FREDA BEDI CONT'D (#4)

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Forgery
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/31/22

-- Noble lie [Pious Fiction] [Pious Fraud] [Pious Invention], by Wikipedia
-- Outline of forgery, by Wikipedia
-- Literary forgery, by Wikipedia
-- False document, by Wikipedia
-- Pseudepigrapha, by Wikipedia
-- Donation of Constantine, by Wikipedia
-- A treasured manuscript in a college library that was believed to have been written by Galileo is a forgery, university says, by Aya Elamroussi
-- The Artist Who Got Rich Forging Picasso & Matisse: Real Fake: Elmyr de Hory, by Perspective
-- Forgery, by Wikipedia

When D. P. Walker wrote about "ancient theology" or prisca theologia, he firmly linked it to Christianity and Platonism (Walker 1972). On the first page of his book, Walker defined the term as follows:

By the term "Ancient Theology" I mean a certain tradition of Christian apologetic theology which rests on misdated texts. Many of the early Fathers, in particular Lactantius, Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius, in their apologetic works directed against pagan philosophers, made use of supposedly very ancient texts: Hermetica, Orphica, Sibylline Prophecies, Pythagorean Carmina Aurea, etc., most of which in fact date from the first four centuries of our era. [100-400 A.D.] These texts, written by the Ancient Theologians hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, were shown to contain vestiges of the true religion: monotheism, the Trinity, the creation of the world out of nothing through the Word, and so forth. It was from these that Plato [428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC)] took the religious truths to be found in his writings. [???!!!] (Walker 1972:1)

Walker described A revival of such "ancient theology" in the Renaissance and in "platonizing theologians from Ficino to Cudworth" who wanted to "integrate Platonism and Neoplatonism into Christianity, so that their own religious and philosophical beliefs might coincide" [!!!](p. 2). After the debunking of the genuineness and antiquity of the texts favored by these ancient theologians, the movement ought to have died; but Walker detected "a few isolated survivals" such as Athanasius Kircher, Pierre-Daniel Huet, and the Jesuit figurists of the French China mission (p. 194). For Walker the last Mohican of this movement, so to say, is Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686-1743), whose views are described in the final chapter of The Ancient Theology. But seen through the lens of our concerns here, one could easily extend this line to various figures in this book, for example, Jean Calmette, John Zephaniah Holwell, Abbe Vincent Mignot, Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, Guillaume Sainte-Croix, and also to William Jones (App 2009).

-- The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App

On the right, the real sheet of a theatre surimono by Kunisada, on the left with a faked signature of Hokkei, c. 1825

Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself).[1][2] Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidden by law in some jurisdictions but such an offense is not related to forgery unless the tampered legal instrument was actually used in the course of the crime to defraud another person or entity. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations.

Forging money or currency is more often called counterfeiting. But consumer goods may also be counterfeits if they are not manufactured or produced by the designated manufacturer or producer given on the label or flagged by the trademark symbol. When the object forged is a record or document it is often called a false document.

This usage of "forgery" does not derive from metalwork done at a blacksmith's forge, but it has a parallel history. A sense of "to counterfeit" is already in the Anglo-French verb forger, meaning "falsify".

A forgery is essentially concerned with a produced or altered object. Where the prime concern of a forgery is less focused on the object itself – what it is worth or what it "proves" – than on a tacit statement of criticism that is revealed by the reactions the object provokes in others, then the larger process is a hoax. In a hoax, a rumor or a genuine object planted in a concocted situation, may substitute for a forged physical object.

The similar crime of fraud is the crime of deceiving another, including through the use of objects obtained through forgery. Forgery is one of the techniques of fraud, including identity theft. Forgery is one of the threats addressed by security engineering.

In the 16th century, imitators of Albrecht Dürer's style of printmaking improved the market for their own prints by signing them "AD", making them forgeries. In the 20th century the art market made forgeries highly profitable. There are widespread forgeries of especially valued artists, such as drawings originally by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse.

A special case of double forgery is the forging of Vermeer's paintings by Han van Meegeren, and in its turn the forging of Van Meegeren's work by his son Jacques van Meegeren.[3]

Criminal law


A forged police identification card used by a convicted terrorist.

England and Wales and Northern Ireland

In England and Wales and Northern Ireland, forgery is an offence under section 1 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which provides:

A person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice.[4]

"Instrument" is defined by section 8, "makes" and "false" by section 9, and "induce" and "prejudice" by section 10.

Forgery is triable either way. A person guilty of forgery is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, or, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.[5]

For offences akin to forgery, see English criminal law#Forgery, personation, and cheating.

The common law offence of forgery is abolished for all purposes not relating to offences committed before the commencement of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.[6]

Scotland

Forgery is not an official offence under the law of Scotland, except in cases where statute provides otherwise.[7][8]

The Forgery of Foreign Bills Act 1803 was repealed in 2013.

Republic of Ireland

In the Republic of Ireland, forgery is an offence under section 25(1) of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001 which provides:

A person is guilty of forgery if he or she makes a false instrument with the intention that it shall be used to induce another person to accept it as genuine and, by reason of so accepting it, to do some act, or to make some omission, to the prejudice of that person or any other person.[9]

A person guilty of forgery is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, or to a fine, or to both.[10]

Any offence at common law of forgery is abolished. The abolition of a common law offence of forgery does not affect proceedings for any such offence committed before its abolition.[11]

Except as regards offences committed before the commencement of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001 and except where the context otherwise requires, without prejudice to section 65(4)(a) of that Act, references to forgery must be construed in accordance with the provisions of that Act.[12]

Canada

Forgery is an offence under sections 366, 367 and 368 of the Canadian Criminal Code. The offence is a hybrid offence, subject to a maximum prison sentence of:

• if tried summarily: 6 months
• if tried on indictment: 10 years

United States

Further information: Crimes Act of 1790

Forgery is a crime in all jurisdictions within the United States, both state and federal.[1][2] Most states, including California, describe forgery as occurring when a person alters a written document "with the intent to defraud, knowing that he or she has no authority to do so."[13] The written document usually has to be an instrument of legal significance. Punishments for forgery vary widely. In California, forgery for an amount under $950[14] can result in misdemeanor charges and no jail time, while a forgery involving a loss of over $500,000 can result in three years in prison for the forgery plus a five-year "conduct enhancement" for the amount of the loss, yielding eight years in prison.[15] In Connecticut, forgery in the Third Degree, which is a class B misdemeanor[16] is punishable by up to 6 months in jail, a $1000 fine, and probation; forgery in the First Degree, which is a class C felony,[17] is punishable by a maximum 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000 fine, or both.[18]

Civil law

As to the effect, in the United Kingdom, of a forged signature on a bill of exchange, see section 24 of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882.

In popular culture

• The 1839 novel by Honoré de Balzac, Pierre Grassou, concerns an artist who lives off forgeries.[19]
• The Orson Welles documentary F for Fake concerns both art and literary forgery. For the movie, Welles intercut footage of Elmyr de Hory, an art forger, and Clifford Irving, who wrote an "authorized" autobiography of Howard Hughes that had been revealed to be a hoax. While forgery is the ostensible subject of the film, it also concerns art, film making, storytelling and the creative process.[20]
• The 1966 heist comedy film How to Steal a Million centers around Nicole Bonnet (Audrey Hepburn) attempting to steal a fake Cellini made by her grandfather.[21]
• The 1964 children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory written by Roald Dahl revealed the "golden ticket" in Japan was a forgery.
• The 1972 novel by Irving Wallace, The Word concerns archaeological forgery, the finding and translation of a supposed lost gospel by James the Just, close relative of Jesus Christ, as part of a large project to be published as a new Bible that would inspire a Christian revival, but which is possibly a forged document.[22]
• The 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, directed by Steven Spielberg, is based on the claims of Frank Abagnale, a con man who allegedly stole over $2.5 million through forgery, imposture and other frauds, which are dramatized in the film. His career in crime lasted six years from 1963 to 1969.[23] The veracity of most of Abagnale's claims has been questioned.[24]
• The graphic art novel The Last Coiner, authored by Peter M. Kershaw, is based on the exploits of the 18th century counterfeiters, the Cragg Vale Coiners, who were sentenced to execution by hanging at Tyburn.[25]

See also

Main article: Outline of forgery

• Art forgery
• Authentication
• J. S. G. Boggs American artist
• Counterfeiting
o coins
o currency
o medicine
• Digital signature forgery
o watches
o postage stamps
• Epigraphy
• False document
• Phishing
• Questioned document examination
• Replica
• Signature forgery
• United States Secret Service
• White-collar crime

References

1. United States v. Hunt, 456 F.3d 1255, 1260 (10th Cir. 2006) ("Historically, forgery was defined as the false making, with the intent to defraud, of a document which is not what it purports to be, as distinct from a document which is genuine but nevertheless contains a term or representation known to be false.") (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added); see generally, 10 U.S.C. § 923 ("Forgery"); 18 U.S.C. §§ 470–514 (counterfeiting and forgery-related federal offenses); 18 U.S.C. § 1543 ("Forgery or false use of passport").
2. "§ 19.71 S. Forgery". The Law Offices of Norton Tooby. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
3. Davies, Serena (2006-08-04). "The forger who fooled the world". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 2022-01-12. Retrieved 2019-04-29.
4. Legislation.gov.uk. Digitised copy of section 1.
5. The Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, sections 6(1) to (3)(a)
6. The Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, section 13
7. W J Stewart and Robert Burgess. Collins Dictionary of Law. HarperCollins Publishers. 1996. ISBN 0 00 470009 0. Pages 176 and 398.
8. Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia
9. Irish Statute Book. Digitised copy of section 25.
10. The Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001, section 25(2)
11. The Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001, sections 3(2) and (3)
12. The Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001, section 65(4)(b)
13. "California Legislative Information, Penal Code section 470". Retrieved 20 July 2017.
14. Brady, Katherine (November 2014). "California Prop 47 and SB 1310: Representing Immigrants" (PDF). Immigrant Legal Resource Center1. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
15. Couzens, J. Richard; Bigelow, Tricia A. (May 2017). "Felony Sentencing After Realignment" (PDF). California Courts. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
16. "Chapter 952 - Penal Code: Offenses". http://www.cga.ct.gov. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
17. "Chapter 952 - Penal Code: Offenses". http://www.cga.ct.gov. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
18. Norman-Eady, Sandra; Coppolo, George; Reinhart, Christopher (1 December 2006). "Crimes and Their Maximum Penalties". Office of Legislative Research. Connecticut General Assembly. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
19. Yeazell, Ruth Bernard (2008). Art of the Everyday: Dutch Painting and the Realist Novel. Princeton University Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0691127262.
20. McBride, Joseph (2006). What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 245–250. ISBN 0813124107.
21. Casper, Drew (2011). Hollywood Film 1963-1976: Years of Revolution and Reaction. John Wiley & Sons. p. 1972. ISBN 978-1405188272.
22. Cawelti, John G. (1977). Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. University of Chicago Press. p. 281. ISBN 0226098672.
23. Wight, Douglas (2012). "Owning December". Leonardo DiCaprio: The Biography. John Blake Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1857829570.
24. Lopez, Xavier (23 April 2021). "Could this famous con man be lying about his story? A new book suggests he is". WHYY. WHYY. PBS. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
25. "Telling the Coiners' story". BBC North Yorkshire. 3 June 2008.

Sources

• Cohon, Robert. Discovery & Deceit: archaeology & the forger's craft Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum, 1996
• Muscarella, Oscar. The Lie Became Great: the forgery of Ancient Near Eastern cultures, 2000
• "Imaginary Images" in Detecting the Truth: Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery at Library and Archives Canada

External links

• Bibliographies of archaeological forgeries, art forgeries etc
• Museum security mnetwork: sources of information on art forgery; with encyclopedic links
• Fakes and Forgeries on the Trafficking Culture website, University of Glasgow
• Academic Classification of Levels of Forgery on The Authentication in Art Foundation Website
• List of Caught Art Forgers on The Authentication in Art Foundation Website

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New York Files Charges Against Disgraced Art Dealer Subhash Kapoor in $145 Million Smuggling Ring: Subhash Kapoor will be extradited to the US following the completion of his long-running trial in India.
by Sarah Cascone
artnetnews
July 11, 2019


This Ganesha statue purchased by the Toledo Museum of Art from Subhash Kapoor in 2006 was looted, and was returned to India. Photo courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has filed criminal charges against Indian art dealer Subhash Kapoor and seven coconspirators, charging them with operating a $145 million smuggling ring that dealt with thousands of looted antiquities over a period of 30 years. The arrest warrants for the eight men were filed Monday in New York City criminal court. It is the latest chapter of an ongoing international legal saga that has been getting knottier over the course of almost a decade.

Kapoor’s alleged wrongdoings were first made public in 2011, when he was arrested in Germany on suspicion of dealing in looted artworks after a years-long investigation codenamed Operation Hidden Idol. He is currently on trial in India, where he has been behind bars since July 2012. The new charges include 86 counts, from grand larceny to criminal possession of stolen property.

“It’s a fairly robust and complex complaint,” Kapoor’s lawyer, Georges Lederman of Pearlstein McCullough & Lederman LLP, told artnet News. He notes that at least one of the charges in the complaint filed in New York duplicates a crime for which Kapoor is on trial in India—an issue that will have to be sorted out by a judge.

Now age 70, Kapoor was a respected member of New York’s art community, helping museums around the world acquire important antiquities from Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand, sometimes through high-profile donations. But he has also been described as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world,” as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent James T. Hayes told looted antiquities blog Chasing Aphrodite.

