By Julia Brennan, ARCA Alum 2009

Part I

The Royal Government of Bhutan graciously hosted the first Asian-based cultural security conference, under the auspices of the Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs (MoHCa), and funded by Interpol and the Norwegian Department of Foreign Affairs. It was the first attempt to bring together professionals in the culture protection and law enforcement sectors to begin to develop networks and alliances in this region. In funding this convening, Interpol’s goal is to launch stronger initiatives with member states in Asia—promoting engagement and information exchange; regular posting on the stolen art database; and sustainable relationships with Asian country law enforcement and customs agencies.

The Royal Government of Bhutan was a gracious and generous host. For many attendees, it was a first visit to this remarkable and beautiful Kingdom.  This gathering was unlike most conferences where attendees are ‘on their own’ for most evenings and free days.  Instead, the foreign guests were treated to well-organized cultural tours of sacred monasteries and museums, and feted with rich local meals, cultural dance programs, comfortable hotels, hot stone baths, and quick shopping sprees - a rich and generous welcome and introduction to Bhutan. Everyone was humbled by the kindness and all-inclusiveness of our hosts.

Opening day began at the National Convention Center started with the marchang, a traditional Bhutanese ceremony performed to promote an auspicious start to a new endeavor. That night, a deep snow fell blanketing the country – an auspicious sign for our forum to protect cultural heritage. We were profusely thanked and blessed, as indeed the deities were pleased with our conference; the much-needed snow heralded a good start to the new year of the Water Snake, a robust harvest, and an end to the forest fires.

In attendance were about 30 international participants and 60 Bhutanese. The Bhutanese representation included the Cultural Officer and local police chief from each of the 20 national districts, as well as professionals from the Ministry of Home and Culture, local museums, and monasteries. Foreign participants came from Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, The Netherlands, UK, USA, Korea, Australia, Vietnam, China and India. The strongest law enforcement sector heralded from Europe, with the Executive Director of Police Services of Interpol, M. Jean-Michel Louboutin as the Honorable Chief Guest. European police, investigators, criminologists, and customs agents made up the strongest component of the conference.

The 20 presenters, chiefly non-Asian, laid out sound instruments, platforms, and methodologies for combatting the illicit trade and retrieving lost cultural heritage. It was a powerful tool kit that we began with.  It covered national and international laws, conventions, inventories and object ID databases, and international joint customs operations.  Presenters reviewed platforms such as ARCHEO, COLOSEUM, ICOM’s Red List and INTERPOL’s stolen art database.  Additional information was provided about museum security measures; investigations by police and criminologists; the role of prosecutors; the importance of preventative measures adopted from the conservation practice; and grass roots initiatives in culturally-rich areas.  The content-rich agenda even covered liaison with tourist and local infrastructure; use of the media to build awareness and participation; development of emergency and disaster preparedness; and the role of market versus source countries in the fight to protect cultural property.

Sadly, there was little police representation from most Asian countries. Noticeably lacking at this first Asian-based conference were law enforcement, customs, or Ministry of Culture personnel from Thailand, India, Nepal, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore or Malaysia. Several of these countries - Thailand, China, and Singapore, for example - play major roles in international trafficking and trans-shipment.  Others, such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Indonesia, are victims of ongoing looting and theft of their cultural property. The Bhutanese may have benefited the most from this conference, with a strong and broad-based attendance, with several presentations focused on illicit trafficking and theft cases in Bhutan.

There was a paucity of dialogue about other Asian countries, with no mention or discussion of the ever-growing Asian-based market for antiquities. Singapore and Bangkok are both active illicit hubs, with China and Vietnam’s growing population of individuals with purchasing power creating renewed demand for antiquities globally.  Thus, it felt like a missed opportunity to not explore these newly emerging markets and laundering sites. At the same time, perhaps now that the first such gathering is complete, it’s possible that future gatherings will begin to address these major threats to regional cultural heritage.

Bhutan emerged as the star player in this conference and in the protection of their cultural property. A preview of this strong role was the large sign at the national airport customs picturing Bhutanese artifacts and stating “Help Us Protect our Culture and Heritage” (along with caveats, guidelines, and penal consequences). Bhutan is an active member of INTERPOL, with regular communications and postings to INTERPOL’s stolen art database. It also has a sound and growing national database (both written and photographed) of their cultural heritage; training and posting of cultural officers in all the districts widely distributed and culturally-aware police force, and a strong base of nationalism and religious beliefs by the population at large. Bhutan is actively engaged in the protection of their religious heritage and presented several compelling talks focused on the theft and loss, recovery and preventative methods in place.

