The nature of art itself has made forgery of artworks common throughout history. This is basically because the provenance of artworks is seldom clear and judgment with respect to origin is often determined by subtle factors. So, too, the enormous value that is placed on artworks that are certified as authentic keeps forgers competing with new methods of detecting forgery in their efforts to profit from the activity. There are many kinds of art forgeries but the following are among the most common:
Complete production of a work that is passed off as being of a particular period.
False claims regarding materials or workmanship.
The piecing together of old fragments to stimulate antiquity.
The selling as originals of faithful copies that were not intended to be taken as anything but copies.
False attribution of minor works to great masters.
There is a pattern in artwork forgery. It depends on the prevailing taste and fashion in the art community, trends favored by collectors, and contemporary art criticism. This analysis will look at some of the forgeries uncovered by chemistry techniques as well as looking at the various kinds of techniques chemists use to detect forgeries in artworks.
According to Dr. Robert Linke, “The chemical identification of inorganic and organic materials used in works of art provides both art historians as well as conservation scientists with important information in order to gain a better knowledge of the techniques used by artists and to study the provenance or authentication of an artifact” (1). Chemical analysis, carbon-14 dating, and other chemistry techniques are used to help identify forgeries. As far as dating authenticity, carbon-14 is a chemical technique that enables investigators to obtain an accurate estimation of an artwork’s age based on the organic materials in it.
To determine basically how long the organic elements in an artwork have been dead, researchers us...