In 2012, authorities revealed that they had seized $100 million in stolen ancient art from the dealer’s storage facilities. More than 2,600 ancient statues, artworks, and other artifacts have been recovered to date, some as recently as 2016.


Subhash Kapoor.

Kapoor duped many museums over the years, both by loaning them illicit artworks to make them seem more legitimate to prospective buyers, and by selling them the stolen objects. “These are, in many instances, priceless works that represent the culture and history of the countries from which they were stolen,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. told the Associated Press. “They are of enormous value.”

The National Gallery of Australia filed a lawsuit against the disgraced dealer in 2014 over a $5.6 million Chola-era bronze, titled Shiva as Lord of the Dance, and returned the looted statue to India, one of at least two turned over by the Australian government in connection with the case. Later that year, Ohio’s Toledo Museum of Art followed suit, repatriating an Indian antiquity purchased from Kapoor, as did the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.


A sandstone stele of Rishabhanata from the 10th century, believed looted, seized in a raid of Christie’s as part of an international investigation into former dealer Subhash Kapoor. Photo courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security.

According to the new criminal complaint against Kapoor, 36 looted objects worth an estimated $36 million are yet to be recovered, having been hidden by family members and trusted associates immediately following his 2011 arrest. Investigators based the charges on records seized from the Art of the Past, Kapoor’s former New York gallery, which included false import licenses, provenance records, and invoices.

Some of the alleged coconspirators are art restorers, believed to have cleaned the dirt off freshly unearthed antiquities to prepare them for sale, allowing Kapoor to present them as legally obtained treasures. Among them, according to the complaint, is British antiquities restorer Neil Perry Smith and Brooklyn-based restorer Richard Salmon. The authorities have asked Interpol for international arrest warrants for the suspects, who reside in India, London, and New York.

Meanwhile, US officials are requesting Kapoor’s extradition following the completion of his trial, presumably within a year, according to Lederman. “The trial is taking a very long time,” he said. “We should be guided by the prospect of extradition to the United States within a year.”

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A Former Top Manhattan Art Dealer Has Been Charged in an Antiquities Smuggling Racket
by Jim Mustian
AP 11:35 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — An art dealer who authorities called one of the most prolific smugglers in the world and seven others were charged with trafficking more than $140 million in stolen antiquities, prosecutors said Wednesday. Authorities described the case as one of the largest of its kind, saying the conspiracy began more than three decades ago and involved more than 2,600 recovered artifacts, including statues and ancient masterworks.

A criminal complaint filed in Manhattan state court said the smuggling was orchestrated by Subhash Kapoor, a New York art gallery owner who was arrested in Germany in 2011 and later extradited to India, where he faces similar charges.

An email seeking comment was sent to Kapoor’s defense attorney.

The prosecution involves artifacts stolen from Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Pakistan and other countries that were sold for profit to dealers and collectors around the world. Some of the items appeared in world-renowned museums without officials realizing they were ill-gotten gains.

“These are, in many instances, priceless works that represent the culture and history of the countries from which they were stolen,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. told The Associated Press in an interview. “They are of enormous value.”

In all, authorities said, the network trafficked more than $143 million worth of antiquities. The international investigation was called “Operation Hidden Idol.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has described Kapoor as “one of the most prolific art smugglers in the world.” He faces 86 counts in the criminal complaint, including grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.

The lead prosecutor, Matthew Bogdanos, told the AP that none of the defendants is believed to be in the United States. He said the authorities asked Interpol to issue international warrants for their arrest.

Kapoor, 70, owned the Art of the Past gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which authorities raided in early 2012.

The criminal complaint says Kapoor went to extraordinary lengths to acquire the artifacts, many of them statues of Hindu deities, and then falsified their provenance with forged documents.

It says Kapoor traveled the world seeking out antiquities that had been looted from temples, homes and archaeological sites.

Some of the artifacts were recovered from Kapoor’s storage units in New York.

Prosecutors said Kapoor had the items cleansed and repaired to remove any damage from illegal excavation, and then illegally exported them to the United States from their countries of origin.

“Kapoor would also loan stolen antiquities to major museums and institutions,” the complaint says, “creating yet another false veneer of legitimacy by its mere presence in otherwise reputable museums and institutions.”

The other defendants in the case include suppliers and restorers accused of conspiring with Kapoor.

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National Gallery of Australia Sues Dealer Over Stolen Antiquities
by Sarah Cascone
February 16, 2014


"Shiva as Lord of the Dance or Nataraja." Cica 11th century, Indian bronze statue.

The National Gallery of Australia is suing art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who sold the museum an allegedly stolen 11th-century Indian statue in 2008. The Chola-era bronze, titled Shiva as Lord of the Dance, or Nataraja, was purchased at Kapoor’s Art of the Past in New York for $5 million.

The lawsuit, filed with New York’s Supreme Court, accuses the gallery of fraud and seeks to reclaim the $5 million purchase price plus legal fees. The statue was allegedly stolen between January and November of 2006 from the Sivan Temple in the Ariyalur District of Tamil Nadu in southern India. All Indian antiquities are legally the property of the Indian government.

The artwork’s provenance came under question last year, when Aaron M. Freedman, office manager at Art of the Past, pleaded guilty on six counts of criminal possession of stolen property. Court documents for the case listed the Nataraja as having been illegally exported from India via a smuggling ring. The statue is one of 14 items that Australia’s National Gallery purchased from Art of the Past.

Kapoor was first detained on suspicion of stocking his gallery with antiques looted from historic sites in India in 2011. He is currently being held on charges of criminal looting in India.

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Assistant to Accused Antiquities Smuggler Pleads Guilty to Possessing Looted Items
by Tom Mashberg
ArtsBeat
December 4, 2013 10:09 PM December 4, 2013 10:09 pm 2


A statue of Yakshi, a female deity. Credit Manhattan District Attorney's Office

Aaron M. Freedman spent nearly 20 years managing the fine details of life at Subhash Kapoor’s art gallery on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Over that period, ending in 2012, the two men became good friends, shared an expertise in rare Indian artifacts and co-wrote several scholarly works.

On Wednesday, Mr. Freedman, 41, of Princeton, N.J., admitted in New York Supreme Court that he also helped Mr. Kapoor manage the shipment and sale of more than 150 items of looted Indian statuary, items in many cases dating back some 2,000 years.

Mr. Freedman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to six counts of criminal possession of stolen property valued at $35 million and agreed, under his plea, to help Manhattan and federal investigators with their prosecution of Mr. Kapoor, who is accused of smuggling more than $100 million in antiquities from India into the United States.

Mr. Kapoor, 64, is in prison in India but is expected to be extradited for trial in the United States next year.

Investigators are still hunting for dozens of the bronze and sandstone images of Hindu and Buddhist deities that they say were looted and sold over three decades under the supervision of Mr. Kapoor and his confederates.

Storage facilities associated with Mr. Kapoor were raided in 2012 by federal agents, and his gallery, Art of the Past, on Madison Avenue at 89th Street, is no longer operating.

“He is by far the biggest smuggler, in terms of numbers of antiquities stolen and their market value, that we have seen,” said James T. Hayes Jr., the special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in New York.

The authorities said that Mr. Freedman handled the day-to-day details of the gallery for Mr. Kapoor, while also helping to pay off smugglers, concoct false shipping and ownership papers, and arranging for sales to often unsuspecting collectors and museums.

Mr. Freedman’s guilty plea had immediate repercussions for the National Gallery of Australia, which had bought statues and other antiquities from Mr. Kapoor since 2006. For months the museum rejected calls from India to negotiate for the return of some of those artifacts, among them a rare $5 million bronze statuette of the god Shiva performing a dance. It was stolen from the Sivan Temple in India’s Ariyular district in 2006, India officials say.

But in his plea, Mr. Freedman admitted that he and Mr. Kapoor knew the three-foot-high Shiva was stolen when, in 2007, they created a false ownership history for the piece, including forged provenance papers and letters of authenticity. They then imported it illegally into the United States, sold it the museum, and arranged to have it shipped to Canberra, the site of the gallery.

In a statement on Thursday, the museum’s director, Ronald Radford, who approved the purchase, said prosecutors in New York had made him aware of the Freedman plea. He said his attorneys immediately asked the Indian government to “discuss avenues for restitution” and that the gallery will sue Mr. Kapoor.

On Wednesday, Mr. Freedman had told State Supreme Court Acting Justice Charles H. Solomon that his multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in 2005 and that his condition worsened while he worked with Mr. Kapoor.

“I say this not to excuse my involvement with Mr. Kapoor’s criminal activities,” Mr. Freedman said, “but to state that in 2005, after the onset of my disease, obtaining employment at a reputable gallery or auction house was virtually impossible.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is working with federal officials on the case, agreed to release Mr. Freedman on personal recognizance while his cooperation continues.

“We take these crimes very seriously, and as the office manager for Mr. Kapoor, he was the one who made much of it happen,” said an assistant district attorney, Matthew Bogdanos. “On the other hand, Mr. Freedman, I believe, is sincerely and genuinely remorseful and repentant and he has taken significant steps toward making amends.”

Under India’s Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, no art object more than 100 years old may be removed from the country. But since the law was instituted in 1972, antiquities from many Indian temples and heritage sites described as “newly discovered” have been auctioned in New York and London. In four raids at separate sites controlled by Mr. Kapoor in 2012, federal agents say they seized about 90 items worth, in total, more than $100 million, all of them having come out of India after 1972. Another 50 or so items valued at more than $40 million remain missing, and investigators are asking the public to help locate them.

One of the items Mr. Freedman is accused of helping steal and conceal is valued at $15 million and is among the rarest and most cherished statues missing from India. It is identified as the sandstone statue of a Yakshi, or female deity, from a stupa temple site in Bharhut, in Madhya Pradesh Province in central India. It is more than seven feet tall and weighs about 500 pounds. Indian scholars say the stupa of Bharhut is one of the most important Buddhist sites in the world.

In a sales brochure for the statue that was sent by Mr. Kapoor to private buyers, Mr. Freedman wrote: “This sculpture is the most significant example of Indian sculpture known to exist outside of India. It is of pivotal importance to the understanding of the Bharhut stupa, and to the entire development of Indian art.”

Indian officials said that they hoped the relic would be repatriated early next year. It is now being held in New York.

Paul B. Bergman, Mr. Freedman’s lawyer, said his client was eager to “take concrete steps to rectify his serious mistakes.”

A version of this article appears in print on 12/06/2013, on page C2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Guilty Plea in Case Of Indian Antiquities.

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Australian PM Tony Abbott Returns Stolen Statues to India: The Prime Minister seeks improved Australian-Indian relations ahead of uranium deal.
by Lorena Muñoz-Alonso
artnetmews
September 5, 2014


"Shiva as Lord of the Dance or Nataraja." Circa 11th century, Indian bronze statue.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott will return two looted statues to India during an official visit to the country, the Guardian reports. The statues were allegedly sold to Australian galleries by an Indian dealer accused of smuggling crimes. Abbott will hand back the statues during his meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where a deal to supply Australian uranium to India is expected to be signed. The uranium is to be used to fuel India’s nuclear power grid.

The stolen statues have been a sore spot in Australian-Indian relations. The Indian government say they were taken from its territory without permission by a trafficker of cultural artifacts. Subhash Kapoor, the antiques dealer who sold the sculptures, ­was arrested in 2011 and extradited to India, accused of organizing a $100 million smuggling ring, the Guardian reported.

The most valuable statue, a $5.6 million bronze “dancing Shiva” was sold by Kapoor to the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in 2008. A $300,000 stone sculpture of the Hindu god Ardhanariswara, also linked to Kapoor, ended up in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. Both the Shiva Narajara, which dates back to the 11th or 12th century, and the Ardhanariswara were removed from display earlier this year amid allegations they were stolen from temples in southern India.

The pieces’ return will end an uncomfortable diplomatic battle. As late as last November, NGA’s lawyers suggested no “conclusive evidence” had emerged to demonstrate the statue was stolen or illegally exported. Kapoor, who is in prison in India, claimed the statue had been sold to him by the wife of a diplomat, according to the institution. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

But in December, Kapoor’s office manager, Aaron Freedman, pleaded guilty in the New York Supreme Court to six counts of criminal possession of stolen property. The Shiva Nataraja was among the items listed as being illegally exported from India.


The Ardhanariswara sculpture smuggled by Subhash Kapoor. Photo via: The Telegraph

“This information represents a significant and concrete development in the available information regarding the Kapoor case,” the NGA statement said. The Indian authorities made a formal request for the statues to be returned last March, to which Australia immediately agreed.

Returning the objects “is testimony to Australia’s good citizenship on such matters and the importance with which Australia views its relationship with India,” Abbott’s office said.

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New evidence for Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue revealed by multispectral imaging
by Victor Gysembergh, CNRS, UMR 8061, France
Peter J. Williams, Tyndale House, UK
Emanuel Zingg, Sorbonne Université, France
Journal for the History of Astronomy 2022, Vol. 53(4) 383–393
© The Author(s) 2022
Corresponding author: Victor Gysembergh, CNRS, Centre Léon Robin (UMR 8061), 1 rue Victor Cousin, Paris 75005, France. Email: victor.gysembergh@gmail.com

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Angelo Mai (Latin Angelus Maius; 7 March 1782 – 8 September 1854) was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and then in the same role at the Vatican Library. The texts were often in parchment manuscripts that had been washed off and reused; he was able to read the lower text using chemicals. [NO CITATIONS!]

