Eric Hebborn - Portrait of a Master Forger
by BBC
Mar 14, 2012
A documentary featuring an interview with Eric Hebborn at his home in Italy. Eric Hebborn (1934-1996) was a British painter and art forger and later an author. On January 8, 1996, Eric Hebborn was found lying in a street in Rome, his skull crushed with a blunt instrument. He died three days later in the hospital on January 11, 1996.
Transcript
0:33
the dealer is not interested in art he's interested in
0:38
well basically money but you know worth of artists as good or bad as the price it fetches the art historian is not
0:47
really very interested in art I mean he studies it but he's much more interested in his career whether he's going to go
0:53
up in the nobody's we can come the head of some great museum look this is what he's really interested in and whether he
1:01
can get a knighthood because he knows a lot about Rembrandt you know but no one
1:06
would have ever given Rembrandt a knighthood for being Rembrandt you know serve it's all false values and art is
1:14
neglected nobody is studying it really and truly with the kind of honesty that
1:20
is necessary and although I can't myself claim to be a very honest man in fact
1:25
though many people think I'm an old clock I do feel that in this case at
1:31
least that I am honest I mean I do try to understand something about
1:48
medieval hilltop village of antiquity Corrado to the east of Rome as for centuries been home to painters and
1:54
sculptors 25 years ago English artist Eric had one came to live here how I
2:03
shall freeze after all this son Here I am a gentleman at home a palace and thy
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loving and I love London and I love my English friends but when I'm in the
2:20
Piazza here a local the old boys you know I feel that we may do the same
2:27
stuff and they're not going to say all your your working-class guy I'm not
2:33
going to say to them in all peasant make it on we have our grass of wine together happy about I think I would
2:43
have been happy as artists in the relations and in the 20th century but I
2:49
would have liked to have been employed in a different way rather than sort of having to be on the fringes of society
2:57
were them being a little bit shaking all that heaven has devoted much of his life
3:03
to the study of the Renaissance artists in particular the drawings made by the old masters as preparatory sketches for
3:10
their oil paintings well I think what particularly appeals to people who are interested no mas joins it that they are
3:16
of spontaneous expression of the artists are obviously drawing very great deal in
3:23
whether they were made just sitting down doodling on his paper or of elaborate
3:28
finished drawing of made a say as the cartoon for a painting but you do get a much more personal feel I think from the
3:36
drawing how the artist I mean it is just I'm often Lee starting with Leonardo artists were really kind of thinking on
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paper I've made drawings in the Dutch style in the Flemish style in the German
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style in the Swiss style in the Italian style and I've even deigned to a few
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english drawings and some French toys and I've normally
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chosen important masters not necessarily the greatest because it's very hard to convince people nowadays when you turn
4:11
up with a Rembrandt or Michelangelo or Leonardo they say let's go tell somebody
4:17
else you know but nevertheless I've turned up with people like stefano delle
4:24
bella and caste Leonean 17th century martyrs of some importance including Rubens and then Dyck so I have done some
4:34
very very important artists and I wouldn't call gain for a wine artist
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normal I call constable a minor artist and all these people I have I have done nothing for ebon claims to have made
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over a thousand drawings in the style of scores of different artists from the 14th to the 20th century many of these
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drawings are now in the possession of some of the greatest private and national collections around the world from the British Museum to the
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Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
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I'm not a crook I'm just doing what people have always done during the
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history of the world I mean ever since art was invented people have made
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imitations of it shall we say and I believe that the real criminal if there
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is one is the person who makes the false description I mean if I were to tell you
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that these this statue here is by facts
5:36
Italy's for whoever it's been copied from I would be making false description even if I said it was Roman I would be
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making a post description because it's a modern copy but that doesn't mean to say that you can't enjoy it I mean you can
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enjoy the fake isn't necessarily bad as a work of art it is simply something
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that's wrongly described and age sometimes gives dignity to imitations
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providing there of some quality and they should be enjoyed for what they are rather than being questioned for what
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they're not the sale of several drawings in the style of Gustus John to a specialist dealer in
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London help finance have ones permanent moved to Italy in the summer of 1964 for
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the next decade business was brisk on the top floor of an old Palazzo in the heart of Rome's antique district a
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conveniently short walk from the Christie's sale room in Piazza Navona