Bhutanese speakers included: The Minister of Home and Culture, H.E. Lyonpo Minjur Dorji; Mr. Dorjee Tshering, Director General of the Department of Culture; Mr. Tshewant Gyalpo, Director of Department of Culture; and Brigadier Kipchu Namgyel, Chief of Police Royal Bhutan Police.  All gave clear overviews of the current state of cultural property protection, regional statistics of loss, including case studies of the on-going vandalism of remote chortens or stupas. These religious sites are primarily targeted for the possible snatching of the valuable dzi bead, or cat’s eye agates. Since these relic beads are greatly sought after by Taiwanese and Chinese willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a stunning example, the thefts continue, perhaps by hire, and certainly executed by a well-greased international smuggling ring. The violation of these sacred protective sites deeply pains the Bhutanese, and steps are being taken to stem the on-going vandalism. Several law enforcement experts from Europe, as well as the deputy director of UNESCO, met with Bhutanese officials to discuss the urgency of this problem, and launch of a strategy and programs to end these thefts.

Ms. Brennan's coverage of the conference will continue tomorrow.

What is History? Eric Hebborn (1934-1996)

The number of works by Eric Hebborn in public collections will never be certain.  Between the 1960s and his death in 1996, Hebborn created an estimated thousand drawings in the manner of various old masters, artfully mixed in with thousands more of legitimate origin that he handled as a dealer.  Though dozens of the fakes have been detected by curators, and more were revealed by Hebborn himself in his notoriously mischievous 1991 autobiography, Drawn to Trouble, the vast majority remain in circulation under names other than his own.

In his chapter on Eric Hebborn, Keats describes the forger’s schooling (which ended when Hebborn set the school cloakroom on fire) and artistic training. After earning numerous prizes and ‘had establishment credentials that were impeccable – and that would have ensured him a sterling career a century earlier, before modernism supplanted academic acumen with avant-garde innovation,’ Hebborn work for art restorers allegedly led to opportunities for fraud. Hebborn would never be convicted of forgery or any other crime – his punishment was a fatal blow to the back of his head at the age of 61. The forger, who even published a handbook on his techniques, blamed experts for the false attributions of his works.

Hebborn distinguished his operation from one blatantly out to make money by subscribing to a “moral code”: “Never sell to a person who was not a recognized expert, or acting on expert advice,” he vowed. “Never make a description or attribution unless a recognized expert has been consulted; in which case the description or attribution would in reality be the expert’s. Hebborn’s job was to create artwork that would silently telegraph the attribution he intended. To succeed, he needed to absorb not only the nuances of how the master drew or painted but also the intricacies of how the connoisseur reasoned.

In 1978 the Colnaghi & Co. in London recalled some Old Master drawings brought to them by Hebborn. Keats examines the possibility that Hebborn exaggerated his forgeries and his effect on the history of art.

Of course, his reputation as a fraud was what gave his confabulation credibility. He didn’t need to make five hundred forgeries after the Colnaghi affair; simply claiming to have done so was enough to throw art history into turmoil.  In fact, faking his fakery may have been his masterstroke, since no amount of sleuthing could detect forgeries that never existed.

We can imagine that any drawing lacking certain provenance is by Eric Hebborn, or by the school of Hebborn established with the publication of his Art Forger’s Handbook. By extension, we can see all art of any age as contemporary, eternally current, and perpetually relevant. Historians may fret, and philosophers may quibble. But for the artists who made the work, whoever they may be, forgery is immortality.

Though the gallery found buyers for van Meegeren’s virtuoso depictions of the young Christ teaching in the Temple and the supper at Emmaus, his earnings could hardly compensate for the injury to his reputation.

Van Meegeren was well compensated for this work [‘flattering portraits of the upper crust’], generating an income that many avant-garde artists would have envied.  But in the early 20^th century, no modern painter could command prices comparable to the old masters.  Picasso earned approximately $5,000 for a major canvas in the ‘20s.  By comparison, The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals sold for approximately three times that amount – and it was a counterfeit.  The painter? Han van Meegeren.