In particular he was able to locate a substantial portion of the much sought-after De republica of Cicero and the complete works of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.

-- by Angelo Mai, by Wikipedia

This year marks twenty years since the first significant efforts were made to use multispectral imaging (MSI) to reveal hidden writing within a parchment manuscript (the book in question contained the lost works of ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes). This noninvasive technology is especially suited for work with parchment, a unique sheet material made from animal skin whose surface can be written upon and then miraculously ‘erased’ by scraping for reuse by a later scribe. In the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world this recycling was common. Texts came and went, but parchment was expensive and always valuable to scribes. Books no longer deemed necessary or desirable were sometimes unbound, and the parchment scraped down and reused to create what is called a palimpsest. Even when the earlier writing was not visible to the naked eye, traces of the ink remained embedded in the parchment sheet, bonded to the collagen and proteins in the skin. Multispectral imaging can reveal traces of this hidden writing.

-- Seeing the Invisible — Multispectral Imaging of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts, by Dr. Melissa Moreton, Assistant Director for Strategic Initiatives at HMML [2018 to 2020]

Abstract

New evidence for ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus’ lost Star Catalogue has come to light thanks to multispectral imaging of a palimpsest manuscript and subsequent decipherment and interpretation. This new evidence is the most authoritative to date and allows major progress in the reconstruction of Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue. In particular, it confirms that the Star Catalogue was originally composed in equatorial coordinates. It also confirms that Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue was not based solely on data from Hipparchus’ Catalogue. Finally, the available numerical evidence is consistent with an accuracy within 1° of the real stellar coordinates, which would make Hipparchus’ Catalogue significantly more accurate than his successor Claudius Ptolemy’s.

Keywords

Aratus Latinus, Hipparchus, palimpsest, Ptolemy, star catalogues

Introduction

Hipparchus’ lost Star Catalogue is famous in the history of science as the earliest known attempt to record accurate coordinates of many celestial objects observable with the naked eye.1 However, contrary to Ptolemy’s later Star Catalogue as preserved in the Almagest and Handy Tables, direct evidence for the content of Hipparchus’ is scarce. His only extant work is the Commentary on the Phaenomena, a discussion of earlier writings on positional astronomy by Eudoxus of Cnidus and Aratus of Soli.2 Only a few references in later authors reflect stellar coordinates going back to Hipparchus – these are found mainly in the Aratus Latinus, a Latin translation of Aratus’ astronomical poem Phaenomena and related material. As noted by Neugebauer, the stellar coordinates in the Aratus Latinus agree with Hipparchus’ time, and the codeclination of α UMi in the Aratus Latinus agrees exactly with the value ascribed to Hipparchus by Ptolemy (Geography I, 7, 4).3

Multispectral imaging of the ancient Greek palimpsest known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus (henceforth CCR) has revealed new evidence for Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue.4 Jamie Klair, then an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge, first noticed the astronomical nature of the undertext on some folios in 2012, and Peter Williams first observed the presence of astronomical measurements in 2021. Indeed, some of the folios in this manuscript (ff. 47–54 and f. 64) stem from what was originally an ancient codex containing Aratus’ Phaenomena and related material, datable on palaeographic grounds to the fifth or sixth century CE.

Whereas the Aratus Latinus reflects only the Hipparchan boundaries of three circumpolar constellations (UMa, UMi and Dra), the dismembered Aratus codex of which several leaves made their way into CCR appears to have contained similar entries for all constellations. At present, the Hipparchan boundaries of the constellation Corona Borealis can therefore be recovered from the undertext of CCR (which was erased by the 9th or 10th c., when it was re-used to write Syriac translations of texts by John Climacus). No further material reflecting Hipparchan constellation boundaries has yet come to light from CCR; however, although pages stemming from the same codex (i.e. 47v, 49r, 52v and 53r) have not yet revealed legible text, it is possible that more will be recovered in the future.5 It is also possible that folios from the ancient codex are extant in some of the other palimpsests at Saint Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai.6

Figures 1 to 3 show images of folio 53v at three stages in the multispectral process. Colour versions of the images are available in the online version of the Journal.


Figure 1. Detail of f. 53v, beginning of the first column of undertext (Syriac overtext in dark brown, and faint traces of a few letters of the undertext). Courtesy Museum of the Bible Collection. All rights reserved. © Museum of the Bible, 2021.


Figure 2. Detail of f. 53v (multispectral image, by the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library and the Lazarus Project of the University of Rochester processed by Keith T. Knox: the enhanced Greek undertext appears in red below the Syriac overtext in black). Courtesy Museum of the Bible Collection. All rights reserved. © Museum of the Bible, 2021.


Figure 3. Detail of f. 53v (yellow tracings based on full set of multispectral images). Courtesy Museum of the Bible Collection. All rights reserved. © Museum of the Bible, 2021.

The new evidence for Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue in CCR

We give here a simplified transcription and translation of the relevant sections of the text from 48r and 53v, with our clarifications in parentheses7:

Ὁ στέφανος ἐν τῷ βορείῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ κείμενος κατὰ μῆκος μὲν ἐπέχει μ̊ θ̅ καὶ δ̅ ́ ἀπὸ τῆς α̅ μ̊ τοῦ σκορπίου ἕως ι̅ <καὶ> δ̅ ́ μ̊ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ζῳδίου. Κατὰ πλάτος δ᾽ ἐπέχει μ̊ ς̅ C καὶ δ̅ ́ ἀπὸ μ̅θ̅ μ̊ ἀπὸ τοῦ βορείου πόλου ἕως μ̊ ν̅ε̅ C καὶ δ̅ ́.

Προηγεῖται μὲν γὰρ ἐν αὐτῷ ὁ ἐχόμενος τοῦ λαμπροῦ ὡς πρὸς δύσιν ἐπέχων τοῦ σκορπίου τῆς α̅ μ̊ τὸ ἥμισυ. Ἔσχατος δὲ πρὸς ἀνατολὰς κεῖται ὁ δ′ ἐχόμενος ἐπ᾽ ἀνατολὰς τοῦ λαμπροῦ ἀστέρος [. . .] τοῦ βορείου πόλου μ̊ μ̅θ̅· νοτιώτατος δὲ ὁ γ′ ἀπὸ τοῦ λαμπροῦ πρὸς ἀνατολὰς ἀριθμούμενος ὃς ἀπέχει τοῦ πόλου μ̊ ν̅ε̅ C καὶ δ̅ ́.

Corona Borealis, lying in the northern hemisphere, in length spans 9°¼ from the first degree of Scorpius to 10°¼8 in the same zodiacal sign (i.e. in Scorpius). In breadth it spans 6°¾ from 49° from the North Pole to 55°¾.

Within it, the star (β CrB) to the West next to the bright one (α CrB) leads (i.e. is the first to rise), being at Scorpius 0.5°. The fourth9 star (ι CrB) to the East of the bright one (α CrB) is the last (i.e. to rise) [. . .]10 49° from the North Pole. Southernmost (δ CrB) is the third counting from the bright one (α CrB) towards the East, which is 55°¾ from the North Pole.

The first section states the extension of the constellation in μῆκος (‘length’) and πλάτος (‘breadth’), expressed for each as a value in degrees equal to the difference by two extremal coordinates. The second section names the stars at each extremity and repeats their extremal coordinates, thus mapping out the smallest spherical rectangle containing all the stars considered part of the constellation. Thus, it seems likely that the numerical data in the first section were originally derived from the coordinates in the second section. The concept of constellation boundaries underlying both sections is both similar to and different from its present-day analogue: these boundaries are drawn along vertical lines of right ascension and horizontal parallels, like today, but they make up simple rectangles instead of the intricate shapes introduced by Eugène Delporte (1882–1955).

Let us now discuss the numerical values given in the text. First, we need to explain the text’s unusual terminology. The term ‘length’ expresses the East-West extension of a constellation, while ‘breadth’ expresses its North-South extension. Position on a North- South axis is expressed as an angle ‘from the North Pole’ (like codeclination in an equatorial coordinate system). Position on an East-West axis is expressed by the combination of a zodiacal sign, which refers to a 30° arc (e.g. Scorpius for 210°–240°), and of a figure in degrees and fractions of degrees, which specifies the position within this arc. Thus, ‘the first degree of Scorpius’, which in principle refers to the interval between 0° exclusive and 1° inclusive, is equivalent here to the modern notation 211° (yielding a total East-West extension of 9°¼, as stated in the Greek text).

The northernmost and southernmost boundaries of CrB are stated twice in no uncertain terms. The easternmost and westernmost boundaries are more problematic. The corrupt passage about the easternmost boundary contains the numerals for 10 (ι) and 4 (δ), and can easily have derived from an original 10°¼. Indeed, in ancient Greek numerical notation, the confusion of a number and its reciprocal was frequent, because the sign denoting the fraction, the keraia, was slight: thus, δ′ (=¼) and δ (=4) were easily confused. The westernmost boundary is indicated first as being at 211°, then as being at 210°½. The first figure is consistent with an East-West extension of 9°¼ (assuming the correction 10°¼ mentioned above), and seems preferable at first glance. However, 210°30′ is the value indicated in Hipparchus’ Commentary (III, 5, 8, p. 274 Manitius) for the right ascension of β CrB, and must therefore be preferred. The figure 211° may easily have arisen through a copying error; and ensuingly, the East-West extension may have been corrected from an original 9°¾ to restore consistency with the position of the westernmost boundary. Assuming this interpretation of the discrepancy regarding the westernmost boundary, the boundaries of CrB are summarised in Table 1.

These coordinates are accurate to within 1° for the epoch of Hipparchus’ star catalogue (ca. 129 BCE),11 as can be verified with planetarium software such as Stellarium or by checking against Dennis Duke’s and Gerd Graßhoff’s lists of equatorial coordinates for the time of Hipparchus.12 Furthermore, they confirm that Hipparchus’ star catalogue was composed in equatorial, not ecliptical, coordinates, which has long been a matter of contention.13 It should be noted that the terminology of μῆκος (‘length’) and πλάτος (‘breadth’) is unusual for astronomical coordinates in an equatorial, not ecliptical, frame of reference. The practice of expressing right ascension with the combination of an artificial zodiac sign and a number of degrees is also highly unusual, and attested only in Hipparchus’ Commentary.14 The matching astronomical epoch and terminology provide strong evidence that the coordinates in CCR originated with Hipparchus.

Reassessing the evidence for Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue in Aratus Latinus

By providing comparative material, the Greek text also allows a better understanding of the related sections in the Aratus Latinus (henceforth also AL). AL is an early medieval translation into Latin, made in Northern France (most probably in Corbie Abbey) in the 8th c., of a Greek codex containing the Phenomena of Aratus and related material.15 In particular, AL contains sections on the boundaries of the circumpolar constellations, the Greek original of which now appears to have followed the same structure and terminology as the section on Corona Borealis in the CCR text.16

Hipparchus had already been identified as the ultimate source of the coordinates in these sections of AL over a century ago by Georg Dittmann, based on the observation that the codeclination of β UMi matches the figure quoted by Ptolemy in his Geography (I, 7, 4).17 Emanuel Gürkoff and Otto Neugebauer further discussed the philological issues at hand.18 However, evidence from AL has only received passing mention in scholarly discussion of Hipparchus’ and Ptolemy’s Star Catalogues.19 It would go beyond the scope of this paper to discuss at length the philological issues in these passages, where the vagaries of textual transmission are compounded by the translator’s imperfect knowledge of Greek.20 But it is of interest to summarise the numerical information about the boundaries of the circumpolar constellations Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and Draco according to Hipparchus that can be recovered from the Aratus Latinus.

Table 1. Boundaries of Corona Borealis according to CCR.

-- / α (right ascension) / Δ (codeclination)

β CrB / 210°30′ / --
π CrB / -- / 49°
δ CrB / -- / 55°45′
ι CrB / 220°15′ / --

Ursa Major

The text of Aratus Latinus indicates a North-South extension of 23° for Ursa Major, where 21°½ is expected, as shown by Table 2.

Ursa Minor

The text of Aratus Latinus indicates an East-West extension of 97°, presumably due to a scribal error for 107°; and a North-South extension of 1°½, presumably due to a common uncial error in the Greek text for 4°½. See Table 3.

Draco

The text of Aratus Latinus indicates a North-South extension of 27° (following manuscript P), which is consistent with the figures for γ and κ Dra. See Table 4.

In order to recover coordinates in Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue, the Aratus Latinus material is possibly more reliable than Hipparchus’ Commentary, as it comes from manuscripts that are earlier than the earliest known manuscript of the Commentary (11th c.). Recent study of the indications about the number of stars per constellation has shown that numerals in Aratus Latinus are highly reliable, agreeing in 28 of 34 cases (i.e. over 82% of the time) with the original number of stars per constellation in the Hipparchan catalogue, where this number can be reconstructed.21 At any rate, AL and CCR provide evidence for Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue that is independent from Hipparchus’ Commentary.

Table 2. Boundaries of Ursa Major according to Aratus Latinus.

-- / α / Δ

ο / W / 78°30′ / --
α / N / -- / 18°30′
μ / S / -- / 40°
η / E / 180° or 185° / --

Table 3. Boundaries of Ursa Minor according to Aratus Latinus.

