Chicanery

Who could have guessed one of the most helpful and instructional guides for this project would be a cunning art forger? While examining one of my favorite art book's bibliography (the best feature of any book!), the title, The Art Forger's Handbook jumped off the page. Eric Hebborn wrote about his artistic skills describing ingenious deceptions, and now art experts are using his book as reference material. How clever!

Mr. Hebborn set the experts on their heels in the 1980s when information surfaced revealing his superb skills of bamboozling. Seems he had faked masterpieces by Breughel, Piranesi, Corot, and many others. After these artworks were distributed into art circles, the experts were in turmoil about authenticities and attributions of many masterworks. According to the Art Times  this book is "An insiders look into the murky art world of greed and chicanery." I found it full of splendid information about pigments, techniques, dates, historic materials, and details of when and what the masters used.

In January of 1996, Hebborn died under mysterious circumstances. The BBC's Omnibus produced a television biography documenting his nefarious life and shenanigans, but my in-depth search failed to find a copy. I'm sure it would be a delightfully naughty story. My library research contact told me he would keep searching.

Now I have no aspirations to go underground or "non-legit" with my painting techniques but art forgery is quite fascinating. One of the best ploys Hebborn suggests is to purchase an artistically worthless old painting, say, from an antique shop or art auction. Wood panel or canvas, each would be naturally aged and seasoned, ready to scrape, sand and paint a fresh layer atop. The most finicky technique to apply at this point is to use era appropriate pigments. If you are setting out to hoodwink collectors with a Van Gogh then some of the more modern pigments such as viridian, alizarin crimson, manganese blue, are acceptable.

However if you are shrewdly forging a 17th Century Dutch, Rembrandt, Titian, Caravaggio or any artist of that era or before, choice of colors is a critical component. Stick with the earths, vermilion, lapis, flake white, ivory black, malachite, and azurite, and you might get away with your ruse.

Another intriguing ploy Hebborn describes is his use of a yellow called chrome. Chrome was developed in modern times to replace orpiment which became obsolete because of poisonous and fugitive (non-permanent) properties. Orpiment was popular because of its bright golden nature and was widely used. However, the slow drying orpiment mixed badly with other colors and altered the hue over time. Hebborn's trick was to "damage the area where orpiment should be then skillfully retouch with chrome yellow mixed with white." Experts would then surmise the particular passage would naturally have been repaired with a modern pigment because of orpiment's notorious reputation.

So, for those of you who do have desires for dupery, plunge right in and try some of Hebborn's surreptitious ideas. Just remember, unless you want to sit for a very very long period in a 7-foot cubicle dreaming of painting, sign your work with your own name and "copy after Titian" or whomever. I think I will stick to that policy too.