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for a christie's sale in rome in 1974 everyone supplied twenty-four drawings
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in the style of various old masters these were attributed by Christie's to 16th century artists such as stefano
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delle bella luca cambiaso FR Bartolomeo as a
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self-styled dealer in old master drawings he born was able to offer his own efforts alongside perfectly genuine
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examples he called this bread and butter business panini galleries and quickly re-established links with the London art
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trade very soon after I went to court argues when a drawing was sent from
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Italy from some galleries called - Neely galleries by the Ambrogio either old or
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younger which had been in colleges in the 1930s it could be traced in a stock
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book and I think it may even been exhibited I really can't remember the state and this seemed to us a perfectly
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genuine nice drawing which the further they pleased to purchase back and as a
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result I think I'm going to be asleep fairly shortly after us I thought I might call on Erica Berlin who lived
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that time in room I bought a drawing in a sale not in one of the great sale room
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such as Christie's and Sotheby's and I noticed on the back of it a label the
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label of a dealer called corn Rd and I thought well you know if they had it's
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probably a decent drawing and I took it home and it said that it was by Blue Eagle so I hung it on the wall nice play
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proud I'd bought a boy girl for only 40 pounds I thought how the hell did I get it that cheap if it's a real boy Eagle
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then Wright was there for a few months then I began to look at it Nathan no this is not a
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boggle this is a copy I thought was an engravers coffee because in the old days
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the only ways of only way of reproducing drawings as you know for the engraver to
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make an engraving of it and we produce it so to make his engraving he first made a copy in the medium that the
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artists had used I thought that's what it is is and engravers copy then I wondered to myself well why can't I copy
8:56
that this copy and make it little better then it'll be a little bit more like a viable so I said to work in that way and
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I made a copy a very close copy an almost exact copy but I speeded up the
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lines that if I gave a more vigorous movement and it did look a bit more like
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a boy/girl to me when I'd finished and then I did something I rather regret
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doing now I tore up the thing I copied the thing that been in the corn Rd frame
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I flushed it down the lavatory I rather wish I hadn't because it would be nice now to compare you know perhaps time you
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know perhaps I destroyed an original Weigel I hope not and it seems that the people in the
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Metropolitan Museum think the same thing
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I mean they they seem to be happy with my coffee I have talked very recent in
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the last day or two to the Metropolitan Museum who naturally have subjected it to very close our tests such as tests
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can be made and they say the paper is perfectly genuine the ink looks good for
10:06
drawing of that date and though naturally they're keeping an open mind about it they can see absolutely nothing
10:12
wrong with the dry I don't have to prove what I did it or not if they can't see it what kind of damned experts are they
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I mean they should be able to say this is definitely by Michael but then you ask them they say yes this is definitely
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by broeckel then you say to them is it by jangle the old or the gonca well
10:31
we're quite sure about that professor so-and-so says it's the younger professor so-and-so says it's
10:38
the older but it could be a very late follower that's my claim there are I
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mean I wanted to test you can do for ink but that does P suppose they had to be
10:52
certain substances in the ink which were not known at their particular time but
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for the most part I mean it would not help and anyway in order to do these yes you don't have to ruin the drawing so
11:03
that's up at the end of the day hopefully much better off I've just been in the forest they're freaking calm when
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little water fires collecting oak galls and these I need for making alcohol ink
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which is the kind of ink that parmigianino used in the 16th century
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and this is a common recipe for Oh calling they're about thirty often that
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I have in my collection in terms of recipe going into a drain water gun
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Arabic and a little iron sulphide bian rusts and it eats through the paper many
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old drawings that are consumed in this way in parts of the drawing I imitated that on the Pusa I did it I wouldn't