-- / α / Δ
α / E/S / 347° / 12°24′
β N / -- / 8°
γ / W / 240° / --

Comparison with coordinates from Hipparchus’ Commentary

For eight of the stars figuring in CCR and AL, either right ascension, codeclination or both are also indicated in Hipparchus’ Commentary (noted αComm and Δcomm in Table 5). Remarkably, the values indicated for these stars in the Commentary mostly agree with those given in CCR and Aratus Latinus (values given in the Commentary were collected by Marx 202022 and checked by the present authors; bold font indicates values present both in the Commentary and in CCR/AL).

Out of seven cases where the same coordinate is indicated in the Commentary and CCR/AL, perfect agreement is observed in four cases. In two of the three cases where a discrepancy is observed, the text in Aratus Latinus is so corrupt that it is impossible to decide what the original figure was. Finally, in one case, concerning the right ascension of α UMi, a discrepancy of one degree is observed. This high rate of consistency suggests that both the Commentary and the CCR/AL material ultimately go back to the same source text, and thus confirms the common assumption23 that Hipparchus’ Commentary was written after his Star Catalogue.

In two cases, the CCR/AL material contains the codeclination of a star for which the Commentary material only provides the right ascension. In these two cases (β UMi and α UMa), we can thus form coordinate pairs. We therefore have two further test cases for the hypothesis that Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue was obtained by systematically adding a precession constant to each star’s ecliptic coordinates according to Hipparchus. If this hypothesis is correct, we should expect Hipparchus’ coordinates for β UMi and α UMa to be possibly rounded numbers near (α = 238°; Δ = 8°25′) and (α = 121°46′; Δ = 18°49′).24 Thus, in the case of β UMi, Ptolemy clearly didn’t merely add a precession constant to Hipparchus’ coordinates, but either made his own observations or used sources independent from Hipparchus. In the case of α UMa, on the other hand, Ptolemy may well have been dependent upon Hipparchus’ star catalogue.

Table 4. Boundaries of Draco according to Aratus Latinus.[/ ]

-- / -- / α / Δ

γ / S / -- 37°
ε / E / 298°/ --
κ / N / -- / 10°
λ / W / 121°? 124°? / --

Table 5. Star coordinates given in both Hipparchus’ Commentary and CCR or Aratus Latinus.

-- / αComm / ΔComm / α / Δ

α UMi / 348° / 12°24′ / 347° / 12°24′
β UMi / 240° / – / – / 8°
γ UMi / 240° / – / 240° / –
α UMa / 122° / – / – / 18° / 30′
η UMa / 184° / – / 180° or 185° / –
γ Dra / – / 37° / – / 37°
λ Dra / 123° / – / 121°? 124°?/ –
β CrB / 210°30′ / - / 210°30′ / -

The accuracy of Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue and its relationship with Ptolemy’s

In the above tables, where two possible figures have been indicated due to textual difficulties, at least one of these figures is accurate to within 1° for Hipparchus’ time; elsewhere, all coordinates are accurate to this extent. This level of accuracy is remarkable, because, by analogy with Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue, one would expect some large errors, that is, larger than 1°.25 Incidentally, such a high level of accuracy may have contributed to the survival of material from Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue long after Ptolemy’s Almagest became the standard handbook of mathematical astronomy in the Greek world. However, the sample size being relatively small, it is also possible that there were large errors in parts of Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue that were not preserved by CCR and Aratus Latinus.

It is also remarkable that the coordinates from CCR and Aratus Latinus are not consistent with the hypothesis that the data in Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue were arrived at simply by applying a precession constant to Hipparchus’ data. This can be shown by Table 6, where Hipparchus’ data are compared with the Almagest coordinates adjusted for precession to 129 BCE, denoted αAlm and ΔAlm.26 (Figures in italics are not attested in Hipparchus’ Commentary.)

If Ptolemy had converted Hipparchus’ equatorial coordinates to ecliptic coordinates and then added 2°40′ to the longitudes, we would expect columns 2 and 3 of Table 6 to be reasonably close to columns 4 and 5. Of course, Ptolemy rounds his coordinates to intervals of 1/6° or ¼°. Thus, discrepancies of up to 10′ or 15′ would not be inconsistent with such a direct use of Hipparchus’ data. But, as can be seen from the last two columns of the table, many of the differences are substantially greater than this. These observations are consistent with the view that Ptolemy composed his Star Catalogue by combining various sources, including Hipparchus’ Catalogue, his own observations and, possibly, those of other authors. Indeed, it would follow from this that Hipparchus’ Catalogue may have been considerably more accurate than Ptolemy’s, that is, with a significantly higher rate of coordinates accurate to within less than 1°. This would be consistent with the evidence from CCR and Aratus Latinus, where potentially 100% of coordinates are accurate to within less than 1°.

The comparatively small sample size and the philological issues in both CCR and Aratus Latinus prevent us from analysing the distribution of errors in Hipparchus’ catalogue. Therefore, we cannot draw any further conclusions about the methods and instruments used by Hipparchus to observe the firmament. Considering the equatorial coordinate format, it seems safe to assume nevertheless that, if his observations were conducted with an armillary sphere, this must have been an equatorial armillary sphere, and not an ecliptic armillary sphere like Ptolemy’s; however, it is also possible that the measurements were taken with a dioptra, which may have been easier to operate.27

Table 6. Comparison of star coordinates from Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue and Ptolemy’s.

-- / α / Δ / αAlm / ΔAlm / |α−αAlm| / |Δ−ΔAlm|

α UMi / 347° / 12°24′ / 345°41′ / 13°02′ / 1°19′ / 38′
β UMi / -- / 8° / -- / 8°25′ / -- / 25′
γ UMi / 240° / -- / 238°36′ / -- / 1°24′ / --
ο UMa / 78°30′ / -- / 77°22′ / -- / 1°8′ / --
α UMa / -- / 18°30′ / -- / 18°49′ / -- / 19′
μ UMa / -- / 40° / -- / 40°09′ / -- / 9′
η UMa 180° or 185° / -- / 184°8′ / -- / (4°)52′ / --
γ Dra / -- / 37° / -- / 36°49′ / -- / 11′
ε Dra / 298° / -- / 296°50′ / -- / 1°10′ / --
κ Dra / 10° / -- / 8°46′ / -- / 1°14′
λ Dra / 121°? 124°? / -- / 121°47′ / -- /47′ or 2°13′ / --
β CrB / 210°30′ / -- / 209°58′ / -- /32′ / --
π CrB / -- / 49° / -- / 48°58′/ -- / 2′
δ CrB / -- / 55°45′ / -- / 55°43′ / -- / 2′
ι CrB / 220°15′ / -- / 219°6′ / -- / 9′ / --

ORCID iD

Victor Gysembergh https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1633-9212

Notes on Contributors

Victor Gysembergh is a CNRS research professor at the Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne Université). He is currently working on an edition of the fragments of Eudoxus of Cnidus, as well as on editions of Claudius Ptolemy’s treatise On the Analemma and his recently discovered treatise on the Meteoroscope.

Peter J. Williams is Principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge, and is a biblical philologist who has been leading the research team investigating the Aramaic and Greek underwriting of Codex Climaci Rescriptus.

Emanuel Zingg is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne Université) in Paris. He is currently working on editions of Ptolemy’s treatise On the Analemma and his recently discovered treatise on the Meteoroscope.

Notes

1. G.J. Toomer, “Hipparchus,” in C.C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Supplement I (New York, NY: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1978), pp. 207–24.

2. K. Manitius, Hipparchi in Arati et Eudoxi Phaenomena Commentariorum libri tres (Leipzig, 1894).

3. O. Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, Vol. 1 (Berlin-Heidelberg; New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1975), pp. 288–91.

4. CCR consists of 146 folios, one of which is part of the Mingana Collection, Birmingham, under shelfmark MSyr637, and eight of which are kept at St Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai under shelfmark Syriac NF 38. The remaining 137 folios, including those with undertext from an ancient codex of Aratus’ Phaenomena, were given by Agnes Smith Lewis, who acquired them in Egypt between 1895 and 1906, to Westminster College, Cambridge, which sold them to the Green Collection in 2010. In 2012, the Green Collection donated these folios to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., where they are now kept under shelfmark MS.000149.

After several stages of imaging, the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library and the Lazarus Project captured the most recent multispectral data in July 2017 and provided processed images that contributed decisively to decipherment. They used a MegaVision spectral system that featured an E7 50MP digital back, a 120mm macro lens that is apochromatic across all captured wavelengths, and, for transmissive imaging, a multispectral light sheet. They took 42 shots of each page: 16 shots capturing the reflection of light emitted at 365 nm, 420 nm, 450 nm, 470 nm, 505 nm, 530 nm, 560 nm, 590 nm, 615 nm, 630 nm, 655 nm, 700 nm, 735 nm, 780 nm, 870 nm and 940 nm; 4 shots capturing the transmission through the parchment of light emitted at 500 nm, 580 nm, 735 nm and 940 nm; and 22 shots capturing fluorescence caused by light emitted at 365 nm, 385 nm, 400 nm and 450 nm (at the first three wavelengths, six different filters were used, i.e. blue, green, orange, red, UV pass and UV block; at 450 nm, the same were used except UV pass and UV block). Additional bands were captured of a small number of folios for experimental purposes.

For further details on this manuscript and its imaging, see P.J. Williams et al., “Newly- Discovered Illustrated Texts of Aratus and Eratosthenes Within Codex Climaci Recriptus,” The Classical Quarterly 72 (2022), forthcoming.

5. For a full publication of the astronomical undertexts recovered until now, see Williams et al., op. cit. (Note 4).

6. Saint Catherine’s Monastery of Mount Sinai is the home of over 160 palimpsests, which also underwent multispectral imaging by the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library; the processed images are available at https://sinai.library.ucla.edu/.

7. For philological discussion, see Williams et al., op. cit. (Note 4).

8. Here the text in the manuscript is corrupt, but it is possible to reconstruct the original numeral 10¼ on paleographic grounds (see below). In this passage we also correct the transmitted text μέ̣σ̣η̣ς̣ (‘half’) after the numeral to μ̊ (abbreviation for ‘degree’), because all other numerals in the text are followed by the indication of units.

9. The Greek has the particle δέ, but this does not make sense. The corrupt text can easily be restored by correcting δέ to δ′, the ordinal numeral “fourth”; the text counts inclusively, as shown further down by the ordinal number “third” for the southernmost star δ CrB.

10. The text here (end of folio 53v col. i) is too damaged to be deciphered. Based on the structure of the section, it is clear that it contained the extremal coordinate associated with ι CrB, which should be Scorpius 10°1/4 as in the first section, and the designation of the northernmost star in the constellation, which should be π CrB.

11. The epoch of Hipparchus’ star catalogue is commonly determined as approximately 129 BCE = −128 because Ptolemy (Almagest VII, 2) states that about 265 years elapsed between Hipparchus’ measurement of the position of Regulus and the beginning of the reign of Antoninus (137 CE), which would place Hipparchus’ observation in about 137 – 265 = −128.

12. Stellarium is a planetarium freeware available at https://stellarium.org/. Dennis Duke’s table of equatorial coordinates for 129 BCE is available at https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/ asc129bc-eq.xlsx, accessed 4 July 2022. Gerd Graßhoff’s table of coordinates for 129 BCE is published in G. Graßhoff, The History of Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue (Berlin-Heidelberg; New York, NY: Springer, 1990), Appendix B, pp. 275–316.

13. See D.W. Duke, “Hipparchus’ Coordinate System,” Archive for the History of Exact Sciences, 56 (2002), 427–33 (with references to earlier literature).

14. See Duke, op. cit. (Note 13), p. 428 and n. 9.

15. See H. Le Bourdellès, L'Aratus Latinus (Lille: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1985), esp. 251–63.

16. The relevant sections in Aratus Latinus were edited by E. Maass, Commentariorum in Aratum reliquiae (Berlin, 1898), pp. 183–9.

17. G. Dittmann, De Hygino Arati interprete (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1900), p. 51, n. 47.

18. E. Gürkoff, Die Katasterismen des Eratosthenes (Sofia: Saglasie, 1931), pp. 47–56; Neugebauer, op. cit. (Note 3), pp. 288–91.

19. Toomer, op. cit. (Note 1), p. 217b.

20. On the translator’s knowledge of Greek and Latin, see Le Bourdellès, op. cit. (Note 15), pp. 136–47.

21. V. Gysembergh, “A Synoptic Study of the Number of Stars in the Constellations of Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue,” in A. Hadravová, P. Hadrava and K. Lippincott (eds), The Stars in the Classical and Medieval Traditions (Prague: Scriptorium, 2019), pp. 19–20, Table 5.

22. C. Marx, “On the Making of Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 75 (2020), 21–42.

23. Toomer, op. cit. (Note 1), p. 217a.

24. Coordinates rounded from D.W. Duke’s adjustment of the Almagest coordinates to 129 BCE (see table quoted above, Note 12). All relevant coordinates in Duke’s table were verified by subtracting 2°40ʹ from the longitude indicated in Almagest VII to adjust for precession to 129 BCE, and applying the formulae for conversion between ecliptical and equatorial coordinates (assuming ε = 23°51ʹ20ʺ, Ptolemy’s value for the obliquity of the ecliptic). See the formulae given e.g. in J. Evans, Histoire et pratique de l'astronomie ancienne (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2016), pp. 113–4, which is an augmented French translation of The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 105. Interestingly, it was noticed during this verification that computing coordinates with ε = 23°30ʹ causes many significant changes (i.e. more than a quarter of a degree) in right ascension, and can cause changes of over two degrees for stars at high declinations; in this sense, it is possible that a small discrepancy in ε could have been an error factor in some of Ptolemy’s conversions from his earlier sources but this must remain a subject for further study.