The counterfeit Laughing Cavalier was painted in 1922, two years before van Meegeren’s second exhibit met the disdain of art critics and years before he sold five Vermeer paintings. In a 1937 issue of the Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Abraham Bredius, the former director of The Hague’s Mauritshuis Museum, praised [van Meegeren’s] the newly discovered Supper at Emmaus as the ‘masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft.’ Keats writes of van Meegeren’s forgery success:

On the strength of the laudatory text, and the author’s eminence, the Museum Boijmans in Rotterdam acquired the painting for 520,000 guilders – approximately $3.9 million today – and made The Supper at Emmaus the centerpiece of a blockbuster exhibition on the golden age.

Conversation Piece, The Smiling Girl, Lace Maker, and a Portrait of a Girl with a Blue Bow were four paintings made by van Meegeren and sold as Vermeer paintings.  Art dealer Joseph Duveen sold The Lace Maker and The Smiling Girl to Andrew Mellon.  Keats writes about how the forger fooled the art experts:

In other words, the connoisseurship exploited by van Meegeren was the very basis of Vermeer’s art historical resurrection.  The authority he abused may have been venal and vainglorious – and jealously hostile to scientific verification – but there was no substitute for it.  Gullibility was the underside of open-mindedness.

For the experts and critics, the verdict and consequences were more ambiguous. Conveniently deceased before the trial, Abraham Bredius was universally condemned as a fool, while the few experts who had not been tricked took the opportunity to gloat.  Most noisily, the Duveen agent Edward Fowles publicly released a telegram he’d secretly cable to Joseph Duveen after seeing Emmaus in 1937: PICTURE A ROTTEN FAKE. When the New York Herald Tribune picked up his story, no mention was made of the suspect Vermeers that Duveen had sold Andrew Mellon. 

On the other hand, Dirk Hannema refused to accept that Emmaus was a fake and spent the rest of his life trying to establish its authenticity with funding from Daniël van Beuningen. Though no credible scholars took Hannema’s research seriously and he no longer had an official position at the museum, The Supper at Emmaus remained on exhibit at the Boijmans – with no mention of who’d painted it – until Hannema’s death in 1984.

The unlabeled Emmaus was a fitting tribute for Han van Meegeren, who’d shattered the authority that made him without fostering alternatives.

Van Gogh's Le Blute-fin Windmill and Dirk Hannema (AP)

However, Dirk Hannema's reputation did not end with his misidentification of van Meegeren's Vermeer forgery. Here's a link to a video about the controversial museum director's life in art connoisseurship and collecting (now at the Museum de Fundatie). Hannema spent years claiming that a painting of a windmill he'd purchased for 6,500 francs from a Parisian dealer was by Van Gogh -- and 25 years after his death the Van Gogh Museum authenticated Le Blute-fin Windmill.

The Boijmans exhibited Van Meegeren's Fake Vermeers in 2010.

Artist and critic Jonathan Keats highlighted Italian forger Alceo Dossena in his book, FORGED: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age. A version of the chapter on Dossena was previously published in Art & Antiques Magazine ("Almost Too Good") in November 2011.

In 1925, the Cleveland Museum of Art paid $18,000 for a painted wood statue of a life-size Madonna and Child from a convent chapel in the town of Montefiascone near Lake Bosena north of Rome. Two years later, a series of X-rays revealed that the sculpture was not by Giovanni Pisano or any known Renaissance or medieval artist due to the presence of 20-th century nails used in the construction.  The Ohio museum returned the work to Europe before paying $120,000 for an ancient marble statue of Athena.  In 1928 AlceoDossena, angry that his fraudulent associates had made significantly more money than they had paid him for his forgeries, confessed he had made both works in his studio in Rome.

In his hometown of Cremona in Lombardy, Dossena learned painting and sculpture at a trade school then apprenticed for art restorers in Cremona and Milan, which gave him ‘practice in the traditional crafts, as well as a thorough knowledge of how to artificially age materials. Equally important, it put him in physical contact with the work of masters from Pisano to Mino da Fiesole to Simone Martini (Dossena would later create works that he would attribute to these artists).