11:51
have done it on a more important drawing because it lowers the sail ability of the drawing when it's in bad condition I
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mean if I'd meant that boo Center pass as a boo sampler if not I was not have
12:03
aged it in that way because the value would have gone down immensely but in
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this case I thought well you know let's give it a really nice old pattern er make it convincing
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so well that's what I did no ingredient is really secret because really chemical
12:21
analysis can discover it but I don't want to encourage forgery line by giving
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away these tricks of the trade that people might use dishonestly
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early part of my life I think is rather sad my father seems to have been always
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out of work and my mother had many children the poor woman was under great
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stress she seemed to have taken her you know revenge of the world myself and
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she used to treat me well badly at the age of eight I was still trying my hand
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at Roy found that if you light a swan vest a match you have a little piece of
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charcoal at the end that you can draw with and dip it in the school inkwell in those days they had ink wasn't anything
14:31
to have them anymore but anyway I would do that and I would make sketches and the headmaster came around making
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inspection and he saw that in my desk I had this matchstick and a piece of
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sandpaper and he thought that I was playing with fire and he gave me a cleaning for it and I thought well I've
14:51
been punished for the deed no I shouldn't do it and set light to the
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cloakroom and the fire began to spread and I got frightened and I thought I'd
15:02
better tell the headmaster mr. Percy what had happened so I poked my smoky
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face round his door and said to him because I I couldn't I didn't know how
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to put it on him please so I've set light to the school I recited a little poem we'd learn they went fire fire
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mrs. Dyer where where mrs. Claire did
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that map of smoke came into his study and I found myself in the juvenile court
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being charged I was asked what I was guilty or not guilty of arson I didn't
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know either of the words I didn't know the word guilty or arson I didn't know what it means but policemen standing
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next to me said I say guilty son say I'm not safe guilty so that's what I did
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and ended up in borstal that was a nun promising beginning
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Berek he born arrived as a pupil at the Royal Academy about 1950 sound like the
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Academy itself heaven was already steeped in the ways of the old masters very little comment made about one's
16:15
work apart from the odd revelation that
16:21
somebody had won a prize or one happy you see from a lot of prize we didn't
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win any hardly know practically nothing I was a really very good sort of silent
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creature I mean he just kept to himself he didn't mix with other students as far as I remember he was always I never
16:41
remember seeing him in the canteen or anything he was always around there painting these Varanasi green grounds and all
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this time all his old master stuff which he painted very much in the old master
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styluses my man thought he was a joke actually Karen Raye and Nancy Goldsworthy also studied with had one uh
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it was a school that produced a lot of brilliant people of whom Eric was one
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though not appearing too many to be so because he was very quiet but when you
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talked to him you knew he was an interesting person straightaway oh I was madly in love with him yes sure I used
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to say Nance is playing hard to get rid of when he was at the Royal Academy he
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won all the prizes for drawing so we we're dealing with a very gifted
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draftsman while he was still a student at the Royal Academy Eric highborn discovered that he was
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color blind I had this curious thing I believe men
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have it more often than women of being not being able to distinguish between certain grades and certain greens and I
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sometimes paint pictures with fear screens which I just couldn't see and I thought they were delicate pearly grays
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and in fact they were not and I had to look at the tubes of color and read the
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label to make sure that I wasn't falling into this trap there was a time at the
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when the hippies were around people were on LSD and I was given some inner cake I
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didn't know the difference taken ground up and I was suddenly hallucinating and seeing things the most extraordinary way