25. See D.W. Duke, “Associations Between the Ancient Star Catalogues,” Archive for the History of Exact Sciences, 56 (2002), 435–50.

26. Values for Ptolemy are based on Duke’s table quoted above (Notes 12 and 24). We converted the decimals to the nearest arcminute.

27. On this possibility see G.J. Toomer, Ptolemy’s Almagest (London: Duckworth, 1984), p. 227, n. 20.

[admin]

Fraud in science: a plea for a new culture in research
M J Müller, B Landsberg & J Ried
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 68, pages 411–415 (2014)
Published: 02 April 2014

Highlights:

German philosopher Karl Jaspers described science as methodical insight that is mandatorily certain and universal. It is the ethos of modern science to want to reliably know on the basis of unbiased research and critique....

Misconduct and fraud in science do not only offend against its inherent norms and rules summed up in the ‘scientific ethos’ but also make a mockery of its goals—namely gaining knowledge as profound as possible, which again motivates further research and can be practically applied. Scientists depend on cooperation with each other as well as on productive, constructive and trusting relationships with possible investors, users of scientific results—especially patients—and the general public. Trust and honesty is vital for any kind of successful research. Violations of good scientific practice do not only affect those directly concerned but also science and society in general, and, if permitted, we run the risk of undermining the public’s trust in scientific practice as a whole.

Despite numerous cases of research misconduct being made public, this issue is still a taboo topic among the scientific community....

It would be too narrow-minded to question only the individual integrity of the scientist. Very often, if we look into these seemingly isolated cases of research misconduct further, structures can be identified in scientific practice, which benefit such misconduct if not promote it....

A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) proves that retractions of already published articles have become more frequent in the past 30 years. Between 1977 and 2011, 2047 articles were retracted in the fields of biomedicine and life sciences, with research misconduct being the most frequent reason for retraction. Twenty-one percent of the cases claimed unintentional errors as a reason for retraction, whereas 43% of the articles were retracted owing to ‘fraud’ or ‘suspected fraud’, which has increased 10-fold since 1975....

The average period between publication and retraction of articles was 33 months in all cases; it was highest in cases of ‘fraud’, reaching 47 months....Before retraction, many articles are frequently cited. Concerning articles published in highly prestigious journals (such as the Lancet, Nature Medicine, Cell, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine) and later retracted, between 234 and 758 quotations were counted for the period between 2002 and 2010. Thus, it can be assumed that the misconduct of the respective researchers has caused considerable harm to the scientific community....

Possible mistakes have to be differentiated from misconduct with intent and fraud. Characteristics of fraud range from plagiarism to the violation or assumption of the intellectual property of other authors and data forgery. What is considered as fraud is data misuse, the manipulation of results and their presentation, the independent invention of data, the concealment of undesired results, the disposal of original data, submission of false data, disturbance of the research of other scientists and deception. Fraud also encompasses active participation in misconduct of other researchers, joint knowledge of the forgeries of other authors, coauthorship of forged publications and the gross neglect of responsibility.

In 1998 the DFG published a memorandum on safeguarding good scientific practice. Good scientific practice implies to work ‘lege artis’, to always entertain doubt and self-criticism, to mutually check and examine results, to be accurate when securing quality, to be honest and to document and store primary data to ensure reproducibility. In research institutes and research groups, transparency of the organisational structure, unambiguous responsibilities, information, on-going training and supervision of staff and colleagues are part and prerequisite of good scientific practice. This also includes regulations for storing data, for the allocation of authorship, accountability and responsibility for observing the guidelines and regulations of dealing with possible misconduct....

Good scientific practice is first of all subject to the self-control of scientists within their community. Self-control seems to be reasonable, especially because, respectively, qualified scientists can themselves judge best, which results are plausible and which appear rather suspicious. However, the principle of self-control presumes that a scientific community is able and willing to control itself sufficiently. Especially in highly interconnected research—nationally and internationally—concerning complex questions and problems, trust is a crucial but fragile principle. In general, between cooperating scientists, research misconduct is considered impossible, and mistrust, a poor partner. Yet, the recently disclosed cases of research misconduct make it very obvious that self-control, if taken seriously, is a high demand placed on authors, which is very often limited by personal factors or by pressures linked to their university, institution and/or funding body....

The possible consequences of a violation against good scientific practice comprise labour law-related sanctions (e.g. warning, dismissal), academic sanctions (e.g. the revocation of an academic degree), sanctions according to civil law (e.g. compensation) and criminal sanctions (e.g. due to forgery). A revocation must be made and the subject matter must be set right. Violations against good scientific practice must be communicated to all cooperating partners, research communities, professional associations and to the public....

Considering the principles of science and the many cases of fraud recognised over recent years, the question of reasons for research misconduct is becoming increasingly topical. Misconduct does not simply result from poor character or the misjudgement of individual scientists. Although personal factors are certainly not irrelevant, the manner in which research institutions are organised must also be taken into consideration. No scientist can be a priori certain that he or she does not commit errors one way or another—even though unintentionally—or that he or she is not affected by the misconduct of others; however, prevention of research misconduct is becoming ever critical. The following arguments are addressed to explain possible reasons for research misconduct....

When wishing to make a personal career as a scientist and to increase the ‘success’ of one’s institution, one has to publish regularly, quickly and in high-ranking journals. Hence, scientific research is subject to high pressure, which is increased by financial incentives. If there is little success (i.e. only few publications or numerous publications but in lesser-ranked journals), it is unlikely that the career of the scientist will continue long term. One’s own research has to be successful in the sense of ‘publish or perish’ to guarantee a job and income in the future....

High competition for limited funds is generating more pressure on scientists to be the ‘best’, judged by the number of publications and the journals in which they are published....

Research not only fulfils one’s own ambitions as a scientist but also exterior demands for solving important questions for the future of our society. It also establishes and stabilises the so-called ‘research sites’.

The insights of science do not only have value within the field but also in a further reaching way for society and the economy. This is generally held true for countries like Germany, which is rather poor in natural resources but whose know-how is their most important resource in the globalised world....

The impetus for researching may go beyond interest in scientific knowledge; research also serves as a means of self-fulfilment, self-representation and not least the vanity of the agents. For the scientist, this development involves the danger of failing oneself and one’s own aspirations, since despite any highly specialised knowledge: Scientists are no better people.

Presently, we feel that communication between scientists is ‘disturbed’; self-control does not really work. High research activity and great dependency on external funding influence the culture of communication. This has had an effect on scientific journals over recent years, with an exponential increase in the number of publications, and also in the creation of new peer-reviewed journals.

Publication of articles is subject to the self-control of scientists. An article submitted for publication is usually assessed in the form of an anonymous review, normally by two independent scientists....The number of experts who are qualified for reviewing is limited, their time is limited, and in addition, regarding the present national and international research networks, their independence can no longer be guaranteed.

Despite there being a number of strategies and programmes for detecting plagiarism, their usage often exceeds the effort reasonable for those reviewing in an honorary capacity, which may result in a degree of unintentional incompleteness when reviewing....

A loss of a critical discussion culture harms the quality of research. Adverse factors conditioning misconduct can be observed at conferences and congresses....One can do nothing else but congratulate. Hardly ever are negative results or one’s own mistakes addressed. Our ‘togetherness’ finds itself in a rather care-free and positive atmosphere; arguments on a matter can seldom be found. What is thus not promoted is dealing critically with research results....

The appreciation of authors whose effective part in the respective article is limited or minor becomes a disadvantage if they become unaware accomplices, even in individual cases of research misconduct. Being accepted in the context of many experts promotes one’s reputation and career; however, this way of thinking might be damageable for the integrity of science. Networks can also obstruct the clarification of research misconduct: If one ‘falls’, many others will ‘fall’ too. Who would really want that?...

The very successful scientists of today (sometimes called ‘heroes of science’ or ‘giants in medicine’) generally have such a high number of publications that outsiders may feel ‘dizzy’.... Publishing more and more and better each time increases the danger of losing control over the content and of not fulfilling a researcher’s responsibility....

Taking part in many activities eventually makes us reach the limits of our possibilities. The genuine interests of a scientist must not be dominated by ‘always wanting’ and ‘always participating’.

Thus, it is not honest to ‘devote oneself’ to a research project, unless the project is an exact fit with one’s own interests and qualifications, just to get the money. A researcher’s capacity and productivity is limited and cannot be stretched infinitely by external funds. If the expectations are not fulfilled and the necessary honesty is missing, money can become a disadvantage for research....

[T]hose who already have a lot are persuasive and are therefore more likely to receive future funding and perhaps higher volumes. The result of this is thematically and methodically concentrated, and nowadays highly upgraded centres, or ‘research factories’, which show high productivity and growth rates and secure futures. These centres suppress smaller work groups that struggle to compete.

The concentration of research in the name of ‘success’ creates power structures and endangers the breadth and quality of research.... high profit (i.e. high scientific output) means everything.

Consequently, a publication in a prestigious journal demands a further publication in an also prestigious journal and so on: Scientific growth is seemingly continued to infinity....

Failure is not provided for: Those who receive high funds are doomed to be successful (i.e. there has to be a result); however, this is obviously a case of positivism misunderstood. Research funding is beneficial, but at the present height, it also means a risk to research, because ‘more’ money does not automatically mean ‘more’ knowledge. This (at least felt, if not always admitted) discrepancy may affect scientists behaviour in a negative way....'

Discussing problems, our mistakes and causes in an open and self-critical way should serve to raise awareness and warn researchers of the potential dangers and consequences of misconduct. In cases of fraud or plagiarism, the agents are not just ‘black sheep’. Individual responsibility shall not be denied and must not be downplayed. However, we have to be aware that generally all researchers bear the risk of research misconduct, violations of good scientific practice are possible for each of us and each scientist is liable to the pressures that fuel such behaviour or, indeed, help disguise it.

Academic work requires transparency. Researchers should be subject to internal and external assessment that verifies their research and relates it to respective control mechanisms. It has to be discussed—not only within the research system, but in a wider context. On the one hand, freedom of research must be ensured, but on the other hand, research responsibility must be realised. Without doing away with self-control, it however becomes apparent that self-control alone is not sufficient and that concepts of external control must be developed and evaluated....

Scientific work also demands modesty; overestimating oneself and one’s own thematic coverage will backfire....

Even though external control may be effective, scientists should still be obliged to self-control. Acting as a researcher does not only serve the purpose of furthering knowledge and progressing personally, but relationships with others must also be considered. Rules of good scientific practice have to be accepted by all of us and embedded into attitudes and personalities....

The pressure to succeed imposed by highly financed research institutions and groups has to be reduced. The fundamental values of science must self-evidently and always have priority; they are honesty, decency, objectivity, credibility, doubt, responsibility and openness.

What increases the risk of research misconduct is working only for profit (i.e. the number of publications and the height of the IFs) and growth (i.e. more and more publications). Thus, research that is libertarian and at the same time only oriented towards the market contradicts the idea of science. Research institutes should overcome the temptation of only seeing themselves as players of the market.

The volume of research fraud that has become known begins to demand a quality offensive to be produced. It could imply proactive controls and random samples, the vocation of quality assurance commissioners, the central filing of data and documents, the obligation to take part in regular self-trainings or even workshops on ‘error learning culture’.

Researchers of today are voluntarily or involuntarily part of a media-marketed academic life. It is not only about the secrets of nature, discoveries and problems that have to be solved effectively; science ‘charms’. Results affect researchers (who gain an impetus for their work out of this) and academic journals (which ‘sell’ well if the stories are ‘good’), and also the ‘world’ (which wants to be helped and entertained by scientific knowledge). The scientist should know the inherent risk of this ‘charm’; the limitations of science itself and, of course, also the personal limits of the scientist are always present.

-- Fraud in science: a plea for a new culture in research, by M J Müller, B Landsberg & J Ried

German philosopher Karl Jaspers described science as methodical insight that is mandatorily certain and universal.1 It is the ethos of modern science to want to reliably know on the basis of unbiased research and critique.1 This claim is not always fulfilled by scientists.

Currently, there are numerous and partly publicly discussed cases of research misconduct and fraud. These cases span various sciences, but are particularly common in biomedical research. Misconduct and fraud in science do not only offend against its inherent norms and rules summed up in the ‘scientific ethos’ but also make a mockery of its goals—namely gaining knowledge as profound as possible, which again motivates further research and can be practically applied. Scientists depend on cooperation with each other as well as on productive, constructive and trusting relationships with possible investors, users of scientific results—especially patients—and the general public. Trust and honesty is vital for any kind of successful research. Violations of good scientific practice do not only affect those directly concerned but also science and society in general, and, if permitted, we run the risk of undermining the public’s trust in scientific practice as a whole.

Despite numerous cases of research misconduct being made public, this issue is still a taboo topic among the scientific community. The following may be considered as isolated cases: Complete frauds, sometimes staged as a sensation by the media, like those of the South Korean clone scientist Hwang Woo-suk,2 cases of manipulated data of researchers, for which there was furthermore no sufficient ethic vote—as in the case of the anaesthesia scientist Joachim Boldt,3 plagiarism in theses of politicians and studies with obvious deficiencies like those of the French molecular biologist Gilles-Eric Séralini.4

It would be too narrow-minded to question only the individual integrity of the scientist. Very often, if we look into these seemingly isolated cases of research misconduct further, structures can be identified in scientific practice, which benefit such misconduct if not promote it.

How frequent is research misconduct?

