Fakes and forgeries

Expert witnesses were called to give evidence during legal proceedings between Domenico De Sole, chairman of Sotheby’s, and Ann Freedman, the former president of Knoedler gallery, over the sale of a fake Rothko painting.

Michigan art dealer Eric Spoutz was arrested on February 3 on a federal charge of selling forged artworks.

Fake works purporting to be Damien Hirst studio paintings are circulating on the UK regional art and antiques market.

“There are 12 symbols in the Chinese language for the word fake – and each means something slightly different”.

An antiques dealer who forged signatures of famous people such as Winston Churchill and Robert Louis Stevenson has been told he will have to sell his house to pay back more than £33,000 he took in through the scam.

The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office want to help more UK provincial auctioneers spot fakes by inviting them to their Fakes and Forgeries seminars at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London.

Recent reports suggest the number of copied Lowry prints in circulation is increasing.

The trade have strongly backed our comment last week calling into question the reliability of claims that 40% of antiques on the UK market are fakes or forgeries.

Recent publicity for the new TV series ‘Treasure Detectives’ prompted a number of articles claiming that 40% of all antiques on the UK market are fakes.

COMMENT: Damaging claims like this should be beyond question in their robustness, or they are just irresponsible, says Ivan Macquisten

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association is taking the fight to forgers after one of its members was instrumental in bringing serial forger Allan Formhals to justice.

The Chinese government is considering regulation of the country’s burgeoning but problematic art market.

An international award scheme set up two years ago has honoured Cranfield University’s programme of research into art market fakes and forgeries.

One of the UK’s most prolific and accomplished art fraudsters has been jailed for two years after admitting he created up to 1000 forgeries.

TWO years since it launched, the jewellery trade’s anti-crime alert network, SaferGems, has been helping to forge stronger links between the UK’s 43 different police forces.

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

FOUR people have gone on trial in Germany on charges linked to a multi-million pound art fraud exposed as a result of scientific testing on paint.

BONHAMS are to work with Cranfield University in Bedfordshire with the aim of making new technological advancements for authenticating porcelain more accessible for use in the art market.

OFFICERS from the Metropolitan Police Service’s Art and Antiques Unit have arrested a man in connection with the sale of fake Churchill memorabilia.

YOU’D have thought he’d be glad to see the back of it. But duped art dealer David Smith of Neptune Fine Art has bought back the fake Lowry picture he originally purchased for £330,000.