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and my color blind is seemed to clear up after that one 18th century Italian
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draftsman whose architectural drawings have consistently attracted heaven is Giovanni Battista para Nazy a fine
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example of this masters work a magnificent Roman port was sold to the National Gallery of Denmark for fourteen
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thousand pounds in 1969 by the London dealer hands Kalman who was hence Kalman
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because he's now dead he was an ax dealer in drawings and a very important
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dealer in old masters who perhaps had the best stock in London of old master
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Roy at one point even HAP's even better than Cornell jeez I sold quite a lot of drawings to him I
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mean I imagine it went into the hundreds he you know put my work on the market in
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large numbers and who important people there is a foreign asian in the nursery
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with investigative denmark in a Roman port main minister thought did you do that yes of course I did I have said so
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often enough and so of other people said sir why do you suppose this is not being
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accepted now well I don't know that wishful thinking perhaps on the part of
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the National Gallery of Denmark but in their proof of but I mean it's absolutely
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well I I say but people believe what they want to believe but there's no
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doubt that the drawing passed through my hands I mean I had the drawing that it was I who sold it to hands Kalman and it
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was hands Kalman who sold it to the National Gallery of Denmark and it was not known before everyone's friendship
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with the late Sir Anthony Blunt lent credibility to his activities as a dealer the dealers who work with high
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quality drawings tend to want a scholarly opinion and this is why in the case of Blount he would occasionally
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give his imprimatur on say oh yes I believe that is a genuine Prasad castellone dalla bella or whatever
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artist lund happened to know rather a lot about and of course sometimes mistakes were made but if a mistake was
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made it's basically uncorrectable because without actually someone writing a very serious article in the Leonard
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periodical saying that these attributions are provably wrong the matter just drops
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I knew that Anthony Blunt and this dealer hen's Kalman were antagonists I
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mean they didn't agree with each other hands thought that Denton E was you know not the right Hans who then and Anthony
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thought that hence Calvin wasn't they right so I thought I'd make this drawing to tease them I thought I'd make it near
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enough of taboo sanfur Antony to take it seriously but not close he nothing to accept it and put it there you know
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among the Masters works then I take it to hands and say look Antony blunt says this is a fake what do
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you think but I knew that his reaction would be what to fake if Antony such as
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a failure must be genuine that sort of thing Anthony Blunt was regarded as one of the great experts he was artful in
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charge of the Royal Collection and the Royal Collection has been one of the most magnificent collections of world
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master drawings in the world and who was engaged in cataloguing it and supervising other people's catalogues on
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it his range of expertise knowledge and awareness was immense Christopher white
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at Carnegie's had been one of his pupils just as I had been and I'm sure that
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amongst you out in his pupils there was a level of devotion if not veneration
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which made us all take really seriously anything that he was inclined to suggest
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when I have a friend I treat them slightly differently to I treat the way I treat so I'm not totally objective
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about anything I would hate to ruin his reputation as a scholar when he was alive I didn't want to do it and now
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he's dead I don't want to do it I don't want to put to jeopardize his a well
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I've said did you know his reputation so I still tend always to rather defend him
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I know this is not objective but at least I admit it no we were not
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but we almost were as one evening I came
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back from the Rome scholarship and I hadn't seen him for a number of months and he sent me a telegram sir why you so
23:05
damned standoffish I think the telegram made war why so standoffish telephone and he gave his telephone number and I
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phoned him up and said come round this evening and we'll have a few drinks together I went round he was drinking
23:18