Dossena, who later claimed not to have intended to defraud anyone with his creations, was peddling artificially aged works in dive bars during World War I when he met two antique and art dealers who set him up in a studio after the war. It’s estimated that Dossena operated in his forgery studio from 1918 to 1928, providing product worth $2 million on the art market. Keats writes:

They benefited from the harsh economic conditions following World War I, which fostered a black market in genuine masterpieces illicitly sold by impoverished European institutions to the wealthy patrons of ambitious American museums.  Rumors were rife and alluring.  Even the Vatican was said to be furtively selling off hidden treasures.

In addition to the wooden Madonna in the style of Pisano, Dossena created dozens of works: an Annunciation in marble (Simone Martini) sold to Helen Clay Frick for $225,000; a marble sarcophagus (Mino da Fiesole) sold to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for $100,000; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased ‘a genuine piece of archaic Greek sculpture’ that went straight to the basement.

Immediately after Dossena exposed his work as forgeries in 1928, the Cleveland Art Museum called Dossena “among the greatest sculptors of the day” (this institution does not include any works by this artist in their collection online") . But when Dossena’s works were sold under his own name at auction in New York City in 1933, 39 pieces sold for a total of $9,125.  Critics then dismissed Dossena’s artistic talent in the seven years before his death. Keats writes:

The schism in Dossena’s reputation reflects the problem presented by his art, that it cannot adequately be categorized as true or false.  Neither the praise he garnered in the 1920s nor the condemnation that followed does his work justice.  He was an original and he was a copyist, and the compulsion to take sides merely reflects society’s categorical literal-mindedness.  Modern viewers deem authenticity a prerequisite for an artifact to be a work of art.  Dossena presented people with an authentic paradox.

I will leave it to our readers with a background in art history and visual arts to agree or disagree with Keats' premise (which he elaborates on in an introductory essay). What I particularly enjoyed were the chapters devoted to six 20th century forgers. Keats nicely sums up the works of these forgers, their explanations for breaking the law (or not), and discusses the impact these forgeries have had on the art market. Here on the blog this week I'll showcase each of these forgers and add a bit of online research that I couldn't refrain myself from doing as I read FORGED.

Keats highlights Lothar Malskat, a German restorer, who faked a mural in a damaged 14th century church after World War II; Alceo Dossena, an Italian sculptor, who created antiqued marbles in the 1920s; Han van Meegeren, a successful Dutch portrait artist, who forged six paintings by Vermeer and sold a couple of paintings to the Nazis; Eric Hebborn, forger of old master drawings from the 1960s until his murder in 1996; Elmyr de Hory who forged out of his studio in Ibiza until his suicide in 1976; and Tom Keating, former housepainter and restorer, who called his forgery work in the 1950s and 60s an act of socialism.

What is Belief? Lothar Malskat (1913-1988)

In May 1952, Lothar Malskat walked into a police station in Lübeck to report that he had forged the  supposedly restored murals in Marienkirche (the Lutheran St. Mary’s church).  Eight months earlier, the 13^th and 14^th century frescoes had been celebrated at the church’s 700^th anniversary. In 1942, the fires from the Allied bombing of Lübeck on Palm Sunday had ‘peeled five centuries of whitewash off the walls, exposing enormous Gothic frescoes painted when the building was erected.  Dubbed “the miracle of Marienkirche,” the discovery was sheltered under improvised roofing until the war ended and structural repairs could begin.” In 1948, Lothar and his boss, Dietrich Fey, had been commissioned to restore the murals.

Lothar claimed that ‘He’d faked the medieval paintings on Fey’s orders, he said, and he was confessing because “that crook Fey” had treated him unfairly.’ Neither the police nor the media believed him. He hired an attorney and confessed to making phony Picassos and Rembrandts. The police searched his house and found evidence that led to an investigation commission and a trial.  Lothar and Fey were sentenced to eighteen months and twenty months, respectively, in jail.

At Marienkirche, the forged murals in the choir were plastered over but the forgeries in the nave – which Malskat had quickly repainted on the reprimed brick surface – are referred to in guidebooks as Goth frescoes with no mention of Malskat or the forgery conviction.

As for Malskat, before he could serve his jail sentence he fled to Sweden for a few years. Keats writes:

Keats adds in a footnote: