art faker Some artists
are favored more than others. Fads
and fashions aid the art faker here.
There are. for instance, so many
forged Van Goghs on the market that
the leading authority on this artist
has devoted a special catalogue to
them. The same will now probably
have to be done for Millet. The So
phisticated audience in the court at
Fontainbleau smiled not long ago
when Jean Charles Millet, grandson
of the painter of THE Angelus" and
The Cleaners" and Paul Cazot re-
vealed that there are scores OF pic
ture buyers and presumed connois-
seurs who cannot tell Millet from a
| Cazot That case is a good illustra =
ton of the fundamentals of a sue
cessful art fake coup.
Complemented Each Other.
They began with an immense ad-
vantage. Cazot had the technical
skill to paint Millet-school pictures
which were almost as good as those
of the original master, and Millet had
the family connection which could be
used to authenticate them. 1t is not
known how many "Millets" they dis
posed of. but in court they estimated
that they had sold $4,000 worth in
England alone, while dozens of their
later, inferior fakes (Millet, a poor
imitator, did many Of these) failed to
find market and were sent back.
A local bank took two "old masters
as security for loan. Millet did no.
repay the loan, so the bank sold the
pictures-which must have struck Mil
let as an excellent way of marketing
fakes. Eventually. having overloaded
the market with "Millets," they turned
to CorotS and Van Goghs, and Mi
chaud, French art collector, ended
their career by suing them for the re-
turn of $4,000 he had rashly paid for
"Winnower in Red Cape" superb
picture which he thought was a Millet.
but which turned out to be only a
CaZot.
The Paris Surete have a theory that
the theft of the Mona Lisa from the
Louvre on August 81, 1911, was only
the central part of an elaborate con-
f1dence trick. Six American million
aires had been lined up; each was
willing to buy 1t, and no questions
asked, and after the theft six collectors
took delivery of skillful copies, believ-
ing them to be the real picture.
Many Still Unconvinced.
So the story runs. 1t sounds fan
tastic, but there are more fantastic
tales than that around the art world
The actual thief was arrested in Flor
ence two years later with La Joconde'
IN his trunk. But you cannot persuade
quite a number of people that the
picture that hangs on the wall Of the
Salon Carre today is not a copy.
Could copy be made which would
defy even an expert unaided by the
scientific set-up? Cavenaghi, the great
restorer who preserved Leonardo's S
fresco Of THE Last Supper" would
have said so. He vowed that q re-
storer's work Is more difficult than the
art by which the painting was first
brought into being. Forgers Of old
masters are usually Cavenaghis gone
wrong. These highly-skilled techni-
clans usually know as much, If not
more, than the authorities who sub
sequently inspect their masterpieces.
They know every trick. every brush
stroke, every phase of the masters
they specialize in. They know how to
mix pigments in the old way and how
to get q varnish which looks as If 1t
had been applied when Van Dyck lived
and painted. They know how to crack
fresh varnish with fans and embed
dust in 1t.
81 RaphaeIs Turned Out.
1t was q mastery technician of this
sort who, playing in with an interna-
tional gang of "con" men, flooded
South America with forged Murillos
some years ago. There are two. one
living In Paris and the other In Brus-