his gin and tonic he laughed and I don't mind it either but I had an empty stomach my god as drunk as a lord and he
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got as drunk as a sir which he was seeing his base and we were wheeling
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around eventually collapsed on his bed and I'm sure if we hadn't drunk him so
23:37
much I mean you know we might have actually made love but we did literally go to bed together and in my book I've
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said that we were suffering from Brewers droop as they called some circles what
23:53
happened did and where he was very clever was that he did deal in old master drawings as well as being a
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brilliant artist himself so he mixed his drawings with those of with those by
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original of original works and I think he probably did show them to blunt and
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blunt quite naturally was a collector and therefore anyway he would have been interested in seeing them and
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I'm sure blunt would comment on them but I don't think there was any collusion there with blunt actually working with
24:27
heaven set and then telling him to go to Sotheby's or Christie's or Cole nagas or
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wherever and sell the drawings it seems as I sold a lot through corner keys
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because Cornell Giza the only people made a public statement saying that I'd sold in 1978 the London dealers Col Nagi
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& Co felt obliged to issue a statement to the press they acknowledged a common hand at work in a number of the drawings
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that they had handled over the previous 10 years the source was Erica born one
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of these was a missing link in the irv of the great Flemish Master Sir Anthony Van Dyck purporting to be a study for
25:05
his painting of Christ crowned with thorns I was looking through a book on
25:11
Van Dyck drawings and I saw a series of drawings preparatory studies for
25:16
painting and I thought you know he's missed a chance there and I CLE would be
25:21
better if that figure was moved over here and a little bit more stress there and on him I'll try that out and so I
25:29
made a drawing in his manner making a variation on the other drawings what was interesting about Eric Evans approach to
25:36
making that drawing was that he found a group of the parrot few studies made by
25:42
Van Dyck for a painting where and I could experimented with different
25:47
positions and this is of a perfect common thing but we are it was unusual but we had though I think about four or
25:53
five drawings for this particular composition and what he very skillfully did was to rearrange the figures taking
26:00
one figure from one drawing and another from another in itself a perfectly reasonable thing for the artist to do I
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mean as he was working through the his ideas to find the ideal solution but
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when you studied them very carefully you see there is something rather suited in way that he extrapolated one figure from
26:20
one drawing and another but but as I say it was it was well I've saved all the
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brilliant people together Cole Maggie's unwittingly sold her bones joined to the British as a VanDyke for an undisclosed sum in
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1970 it is now correctly attributed to Ericka born whoever buys a babe has been
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cheated that is something which causes concern I mean whether it's the public
26:47
institution or private collector they both in Keith here and I think the ones concerned when people are cheated any of
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the drawings that have on claims to have made passed through the hands of leading dealers and the great auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's into the
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possession of private collectors as well as Renaissance masters heaven claims around 80 drawings in the style of
27:07
Augustus John successfully executed stakin Lee attributed and sold in London
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steno Elana Seeley deputy chairman and director of Fine Arts at Christie's was unavailable for comment the Julian stock
27:19
the old master drawings Department of Sotheby's was glad of an opportunity to clarify the conclusion well it's
27:27
possible a thousand drawings but the list that I've been given of what he's admitting
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to only comes to 80 so it seems to me there are another nine hundred or so out
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there one of the drawings that we sold and as long ago as 1967 was this rather
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beautiful drawing of a page which took us in because we cataloged it as
27:54
attributed to Francesco del casas and based on an attribution of another
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drawing in the British Museum which in fact mr. heaven now claims was his
28:06
prototype and we sold it I think it must have been one of the first drawings that
28:12
he actually sent in for sale and it was purchased by Col nagas who then they
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didn't believe our attribution to Francesco del casas they called it just north Italian school 15th century and it
28:28
was purchased by the Morgan live the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York which is one of the most renowned
28:34
libraries in the world I would say he must be one of the very best that
28:39
probably ever lived I think one might go that far although now that one's recognized his work it's very
28:48
easy to see them for me it is anyway it's very easy I'm sure for some people
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they're probably they might still be struggling to actually believe that they can be forged another drawing but we had
