Nancy Moses - Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds

Nancy Moses is an award-winning author whose books take readers behind the staff only doors of museums and other collecting institutions to discover iconic cultural treasures and explore the provocative issues they raise. She is the author of Lost in the Museum: Buried Treasures and the Stories They Tell, and Stolen, Smuggled, Sold: On the Hunt for Cultural Treasures. Nancy has produced exhibits, film, and historic celebrations; served as executive director of the Atwater Kent, Philadelphias history museum, and held management positions at the National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania, and WQED-Pittsburgh. In 2015 she was appointed Chair of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. She holds an MA in American Studies from George Washington University, and lives in Philadelphia with her husband.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Moses, Nancy, 1948- author.

Title: Fakes, forgeries, and frauds / Nancy Moses.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: Whats real? Whats fake? Why do we care? In these times of false news and fake science, these questions are even more important than ever because they hold a mirror to the unsettling reality in which we live. Fakes Forgeries and Frauds goes beyond the headlines, tweets, and blogs to explore the true nature of authenticity and why it means so much today. The book delivers nine fascinating true stories that introduce the fakers, forgers, art authenticators and others that populate this dark world. Examples include: ShakespeareHow an enterprising teenager in the 1790s faked Shakespeare and duped Literary London RembrandtHow is art history, connoisseurship, and science re-shaping our view of what the great Rembrandt painted and how the canvas changed over time? RelicsWas Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music a real teenage girl who lived in 3rd century Rome and was martyred in the same location as the church that bears her name? Jackson Pollock-How do experts pick out the real Pollocks from the thousands of fakes? NurembergHow repeated reconstructions of medieval Nuremburgincluding one by Adolph Hitlershows how historic preservation becomes a tool for propaganda Fakes, Forgeries and Frauds also raises provocative questions about the essential nature of reality. For example: What happens when spiritual truth conflicts with historic fact? Can an object retain its essence when most of it has been replaced? Why did some art patrons place a higher premium on an excellent copy than on the original? Why do we find fakes so eternally fascinating, and forgers such appealing con artists? Fakes Forgeries, and Frauds is a full-color book with 30 color photos. It shows that reality, exemplified by discrete physical objects, is actually mutable, unsettling, and plainly weird. Readers discover things that are less than meet the eyeand might even come to reconsider whats real, whats fake, and why they should careProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019038370 | ISBN 9781442274433 (cloth) | ISBN 9781442274440 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Forgery. | Literary forgeries and mystifications. | ArtForgeries. | Historic buildingsReconstruction. | Authenticity (Philosophy)

Classification: LCC HV6675 .M67 2020 | DDC 364.16/3509dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038370

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

To Mother and Nella, my heroes.

One of my greatest pleasures as an author is working with generous and wise colleagues. Many of them are already cited in the text, and I wish to thank them all, especially those who patiently explained their expertise to an eager author. I am also grateful to Jehane Ragai who provided insights into the science used in art authentication, and Bruce Bellingham, Esq., who assisted on legal matters. I appreciate the American University of Rome, Amy Baldonieri, director of development, who provided introductions and support, and Romana Franziska Waller, librarian, who located and secured critical source materials. A special thanks to Giovanni Linari, a member of the universitys board of trustees, who kindly arranged a meeting at the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds benefitted from Suzanne Garments editorial prowess and Randi Kamines meticulous fact checking. Members of our authors collective, Carol Shloss, David Barnes, Darl Rastorfer, and Margie Patlak, challenged me to write better and reach higher. One could not ask for a more insightful and supportive editor than Charles Harmon, executive editor at Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.

Finally, I wish to thank Myron Bloom, my first reader and beloved husband.

The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.

This is the opening quote of my own book on the history of forgery, but it could apply to so many aspects of life. Fraud and falsification are all around us. We tend to associate it with the art world, or perhaps counterfeit money, but it decided recent elections, it has infiltrated the news. It is a significant and influential part of contemporary life, whether we like it or not.

The term whether we like it or not implies that it is inherently unlikeable. And yet, in my own researches into the world of fakes and forgeries, I found myself often delighted, often admiring, often smiling at the antics of fraudsters. There have been devastating frauds, to be sure. But in most cases, frauds of the cultural world do not come with reverberant damage beyond those immediately involved. In art terms, this is usually the collector, the expert who (incorrectly) authenticated the work in question, and few others.

Art forgers, as I wrote in The Art of Forgery, tend to be more prankster than gangster, and there is an aspect of illusionism to the way they pull the wool over the eyes of so-called experts. There is also an element of schadenfreude visible in the way that particularly the tabloid media reports on forgers and fraudsters. They are depicted as Robin Hood types, hoodwinking the wealthy elites, with the implication that the victims deserve to be fooled. In criminological terms, forgery of cultural objects tends not to involve organized crime groups, which makes it distinct from other types of cultural crimes, for art theft and antiquities looting is largely the realm of criminal gangs, and therefore damages far more than the immediate cultural institutions victimized. As a result, its easy to find oneself almost cheering for the fraudsters. Their stories are often outrageous, fascinating, entertaining, dramatic, and they can be wonderfully engaging tricksters, not the threatening sort of criminals. So, when it comes to whether we like it or not, I feel that, when it comes to hearing about cultural frauds, we tend to like itprovided, of course, we are not the ones hoodwinked.