Cases of research misconduct frequently become public, sometimes even in quick succession. Exact numbers concerning research misconduct are not available; however, according to the report of the German ombudsman for science (formerly the ombudsman of the DFG, German Research Foundation), in 2011 a total of 20 new proceedings were initiated, while 24 proceedings from previous years were continued.5 More than half of these proceedings came from the biomedical field. At present, there are not even somewhat plausible estimations of the dark figure of (so far) unknown cases of violation and fraud.

A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)6 proves that retractions of already published articles have become more frequent in the past 30 years. Between 1977 and 2011, 2047 articles were retracted in the fields of biomedicine and life sciences, with research misconduct being the most frequent reason for retraction. Twenty-one percent of the cases claimed unintentional errors as a reason for retraction, whereas 43% of the articles were retracted owing to ‘fraud’ or ‘suspected fraud’, which has increased 10-fold since 1975. ‘Plagiarism’ and ‘duplication’ (the so-called ‘self-plagiarism’) make up the remains of the retracted articles in almost equal quantities.

When comparing the origin of the authors concerned, three-quarters of the cases of ‘fraud’ or ‘suspected fraud’ came from the United States, Germany and Japan. Concerning ‘plagiarism’ and ‘duplication’, no unambiguous allocation could be made; however, authors from the United States and China were most commonly involved.

Journals with a higher impact factor (IF) are more frequently affected by ‘fraud’ or ‘suspected fraud’ and ‘errors’ than lesser-ranked journals, whereas ‘plagiarism’ and ‘duplication’ are more commonly found in journals with a lower IF. The list of journals with the greatest number of retracted articles is headed by Science (IF: 32.45), PNAS (IF: 10.47) and The Journal of Biological Chemistry (IF: 5.12). Regarding retractions due to ‘fraud’, The Journal of Biological Chemistry tops the list, followed by Anesthesia & Analgesia (IF: 3.07) and Science. Concerning proven ‘errors’, Science leads, followed by PNAS and Nature (IF: 36.24). ‘Plagiarism’ and ‘duplication’ were similarly frequent in all journals. What is striking is that numerous prestigious journals are also affected by such cases (e.g. The New England Journal of Medicine, IF: 50.08).

The average period between publication and retraction of articles was 33 months in all cases; it was highest in cases of ‘fraud’, reaching 47 months. Regarding ‘plagiarism’ and ‘duplication’, it took an average of 26 months for an article to be retracted. Before retraction, many articles are frequently cited. Concerning articles published in highly prestigious journals (such as the Lancet, Nature Medicine, Cell, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine) and later retracted, between 234 and 758 quotations were counted for the period between 2002 and 2010. Thus, it can be assumed that the misconduct of the respective researchers has caused considerable harm to the scientific community.

What is research misconduct?

Possible mistakes have to be differentiated from misconduct with intent and fraud. Characteristics of fraud range from plagiarism to the violation or assumption of the intellectual property of other authors and data forgery. What is considered as fraud is data misuse, the manipulation of results and their presentation, the independent invention of data, the concealment of undesired results, the disposal of original data, submission of false data, disturbance of the research of other scientists and deception. Fraud also encompasses active participation in misconduct of other researchers, joint knowledge of the forgeries of other authors, coauthorship of forged publications and the gross neglect of responsibility.

Good scientific practice

In 1998 the DFG published a memorandum on safeguarding good scientific practice.7 Good scientific practice implies to work ‘lege artis’, to always entertain doubt and self-criticism, to mutually check and examine results, to be accurate when securing quality, to be honest and to document and store primary data to ensure reproducibility.7 In research institutes and research groups, transparency of the organisational structure, unambiguous responsibilities, information, on-going training and supervision of staff and colleagues are part and prerequisite of good scientific practice. This also includes regulations for storing data, for the allocation of authorship, accountability and responsibility for observing the guidelines and regulations of dealing with possible misconduct.

These fundamental rules have to be applied when using DFG funds. Guidelines for good scientific practice were also published by the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft and the Max Planck-Gesellschaft.8,9 All university and non-university research institutions in Germany have implemented respective guidelines. In light of recent events (a reaction to the case of ‘von und zu Guttenberg’ in media, politics and science), in 2011 the DFG held a symposium of the alliance of research associations (i.e. the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and the Research Council.) with the title ‘Good scientific practice’, and thus remains active in dealing with the issue.10

Control

Good scientific practice is first of all subject to the self-control of scientists within their community. Self-control seems to be reasonable, especially because, respectively, qualified scientists can themselves judge best, which results are plausible and which appear rather suspicious. However, the principle of self-control presumes that a scientific community is able and willing to control itself sufficiently. Especially in highly interconnected research—nationally and internationally—concerning complex questions and problems, trust is a crucial but fragile principle. In general, between cooperating scientists, research misconduct is considered impossible, and mistrust, a poor partner. Yet, the recently disclosed cases of research misconduct make it very obvious that self-control, if taken seriously, is a high demand placed on authors, which is very often limited by personal factors or by pressures linked to their university, institution and/or funding body. In how far alternative or complementary concepts of external control are necessary and what format they may take has not yet been extensively discussed.

Consequences

The possible consequences of a violation against good scientific practice comprise labour law-related sanctions (e.g. warning, dismissal), academic sanctions (e.g. the revocation of an academic degree), sanctions according to civil law (e.g. compensation) and criminal sanctions (e.g. due to forgery). A revocation must be made and the subject matter must be set right. Violations against good scientific practice must be communicated to all cooperating partners, research communities, professional associations and to the public. Here, the rights of those affected must not be curtailed.

Each research institute has an ombudsman for science, who is elected from the circle of scientists; scientists in an executive position are not electable.7,11 The nominated ombudsman for science is challenged with the prevention of research misconduct, informing his or her colleagues about ethical principles of research, examining possible allegations of misconduct and following the appropriate course to solve such matters.

The ombudsman analyses the meaning and the motives of such violations; here, confidentiality has to be ensured and those affected have to be saved from rash harm. It is also part of the duties of the ombudsman to inform the administration, the Dean and project sponsors. He or she should be independent and free of conflict of interest.cf. 11

Reasons for research misconduct

Considering the principles of science and the many cases of fraud recognised over recent years, the question of reasons for research misconduct is becoming increasingly topical. Misconduct does not simply result from poor character or the misjudgement of individual scientists. Although personal factors are certainly not irrelevant, the manner in which research institutions are organised must also be taken into consideration. No scientist can be a priori certain that he or she does not commit errors one way or another—even though unintentionally—or that he or she is not affected by the misconduct of others; however, prevention of research misconduct is becoming ever critical. The following arguments are addressed to explain possible reasons for research misconduct.

‘Publish or perish’

Success and an academic career are the result of numerous publications. In Germany there are many universities, academies and research institutes, which employ ca. 40 000 professors and numerous assistants.

Science not only serves to further the knowledge and interests of an individual but also to build their own academic profile. Both the ‘success’ and the ‘failure’ of individual researchers and research groups immediately result in effects on the reputation of their respective institutions and associations.

When wishing to make a personal career as a scientist and to increase the ‘success’ of one’s institution, one has to publish regularly, quickly and in high-ranking journals. Hence, scientific research is subject to high pressure, which is increased by financial incentives. If there is little success (i.e. only few publications or numerous publications but in lesser-ranked journals), it is unlikely that the career of the scientist will continue long term. One’s own research has to be successful in the sense of ‘publish or perish’ to guarantee a job and income in the future.

Uncertain research structures

Younger scientists, especially, are often dependent on subsidies limited in time. Social uncertainty is a very adverse condition for research. In recent decades, it was possible to support excellent and large-scale research projects by financial means offered by the state and the EU, and ambitious research projects were realised. Nowadays, the volume of funding available has decreased and research institutes, universities and their employees are competing for funds that ultimately determine the feasibility and scale of projects undertaken.

The existence of such projects, as well as jobs in research, is also limited by the respective period of funding leading to a high degree of instability. High competition for limited funds is generating more pressure on scientists to be the ‘best’, judged by the number of publications and the journals in which they are published.

The dimensions of research

The dimensions of research supersede the scientist’s daily life. At the moment biomedical research has a high reputation within our society and thus enjoys a certain kind of advantage of trust, which is not least fuelled by the patients’ hope for (more) effective therapies and further medical concepts. Research not only fulfils one’s own ambitions as a scientist but also exterior demands for solving important questions for the future of our society. It also establishes and stabilises the so-called ‘research sites’.

The insights of science do not only have value within the field but also in a further reaching way for society and the economy. This is generally held true for countries like Germany, which is rather poor in natural resources but whose know-how is their most important resource in the globalised world.

Regarding methodical and technological progresses, today scientists are under the impression that they live in times of great discoveries and essential biomedical progress, leading to biomedical research being characterised by a spirit of optimism. Modern biomedicine has taken up an immense rise, creating an almost ‘revolutionary’ enthusiasm in medicine and also arousing the public’s interest. Discoveries and sensations from science have become part of our everyday life.

We want to believe that complex medical problems can be solved within a relatively short period of time, and diseases that have previously been deemed fatal, can be prevented or successfully treated. To achieve that, great joint efforts are necessary as well as more and more financial means for ever bigger ‘mega’-projects. There is a vision that the time until the next breakthrough can be shortened by bigger investments. The position and ambition of a scientist thus succeeds his or her daily life and genuine workspace, his or her responsibility reaches far into far future and society, whether the individual scientist, the work group or the institute may or may not want this.

The ‘hype’, which is nowadays regularly created for medical applications that are only envisaged or that seem to be almost visionary, is fuelled by researchers and the public in a complex interaction with each other, no matter if they like it or not. The impetus for researching may go beyond interest in scientific knowledge; research also serves as a means of self-fulfilment, self-representation and not least the vanity of the agents. For the scientist, this development involves the danger of failing oneself and one’s own aspirations, since despite any highly specialised knowledge: Scientists are no better people.

Dysfunctional communication

Presently, we feel that communication between scientists is ‘disturbed’; self-control does not really work. High research activity and great dependency on external funding influence the culture of communication. This has had an effect on scientific journals over recent years, with an exponential increase in the number of publications, and also in the creation of new peer-reviewed journals.

Publication of articles is subject to the self-control of scientists. An article submitted for publication is usually assessed in the form of an anonymous review, normally by two independent scientists. If the reviews are contradictory, the Editor may seek the opinion of further experts in the field. This form of self-control is, however, stretched to its limits. The number of experts who are qualified for reviewing is limited, their time is limited, and in addition, regarding the present national and international research networks, their independence can no longer be guaranteed.

Despite there being a number of strategies and programmes for detecting plagiarism,cf. 12 their usage often exceeds the effort reasonable for those reviewing in an honorary capacity, which may result in a degree of unintentional incompleteness when reviewing. Publishers of professional journals and their editors strive for effective strategies against research fraud; however; there are obviously limits to self-control and at present successful alternative or complementary forms of external control have not yet been established.

The loss of a critical discussion culture

A loss of a critical discussion culture harms the quality of research. Adverse factors conditioning misconduct can be observed at conferences and congresses. Here we are overwhelmed with data and almost exclusively see ‘successful’ presentations; projects seem stringent, and results are very often ‘perfect’. One can do nothing else but congratulate. Hardly ever are negative results or one’s own mistakes addressed. Our ‘togetherness’ finds itself in a rather care-free and positive atmosphere; arguments on a matter can seldom be found. What is thus not promoted is dealing critically with research results.

Networks increase ‘productivity’ and create dependencies

Networks of research institutions and scientists serve the purpose of science, but they also have a ‘multiplier effect’. A broad and partly global cooperation of scientists requires common values and responsibility. Results of ‘successful’ networking include, for example, multiple authorship of publications, multiple evaluations of the same data and redundancies or overlapping of scientific publications.

The responsibilities are not always set clearly within networks and among the authors of publications (in spite of the regulations of academic journalscf. 11), and in practice are not really transparent. It is possible that many coauthors are not conscious of their responsibility. If numerous authors bore common responsibility for a publication, this could serve the function of self-control.

The appreciation of authors whose effective part in the respective article is limited or minor becomes a disadvantage if they become unaware accomplices, even in individual cases of research misconduct. Being accepted in the context of many experts promotes one’s reputation and career; however, this way of thinking might be damageable for the integrity of science. Networks can also obstruct the clarification of research misconduct: If one ‘falls’, many others will ‘fall’ too. Who would really want that?

Hierarchies create disquieting pressure

Research institutions and great associations, such as clusters of excellence and collaborative research centres, not only have democratic but also partly hierarchical governance structures. They may promote one’s success or affect it negatively. In the worst case, they promote inequality in research and use relationships of subordination and dependency and hamper critical discussions.

Running research associations and deciding on applications and external funds implies power on the one hand, but on the other hand, it also entails responsibility. The maintenance of power is an obvious strategy (and taken for itself not objectionable) of those who want to achieve this power and keep it. The balance of power and responsibility decides on how ‘successes’, which are necessary for establishing or continuing a group or project, are achieved. If power is favoured over responsibility, inequality and dependencies can affect the quality of the academic work by putting the individual scientist under pressure to produce results in a certain way. Researching and publishing under pressure increases the danger of mistakes and therefore research misconduct.

Too much is published

The very successful scientists of today (sometimes called ‘heroes of science’ or ‘giants in medicine’) generally have such a high number of publications that outsiders may feel ‘dizzy’: Top researchers seldom publish more than 20 articles a year, and usually in the so-called ‘top journals’ (i.e. journals with a high IF). If a certain number of publications within a certain period of time is exceeded (with due respect), doubts concerning the responsibility and integrity of the respective scientist may arise. Publishing more and more and better each time increases the danger of losing control over the content and of not fulfilling a researcher’s responsibility.