29:02
that is apparently claimed by Eric Kevin that he drew was a drawing by Yann
29:07
Bruegel that we sold and this one I must admit is very different from the others
29:14
that we're seeing now the papers foxed which is rather like a sort of fettling
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it's a it's some some of the iron in the paper which has got damp and it's it's
29:26
got it's a disease in the paper and this drawing which is very spontaneous um he
29:31
claims he drew and I'm not actually 100% certain that he did it I wonder really
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whether this is by heaven himself and I'd like him in a way to look at the
29:43
drawing however we sold it and then it went to a dealer in Hamburg and the dealer in Hamburg didn't find a client
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and he gave it to another auction house to sell in Amsterdam and it was sold in Amsterdam and I don't know where it is
29:58
now this this is a Leonardo drawing that was offered to us and I'd looked at it I
30:06
felt that it was a forgery and I'm not certain that it's by Eric heaven but I
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wouldn't be surprised and I would be interested to have mr. heavens comments
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on it because in my opinion and a number of other people it is without doubt a
30:23
forgery why is the facial types is one of the
30:28
main giveaways here although there is pentimenti in the head of of the baptist
30:34
the the faces are too sweet and they don't have the physiognomy that you
30:40
would have in the early 16th century Penta mint is when an artist is rapidly
30:49
working out a position for a figure and he'll move his head like this like that
30:54
like this or like this and each that will all be on one drawing
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now that is Penta meant pent it we call it pentimenti and when we see that that
31:07
gives us lots of confidence that the drawing is an original work of art because normally the copyist doesn't do
31:14
that he just copies one position of the head so heaven knew this probably one
31:21
obviously he he loves of the old masters he must have looked at them very intensely fact that he uses old paper
31:28
and a why didn't he use new paper he didn't use new paper because he would he
31:35
knows that we're not that simple volumes
31:44
containing blank fly leaves are still easily available from antiquarian book shops here I have another book I've
31:51
removed a piece of the Benham and if curiously enough the shape corresponds
31:57
Rolla use me with this drawing if we
32:03
notice blind slopes down at the top and so on this is attributed to personnel
32:10
law strong of an eagle's head the inspiration for that drawing came from a
32:16
photograph in a book called Annie Marley mondo Annie Marley and there's the
32:22
photograph let's have a look at the drawing together with it there we are
32:28
you see it's in exactly the same position and I think there's little
32:33
doubt that in fact that photograph is the inspiration for this drawing this
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drawing was attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist pisanello by the gallery's Salomon a Gastonia grantee at
32:45
their sale in Milan in 85 in the same sale which contained a large group of
32:51
drawings now claimed by heaven was a small study of women attributed to Parma or Giovanni here we have Paul Maynard
33:01
Giovanni Venice 1544 zone and here's my sketch for this or related to it I
33:09
screwed it up I wanted it to away and somehow it survived you sold in this thing and it has here X collection
33:15
old Spencer now how the hell he could have had it before I produced it is
33:21
something I shall never know important drawings often bear one or more collectors marks small stamped monograms
33:29
which indicate their past history with collectors such as Jonathan Richardson and Sir Joshua Reynolds many of the
33:37
drawings that he's now claiming to have done bear fake collectors marks on them
33:42
doing that I would imagine is going beyond just drawing and letting the
33:51
expert make up his mind he's actually making the expert believed that the
33:56
drawing comes from Sir Joshua Reynolds or Sir Peter Lee Lee and therefore it should be an original Reynolds is not
34:03
particularly distinguished collection it contained an awful lot of dross and I
34:10
mean sometimes sheets with the collectors mark on a more interesting for the mark than for the drawing as if
34:17
it was it was quite a shrewd one tools yes why not they're very decorative I
34:22
mean it could be he could be claimed I mean people will claim that it's forgery but that's just their opinion tell me
34:30
about why did you protect his mark well they looked ice one thing I enjoy this
34:35
because they helped convince the experts they were general I don't think so I mean if they were experts I would have
34:41
seen that they were false collectors marks they should have seen in fact they weren't done very well some of them were
34:47
done freehand in watercolor rather than being stamped I mean I did them very in
34:52
a very amateurish way they shouldn't have been fooled at all but you see what is the the whole factoring in in the
34:59
whole affair that seizes people's imaginations the money Eric has never harmed anybody he's crossed a whole lot
35:06
of people a lot of money and I'm very glad
35:13
laughs at the expert and have a certain amount of pleasure in seeing a drawing
35:18
that you did in a museum with the learning catalog entry and you look at
35:25
it and you think well they don't know what they're talking about and I suppose that there's a certain amount of
35:31
pleasure of course in a way I find it amusing myself I became your millionaire
35:37
that you made a million yes I mean that's certainly not a great deal of
35:43
money must have gone through my hands but it goes through everybody's hands nowadays because life is expensive even
35:49
a modest lifestyle like mine cost money and I've had to make a living as an
35:54
artist a painter sculptor and all this sort of thing my own right and some of
36:00
the money I've earned has come through during the fakes as well I don't like the word fake apply to perfectly genuine
36:07
