Jehane Ragai - The Scientist and the Forger

Most books related to art forgery focus on the techniques of forgers and of art forensic investigators. Jehane Ragai evidently discloses these aspects with fresh insights and with the required sophistication in her excellent book; but previous authors on the subject rarely developed so crisp analyses of the psychological facets of art forgery from the perspective of the forger and more interestingly from the owner of a forged art piece. This gives this book a special flavor and provides enticing views on the subject.

Christian Amatore, Member of the French and Chinese Academies of Science

This timely, splendidly researched and very readable book provides the educated layman with illuminating insights into the many social, technical and psychological factors associated with both the act of forgery and the process of authenticating a genuine original vision. Whilst demonstrating how competent science can provide verifiable facts, the author also presents a compelling argument to show how, working in tandem with the less easily quantifiable instinct of connoisseurship validated perhaps by being closer in aesthetic impulse to the hand and mind of the creative artist the result will be a mutually enhanced balance of informed opinion.

David L. Carpanini, Past President of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers

A couple of years ago, I attended an evening lecture at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge on the topic of forgery in the art world. The speaker was Jehane Ragai, a distinguished academic scientist from Cairo, and I was completely fascinated. She managed to weave together images of a multitude of paintings with authoritative descriptions of the latest scientific techniques that were being used to distinguish between those that were real and those that were not. After her talk, I asked Jehane if she had written anything on this subject and was very disappointed when she replied that she had not done so yet. But now all that is changed, and this wonderful book has emerged in which she describes her thoughts and conclusions from delving yet deeper into this topic. As well as describing a series of intriguing examples of forgeries involving a wide variety of different styles of painting, and explaining in a highly accessible manner the scientific methods used to distinguish them from the genuine article, she has explored, again on the basis of scientific investigations, the psychology of both those forging and those viewing such works of art. The result is a highly original and informative volume that is not only impossible to put down but also makes one think in a new way about how we view the world around us.

Chris Dobson, John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology and Master of St Johns College Cambridge

Dr. Ragais book is a delight for all those who have an interest in both fine arts and science. The number of forged paintings is surprisingly large and many of these are very cleverly made. Unravelling the fakes is often a scientifically very demanding task. The book provides fascinating examples of forgeries, some which are well known, and some which are less known to the general public. The book describes the key techniques used for proving if the artwork is an original or not. It also provides the reader with the interesting psychology of the viewer and forger.

Krister Holmberg, President of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenberg and Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

In an elegant and engaging style, Professor Jehane Ragai provides us with an exceptional expos of art, science, and business. Her description of the state-of-the-art scientific techniques is pedagogical and overarching, from microscopy to spectroscopy and from mass spectrometry to chromatography. And the psychology of the viewer and forger is dealt with to highlight the impact of art forgery on the business industry. This book is a must-read for those who are interested in the science and business of art.

Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1999)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ragai, Jehane.

The scientist and the forger : insights into the scientific detection of forgery in paintings / Jehane Ragai, The American University in Cairo, Egypt.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-78326-739-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-78326-740-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Painting--Forgeries. 2. Art--Psychology. I. Title.

ND1660.R34 2015

751.58--dc23

2015021512

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: The Virgin and Child with an Angel, after Franceso Francia, National Gallery, London, Picture Library.

Copyright 2015 by Imperial College Press

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For my husband John
and
daughters Nazli and Heddy
with love

Foreword

Jehane Ragai is a woman of many talents and an unusual combination of interests. A professor of chemistry in the School of Science and Engineering at the American University of Cairo, Dr Ragai, in addition to her research in gas/solid and liquid/solid interfaces, has a keen interest in archaeological chemistry. She is a scientist much at home in several fields in the humanities: art, archaeology, poetry, and music.

She has served for several years as a member of the international jury for the LOralUNESCO Women in Science Award, and has been a member of two national committees for the development of higher education in Egypt. In the mid-nineties she was appointed a member of the National Committee for Basic Sciences and Development by the Minister of Scientific Research in Egypt. Her professional training in chemistry and her interest in archaeology has involved her as a member of the Egyptian National Committee for the Study of the Giza Sphinx, and she was both a chemical consultant to the American Research Center (ARCE) in Egypts Sphinx project, and a member of its board of governors.

In 2012, Dr Ragai read a paper, The Scientific Detection of Forgery in Paintings, at the spring meeting of the American Philosophical Society, making the case that, in the detection of forgeries in works of art, the scientist has become a more and more useful partner for the curator and the art historian. To verify the authenticity of an artwork, a good curator will study a works provenance, determining the sequence, as far as possible, back to the artist who painted it, while a trained art historian will make a stylistic analysis to determine whether the style and brushwork match that of the artist to whom the work is attributed. A scientist is now able to add a wide spectrum of scientific techniques to help unravel forgeries in painting. All of these steps are most interestingly explained in