Money may ‘spoil’ researchers

Considering the high number of calls for attractive research projects, submitters as well as reviewers and counsellors are overburdened and also partly overcharged. Taking part in many activities eventually makes us reach the limits of our possibilities. The genuine interests of a scientist must not be dominated by ‘always wanting’ and ‘always participating’.

Thus, it is not honest to ‘devote oneself’ to a research project, unless the project is an exact fit with one’s own interests and qualifications, just to get the money. A researcher’s capacity and productivity is limited and cannot be stretched infinitely by external funds. If the expectations are not fulfilled and the necessary honesty is missing, money can become a disadvantage for research. Who would admit that he or she is not really interested in a certain project for which he or she has received money and that he or she has possibly spent part of the money elsewhere?

‘Libertarian’ research mentality and ‘research factories’ impede thinking against the tide

A ‘libertarian’ research mentality and ‘research factories’ impede thinking against the tide and force ‘success’. The placing of external funds takes place is influenced by research structure; those who already have a lot are persuasive and are therefore more likely to receive future funding and perhaps higher volumes. The result of this is thematically and methodically concentrated, and nowadays highly upgraded centres, or ‘research factories’, which show high productivity and growth rates and secure futures. These centres suppress smaller work groups that struggle to compete.

The concentration of research in the name of ‘success’ creates power structures and endangers the breadth and quality of research. Thinking against the tide has become hard and rather seldom considering the thematic conformity in research centres. Today libertarian principles (known from economics) determine the success and the future of biomedical research; high profit (i.e. high scientific output) means everything.

Consequently, a publication in a prestigious journal demands a further publication in an also prestigious journal and so on: Scientific growth is seemingly continued to infinity. The ‘real’ gain of scientific knowledge does not necessarily grow with the number of publications; the ‘surplus value’ of research (i.e. in the sense of creating knowledge) has yet to be proven.

However, this view contradicts the calls and the expectations of those funding the projects and the promises of those receiving the funds. Failure is not provided for: Those who receive high funds are doomed to be successful (i.e. there has to be a result); however, this is obviously a case of positivism misunderstood. Research funding is beneficial, but at the present height, it also means a risk to research, because ‘more’ money does not automatically mean ‘more’ knowledge. This (at least felt, if not always admitted) discrepancy may affect scientists behaviour in a negative way.

Possible ways out

Considering the rather disillusioning diagnosis concerning the complex network of individual, social, economic and structural factors conditioning forgery, fraud, plagiarism and other forms of research misconduct, the question of what format effective prevention and constructive processes dealing with discovered misconduct could take arises.

Openness

Discussing problems, our mistakes and causes in an open and self-critical way should serve to raise awareness and warn researchers of the potential dangers and consequences of misconduct. In cases of fraud or plagiarism, the agents are not just ‘black sheep’. Individual responsibility shall not be denied and must not be downplayed. However, we have to be aware that generally all researchers bear the risk of research misconduct, violations of good scientific practice are possible for each of us and each scientist is liable to the pressures that fuel such behaviour or, indeed, help disguise it.

Transparency

Academic work requires transparency. Researchers should be subject to internal and external assessment that verifies their research and relates it to respective control mechanisms. It has to be discussed—not only within the research system, but in a wider context. On the one hand, freedom of research must be ensured, but on the other hand, research responsibility must be realised. Without doing away with self-control, it however becomes apparent that self-control alone is not sufficient and that concepts of external control must be developed and evaluated.

Culture

Self-control has to be credible, but under the given circumstances of scientific work, this is not always possible; multiple charges, diverse networking and the diverse interests of researchers, reviewers and counsellors subvert the principle of self-control and our credibility. High research activity demands for a discourse on how much ‘self-control’ a ‘booming’ science can afford. This discussion cannot only be led by those with ‘power’ (who are themselves part of the problem because of their high amount of external funds). It is essential to think against the tide.

Restrictions

Voluntary restrictions on researchers (e.g. in the number of doctoral candidates, in the amount of attracted funds, in the number of publications each year) and the establishment of a responsible relationship between supervisors and assistants are prerequisites for good scientific practice. Scientific work also demands modesty; overestimating oneself and one’s own thematic coverage will backfire. This is especially true in times of ‘data- and tool-driven’ research, which demands responsibility and discipline when dealing with results.13

Basic understanding

Even though external control may be effective, scientists should still be obliged to self-control. Acting as a researcher does not only serve the purpose of furthering knowledge and progressing personally, but relationships with others must also be considered. Rules of good scientific practice have to be accepted by all of us and embedded into attitudes and personalities.14 Academic training (e.g. in research training groups or in ‘young research groups’) should account for that.

Less pressure

The pressure to succeed imposed by highly financed research institutions and groups has to be reduced. The fundamental values of science must self-evidently and always have priority; they are honesty, decency, objectivity, credibility, doubt, responsibility and openness.

What increases the risk of research misconduct is working only for profit (i.e. the number of publications and the height of the IFs) and growth (i.e. more and more publications). Thus, research that is libertarian and at the same time only oriented towards the market contradicts the idea of science. Research institutes should overcome the temptation of only seeing themselves as players of the market.

Quality offensive

The volume of research fraud that has become known begins to demand a quality offensive to be produced. It could imply proactive controls and random samples, the vocation of quality assurance commissioners, the central filing of data and documents, the obligation to take part in regular self-trainings or even workshops on ‘error learning culture’.

Critical distance

Researchers of today are voluntarily or involuntarily part of a media-marketed academic life. It is not only about the secrets of nature, discoveries and problems that have to be solved effectively; science ‘charms’. Results affect researchers (who gain an impetus for their work out of this) and academic journals (which ‘sell’ well if the stories are ‘good’), and also the ‘world’ (which wants to be helped and entertained by scientific knowledge). The scientist should know the inherent risk of this ‘charm’; the limitations of science itself and, of course, also the personal limits of the scientist are always present.

Prospect

The problem of research misconduct has to be offensively addressed in all its diverse shades within universities, research institutions, institutes and work groups. Guidelines of good scientific practice are already part of the daily work at many places, but they are just a first step towards a transparent and diverse research culture. Interaction of research, public and politics15 is in specific need of more attention to keep up the still high credit of trust in science and to encourage and support scientists to meet this trust by an appropriate scientific ethos. In September and October of 2012, the Global Network of Science Academies (IAP), together with the InterAcademy Council and the European Research Council (ERC), formulated strategies and parameters of actions against research misconduct.16,17 They again stress the personal responsibility of scientists and institutions, as well as the principle of self-control in science. Here, academic journals, academies and associations are assigned a special role. However, these arguments and recommendations are conform to the discussion so far; they remain within the realm of science itself, do not go further and do not reach any new quality—at least until now.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This contribution was made in the context of the BMBF Kompetenznetz Adipositas (Junges Netzwerk, FKZ 01GI1123 and EPI Germany, FKZ 01GI1121A). MJ Müller1, B Landsberg1 and J Ried2 1Institute for Human Nutrition and Food Science, Christian-Albrechts- Universität, Kiel, Germany and 2Fachbereich Theologie, Lehrstuhl Systematische Theologie (Ethik), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany E-mail: mmueller@nutrfoodsc.uni-kiel.de

REFERENCES

1 Jaspers K. Grundzüge der modernen Wissenschaft. Jaspers K. Was ist der Mensch? Piper: München, Germany, 2000, pp 93–95.

2 Zeit Die. http://pdf.zeit.de/online/2006/01/hwang_total.pdf. Accessed on 29 December 2005.

3 Zeitung Ärzte. http://www.aerztezeitung.de/praxis_wirt ... 819197/stu diengefaelscht-bericht-belastet-anaesthesisten.html. Accessed on 08 August 2012.

4 Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natu ... -abschluss bewertung-zu-seralini-studie-vor-a-869844.html. Accessed on 28 November 2012.

5 Ombudsmann für die Wissenschaft, Jahresbericht 2011. http://www.ombudsman-fuerdie- wissenschaft.de/fileadmin/Ombudsman/Dokumente/Downloads/Berichte/ Jahresbericht_2011_Ombudsman.pdf. Accessed on 21 March 2012.

6 Fang FC, Steen RG, Casadevall A. Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2012; 109: 17028–17033.

7 DFG—Deutsch Forschungsgemeinschaft. Gute wissenschaftliche Praxis. http:// http://www.dfg.de/foerderung/rechtliche ... ndex.html; http:// http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/dfg_im_p ... /download/ empfehlung_ wiss_praxis_0198.pdf. Accessed on 10 January 2010.

8 Leibniz-Gemeinschaft. http://www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de/. Accessed on 24 February 2014.

9 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. http://www.mpg.de/pdf/procedures/regelnWissPraxis.pdf. Accessed on 24 February 2014.

10 ‘Gute wissenschaftliche Praxis’—Symposium der Allianz der Wissenschafts organisationen. Berlin http://www.dfg.de/foerderung/rechtliche_rahmenbedingun gen/gwp/111129_symposium/index.jsp. Accessed on 29 November 2011.

11 DIW—Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung. Forschungsethische Prinzipien am DIW Berlin und Verfahren im Umgang mit wissenschaftlichem Fehlverhalten. http://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentena ... rinzipien_ 20121025.pdf. Accessed on 4 November 2012.

12 COPE, Committee of Publication Ethics. Promoting integrity in research publication. http://publicationethics.org. Accessed on 30 September 2012.

13 Dyson FJ. Is science mostly driven by ideas or by tools? Science 2012; 338: 1426–1427.

14 Dörner, K. ‘Ich darf nicht denken’. Das medizinische Selbstverständnis der Angeklagten . Ebbinghaus, A, Dörner, K, Hrsg. Vernichten, Heilen. Aufbau: Berlin, Germany, 2001. Der Nürnberger Ärzteprozeß und seine Folgen?

15 Wissenschaft und Demokratie. Frankfurt a.M., Germany: Suhrkamp, 2012.

16 IAP—The Global Network of Science Academies and InterAcademy Council. Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise. A Policy Report. http://www.interacademycouncil.net/File.aspx?id = 28253. Accessed on 2 February 2014.

17 ERC—European Research Council. ERC Scientific Misconduct Strategy. http://erc. europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/ERC_Scientific_misconduct_strategy.pdf. Accessed on 11 October 2012.

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Some Spurious Inscriptions and Their Authors
by Frank Frost Abbott
Classical Philology III
January, 1908

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Several scholars in modern times have written chapters on literary forgery, but no one seems to have studied in a comprehensive way epigraphical forgery and the methods which are employed in detecting it, although there is no field of classical study in which dishonesty has brought such confusion, as in epigraphy, and, on the other hand, in no investigations have scholars displayed more acuteness than they have shown in detecting spurious inscriptions. This paper, however, does not aim to give a complete survey of the subject. Its purpose is merely to bring together a sufficient body of facts from the notes in the Corpus and from the reports of scholars in the epigraphical journals to show the development of the art, and to illustrate the methods of some of its most famous, or infamous, promoters.

It was so easy two or three centuries ago to compose an important inscription, and to win distinction by publishing it to the world, and so difficult to detect its spurious character, that many scholars yielded to the temptation. Furthermore, the opportune publication of a forged inscription might save a weary search in establishing a point, furnish a missing link in a chain of evidence, or administer a coup de grace to a stubborn opponent. In view of this situation we are not surprised to find that the number of spurious or suspected inscriptions mounts up to 10,576 in a total of 144,044, corresponding to a ratio of about one spurious to thirteen authentic inscriptions. The condition of things in the several volumes of the Corpus varies greatly. Against Vol. VII, with only 24 spurious and 1,355 authentic inscriptions, stand [size=1 10]Vols. IX and X, which cover the old kingdom of Naples, with totals for the two volumes of 1,854*1 and 14,841, which stand to each other in the ratio of one to eight. [/size]These differences between the several volumes in the matter of forged inscriptions, of which the cases just cited are characteristic, tempt one to an estimate of the comparative honesty of the Spanish, Roman, Neapolitan, French, or English epigraphist and antiquarian. Two or three independent facts also seem to indicate that the national standards in this matter among the several European peoples have not been the same. Thus, for instance, Donius in the seventeenth century, fresh from the chagrin which his deceitful amanuensis Grata had caused him, writes to a friend expressing a desire for a Belgian to fill the position of secretary for him "cum Itali plerique huic officio parum idonei sint" [Google translate: whereas most Italians are unfit for this duty] (cf. CIL, VI. 5, p. 228*). and Borghesi was so indignant at the large number of forgeries from Naples that he was inclined to hold all Neapolitan inscriptions under suspicion. On the other hand, the Englishman may feel some national pride in the fact that only 24 spurious inscriptions are found in the collection from Britain. But conclusions based on national or geographical considerations must be drawn with great care, for, in point of fact, all the principal continental peoples of Europe -- the Italians, the Germans, the French, and the Spanish -- have had representatives in the art of forgery, and an examination of the spurious inscriptions shows that the composition of them is characteristic of a particular period rather than of a given region. The publication of fictitious inscriptions goes back to the fifteenth century and was practiced as late as the middle of the last century, but its Augustan age runs from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. Since Italy furnished the most fruitful field for epigraphical study at that time, as it does today, and since, consequently, Italians out-numbered others in cultivating it, it is not strange that Italian forgeries are more numerous than those from other sources. It is also true, as we shall have occasion to notice, that two or three Italian scholars were very prolific in this field and, therefore, have brought up the national average. Turning from the geographical factor to the time-element, perhaps we should not boast too much, at the expense of our predecessors, of the higher standard of epigraphical morals which prevails now, because the certainty of detection exerts a most salutary deterrent influence upon those who might be inclined to sin in this matter today. We have now a systematic collection of inscriptions; critical principles are well established, and interest in classical antiquities is so general and all parts of the Roman world are reached today with such comparative ease, that a forgery, or the attribution of a forged inscription to a particular place, would be readily detected.