drawings but you know it's a word that people will apply to what I've done I
36:14
think that he is behaved really extremely badly odd people who have
36:21
trusted him and that I find deeply offensive um as far in as sympathy with
36:29
the trade that I have not at all the trade has always been well certainly
36:37
from the great bulk of the last 30 years the trade has been wrong but but no fine
36:42
point on it who ought to know in our business better who all not who had such
36:48
elastic judgment who ought not to have taken risks who knowing once the finger
36:54
had been pointed at Eric as it was very early on that he was a dangerous
37:00
customer to deal with and continue to deal with him for those people we need
37:06
have no sympathy at all my immediate reaction to the idea that Eric made at
37:12
least a thousand drawings would suppose that they were probably rather more than that judging by the rapidity with which
37:17
they are scribbled I believe his do chanise who went out with a lantern in
37:22
the middle of the day was asked what he was doing is ever in search of an honest man and well I
37:30
think you might possibly find an honest man but I don't think you'll find an honest man who's also a dealer new
37:38
dealer is likely to turn down something in which an enormous profit resides on a
37:44
sort of 10% suspicion he would take it on and push it Italian dealers are an
37:51
extremely dodgy lot in general I suppose and I mean Italy has been a source of
37:58
fakes for centuries and that absolutely brilliant and the dealers don't actually
38:04
mind selling them you know if somebody is foolish enough to buy them why not if
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they get something in that looks like Pontormo and they're frightfully keen to set it as Pontormo you know they won't
38:15
go go round and really seriously look into it
38:32
the palazzo stop Seafarer is the kind of place that I try to avoid because it's
38:39
full of all the snobby people and flashy kind of people and I feel also too close
38:45
to the dealers I'd like to see his little liberal in as I possibly can just you have to sell them something
38:51
then I Maus because on the whole I own you know they're not the kind of people
38:57
I like and I believe they don't like me anymore
39:06
addy hmm deals in the north of Italy he asked me if I could find for him a collection of
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old master drawings I said well no I don't deal in drawing anymore he's a world um you know will be very well-paid
39:20
on him and worry about that and I produced for him 30 or so important old
39:28
masters I mean very big names Pontormo and done I'd piss on Ehlo parmigianino
39:38
the sort of thing this dealer took the
39:44
drawings away and put them into sale and gave wrong attribution I mean he must
39:50
have known that the things were fake I mean he commissioned them I mean he'd asked me will you please do this and I
39:55
done it you know and so he knew perfectly well what he was handling and when I saw a sale catalogue with these
40:05
droids reproduced I found that not only had he given the attributions as being
40:11
firm and definite it also made stains on drawing to simulate age which is neat
40:18
because they were on old paper with old materials in any case and he'd also given false provenances I was so
40:26
surprised to find that the prices were so high I mean a hundred and seventy million I think it was for a Pontormo
40:32
that I'd made we're talking about 90,000 pounds or something like that there's quite a lot of money for drawing
40:39
that you've only Spade the artist 750 pounds for if that
40:46
there's quite a markup Eric highborn yes
40:55
it's by Eric highborn Eric he born
41:01
senior Eric airborne ISM is an artist the Salomon a Gastonia our grantee
41:08
catalog then the land sale of November 1985 appeared to confuse the dealer had
41:13
helped to compile it see know the exact
41:20
details of the Milan sale remain shrouded in mystery one magazine reported huge prices while other dealers
41:27
who attended the sale dismissed it as a bad joke little is known of the whereabouts of these drawings that one
41:33
of the Milan highborns the pastoral scene attributed to castee leone was sold for over nine thousand pounds at
41:39
Christie's London in December 1990 it was bought by a leading dealer in New York I have in fact carried out my most
41:50
significant work in the last decade or so but this is merely because I'm
41:57
getting better no one is an artist isn't quite like a footballer who sort of yeah
42:03
gets tired after the age of 25 or whatever it is
42:09
artists can go on forever and ever this beautiful drawing by Goya on the subject saying we still learn of himself as an
42:16
old man with a beard and he's tottering towards the grave but one can still
42:21
learn and master them so even in my fakes I'm getting better
42:27
I don't know when I suppose if you did the perfect fake you you there's no you
42:33
can't get any better I'd like to think I have done one or two perfect one
42:52
the old master toys are usually slight and sketchy all so on and so forth but nevertheless they're very important
42:58
because they are much nearer to the artists original thought noise he's
43:05
dashing down an idea in his first sketch and often this is lost in the final work one is closer to the creative process in
43:14
a drawing and one is in a final piece of sculpture or painting or fresco and this
43:21
this is one of the values of drawing but I believe there's an even deeper value
43:26
to drawing and mankind is in at the point of losing it is becoming a dead
43:33
art and it's the art of line
43:49
I wouldn't say that I've been taken
44:04
seriously by society or by the scholars or by anybody else I'd say I've been totally ignored the only reason people
44:11
are taking notice of me now is because I've made a handful of fakes nobody is truly interested in the art
44:17
side of it what I've really done whether I have a contribution to make or not what they're interested in is the
44:23
scandal of someone having fooled some experts we should enjoy works about what
44:29
they are don't worry too much whether the attributions are correct or otherwise in the long run I think my
44:36
story will be the beneficial effect on the experts and I think they'll take a
44:43
wider view of that matter and not be such fast spots as they are now