Felix Felicianus of Verona, of the fifteenth century, who is perhaps best known for an interesting little treatise upon the letters of the alphabet and the best methods of drawing them (cf. R. Schone in Eph. Epigr. I, p. 255 if.), may perhaps be regarded as the father of epigraphical forgery. The art did not appear in its completed form at once, and the earliest practice of it was comparatively naive and harmless. Felicianus and his immediate successors never, or rarely, forged inscriptions outright, but they pretended to find in some ruin an inscription mentioned by an ancient author, or their fictitious finds were based upon some statement found in literature. Thus Michael Ferrarinus reports as one of his discoveries the epitaph of Ennius, obviously taking the text from Cic. Tusc. i. 34:, and Mazochius in his Epigrammata antiqua urbis, published in 1521, reports the following inscription: Divo Gordiano victori Persarum, victori Gothorum, victori Sarmatarum, depulsori Romanorum seditionum, victori Germanorum, sed non victori Philipporum [Google translate: To the god Gordianus the conqueror of the Persians, the conqueror of the Goths, the conqueror of the Sarmatians, the repulsor of the Roman rebellions, the conqueror of the Germans, but not the conqueror of the Philippi](CIL. VI. 5.1* S). This is of course taken bodily from the life of the three Gordians (chap. 34:) by Julius Capitolinus. The latest known forgeries are those of Chabassiere, a French engineer who in 1866 published through the Academy of Constantine several African inscriptions, one of which, an inscription of king Hiempsal, was recognized as a forgery by both Mommsen and Wilmanns (cf. CIL. VIII, p. 489), and cast discredit upon all the other inscriptions reported by Chabassiere alone.

If the Berlin Academy had persisted in following up the plan, which it had adopted in 1850 at Zumpt's suggestion, of basing the Corpus mainly upon the epigraphical texts given in manuscript and printed collections, probably most of the spurious inscriptions which have been composed during the four centuries which intervene between Felicianus and Chabassiere, and which now languish under the dreaded star, would never have been thus stigmatized. Fortunately, Mommsen, before publishing an inscription, insisted upon examining the stone, whenever it was in existence, and demonstrated the feasibility of his plan and the correctness of his method in his Inscriptiones regni Neapolitani [Google translate: Inscriptions of the kingdom of Naples], which appeared in 1852. Fortunately, too, Mommsen had, perhaps unwittingly, selected for this first scientific collection a field, viz. the kingdom of Naples, where forgers, as we noticed above, had been most active. The attention of the editors of the Corpus was thus drawn at the outset to the importance of detecting forged and interpolated inscriptions, and many of the critical principles upon which the science rests today were formulated and applied by Mommsen in this preliminary work (cf., e. g., CIL. IX, p. xi). From this early period comes, for instance, the well-known classification of all previous collectors in three categories: (1) the honest and careful, (2) the dishonest, and (3) the negligent, credulous, or ignorant. The principle of classification adopted for the second group is Calvinistic in its severity. One demonstrated lapse from honesty on the part of a collector condemns every inscription for which the scholar in question is our only direct source of information. The sweeping character of this critical rule is probably responsible for putting many authentic inscriptions in the suspected list, and some cases of this sort have already come to light (cf. CIL. VI. 5, pp. 253*-55*). It would seem desirable soon to examine these lists in the several volumes systematically in the light of new discoveries and of our increased knowledge, in the hope of rescuing authentic inscriptions from their present position among the suspected or condemned. That the principle underlying the second grouping of collectors does not lean toward lenity seems to be indicated also by the fact that no inscription regarded by the editors of the Corpus as authentic has been condemned later.

The most prolific forgers in the period from Felicianus to Chabassiere were Boissard, Gutenstein, Ligorio, Lupoli, Roselli, and Trigueros. The names -- French, German, Italian, and Spanish -- indicate, as observed above, that scholars of all the principal continental countries were guilty of this offense. The devious methods of Francisco Roselli are especially hard to follow because he at the same time forged some inscriptions and copied many other authentic ones, but copied them carelessly. His collection, which was made up partly of inscriptions from Grumentum, was published in 1790, and Mommsen, finding it very difficult to make a correct estimate of his work from the published collection, went to Grumentum in 1S46 to study his method of procedure. He found that the people of Grumentum regarded Roselli as their most distinguished citizen, and they gave their visitor all the help they could to make the fame of their fellow-townsman known as widely as possible. Mommsen's embarrassment when he discovered the true character of Roselli and had to publish the facts is best indicated in his own words (CIL. X, p. 28): "Grumenti autem qui studia mea adiuverunt viri optimi, quorum memoriam grato et pio animo recolo, nolint mihi irasci, quod libere de Rosellio locutus sum et verus magis esse volui quam gratiosus." [Google translate: But the Grumenti, who have aided my studies, the good men, whose memory I remember with a grateful and pious heart, do not want to be angry with me, because I spoke freely about Roselli and wanted to be true rather than popular.] Among other peculiarities Roselli's MS shows some very interesting afterthoughts. In one case (CIL. X. 43*) he forged an inscription in honor of a certain Q. Attius in which the people of his native town were characterized as Bruttii, but, finding later that they were really of Lucanian origin, he revised his inscription by dropping out the line in which the Bruttian origin was mentioned.

Roselli's purpose was apparently to bring distinction to himself and his native town. Gutenstein's motive was more altruistic. He was Gruter's amanuensis and not only reported authentic inscriptions to his master but also forged others to gratify Gruter's intense desire for additions to his collection. Many of his inscriptions he pretended to have found in the collections of Metellus and Smetius. His dishonesty was discovered when these collections were examined and Gutenstein's inscriptions were not found among them (cf. CIL. VI. 5.3226*-3239*; Bormann Eph. Epigr. III, p. 72). His epigraphical style is well illustrated by Mommsen in Eph. Epigr, I, pp. 67-75. One of the inscriptions there quoted is in honor of Septimius Severus. Another reads as follows: DDD. nnn. | Valentiniano Valenti et | Gratiano Auggg | piis felicibus ac | semper triumfator. | signum Herculi vict. | ob prov .... | rect .... | ampli .... | votis X | .... is xx. [Google translate: DDD nnn | Valentinian Valenti and | Gratiano Auggg | to the pious and happy always triumphant | sign of Hercules defeated | for prov... | right .... | wide .... | wish X | .... it is xx.] On these two Mommsen remarks (p. 68): "primae honores honorumque iterationes tam facile explanabis quam Geryoni aptabis petasum; in secunda imperatores tres intemeratae Christianitatis signumque Herculis victoris simul splendent tamquam in eodem caelo Sol et Luna." [Google translate: You will explain the first honors and the repetitions of honors as easily as you fit Geryon's hat; in the second, the three emperors of undefiled Christianity and the symbol of Hercules the victor shine together as if the Sun and the Moon were in the same sky.]

The method of Lupoli, a bishop at Venusia, was to take inscriptions from the collections of Gruter and Fabretti, add a few genuine ones of his own, and forge others to complete his collection. His work is characterized by the stern indignation which he expresses at the inaccuracy and dishonesty of other epigraphists.

In the Rh. Mus. XVII (1862), pp. 228 ff., Hubner tells in a graphic way how he unmasked Trigueros. The conduct of the Spanish epigraphist was peculiarly and ingeniously perfidious, because he attributed his own forged inscriptions to a scholar of a previous generation who was' probably a creation of his own imagination. He had already taken a similar course in the case of a piece of literature forged by him, so that this method of procedure must have appealed to his malicious sense of humor.

But the prince of forgers was the Neapolitan Pirro Ligorio of the sixteenth century. In a burst of indignant admiration de Rossi characterizes him (Inscr. Chr. urbis Romae, p. xvii * [Google translate: Inscr. Chr. of the city of Rome, p. xvii *]) as "magnus ille fallaciarum opifex et parens." [Google translate: He is a great maker and parent of deceptions.] Ligorio held a very distinguished position among the scholars and artists of his day, was the friend of Smetius, Pighius, and Panvinius, and succeeded Michelangelo in supervising the work at St. Peter's. The Vatican library has twelve manuscript volumes from his hand, the Barberini ten, and the library at Turin, at least up to the time of the late injury to that collection by fire, thirty more. Of the 3,643 spurious inscriptions which CIL. VI, pt. 5, contains, 2,995 emanate from Ligorio. His audacity is incredible. Many of his forgeries he pretended to have found in the gardens or libraries of well-known houses in Rome (cf. CIL. VI, pt. 1, p. lii, col. 1), and as a rule he mentions the exact location, e. g., he locates VI. 1460* "dentro la chiesa di San Nicola di Cavalieri in via Florida presso della Calcare." [Google translate: inside the church of San Nicola di Cavalieri in via Florida at della Calcare.] Sometimes he gives an airy description of the supposed monument, as in VI. 1463*, "in essa si vede la imagine della Gorgona et pare che gli volano a destra et a sinistra due farfalle. Con un festone di frutti." [Google translate: in it we see the image of the Gorgona and it seems that two butterflies fly to the right and to the left. With a festoon of fruit.] Sometimes he based his productions on a single authentic inscription (cf. VI. 1819* and VI. 1409); sometimes he combined two authentic inscriptions (cf. VI. 1866* and VI. 1739, 1764)" but more frequently he forged outright. His versatility in the matter of content and form is extraordinary. He treats a great variety of subjects, combines Greek and Latin (e. g., VI. 1653*), composes a fragmentary inscription (e. g., VI. 1665 *), imitates the illiterate, as in using the form ongentarius (VI. 2066*), and indulges in such, paleographical novelties as ligatures (e.g., VI. 1657*) or heart-shaped separation points (e.g., VI. 2079*). He carried his work even to the point of carving more than one hundred of his forgeries on stone, most of them for the museum of his patron the Cardinal of Carpi. Some of these have been discussed by Henzen in the Comm. in hon. Mommseni, p. 627 ff. His inscriptions had been suspected by a number of scholars, but their spurious character was first clearly shown by Olivieri at a meeting of a learned society in Ravenna in 1764 (cf. Inscr. Lat. sel., ed. Orelli, I, pp.43-54).

Most of the prolific epigraphical forgers have some idiosyncrasies or some stylistic peculiarities, or they are ignorant in some specific field of the Latin language or of Roman life, and these weaknesses not infrequently betray them. Gutenstein, for instance, in copying an inscription from a previous collector, had the strange habit of making some slight change in a title or a date, as Mommsen has shown in Eph. Epigr. I, p. 71. Thus, for example, he changes pietatis Imperatoris Caesaris [Google translate: the mercy of the Emperor Caesar] to pietati et felieitati imp. Caes., [Google translate: to piety and happiness imp. You kill] and III idus Maias [Google translate: May 3rd] appears in his copy as VI id. Febr., [Google translate: 6 February] although it is impossible to see why he made the alteration. Ligorio's tendencies and the points at which he is ignorant are brought out very clearly by Henzen in Comm. in hon. Mommseni, pp. 627 if. He is weak in the syntax of the cases and not infrequently puts the accusative after the preposition a or ab; he is not familiar with the Roman system of nomenclature and, consequently, confuses nomina and cognomina, gives a slave a nomen, or adds servus to the name of a freedman. His two fads are to put an apex over the preposition a, and to coin titles of the type a potione, to which he is prone to add a word that changes altogether the meaning of these stereotyped expressions; cases in point are faber a Corinthis [Google translate: a carpenter from Corinth], and a balnea custos [Google translate: a bath keeper]. The editors of the Corpus have studied the stylistic characteristics of these two men with such care that Mommsen (op. cit., p. 75) can say with truth: "a Ligorianis autem Gutensteniana qui artem callet non minus certo nec difficilius separabit quam qui poetis Latinis operam dederunt Vergiliana ab Ovidianis distinguunt." [Google translate: But he who is skilled in the art will no less certainly and no more difficultly separate the Gutenstians from the Ligorians than those who have paid attention to the Latin poets distinguish the Virgils from the Ovids.]

The true character of most of the forgeries was not discovered until long after they had been made. In the meantime they were copied into new collections by scholars all over the world, who often failed to indicate the source from which they had borrowed, and one of the most laborious tasks which the editors of the Corpus have had to perform is in tracing an inscription back through manuscript and printed collections to a Lupoli or a Ligorio. Thus VI. 2942*, forged by Ligorio, was borrowed by Panvinius, taken from him by Donius, and finally found its way into Muratori. Not infrequently forgers have been deceived by the inventions of other forgers. Ruggieri published IX. 180* from Mirabella. In the fourth line of Ruggieri's copy stood provo apuliae [Google translate: I stood to try Apulia]. The unscrupulous Pratilli took the inscription from Ruggieri, but changed the two words mentioned to proc. apuliae [Google translate: process Apulia], and finally Lupoli in his collection edited proc. apuliae, but later without comment changed the reading to corr. apuliae [Google translate: corr. Apulia]. The motive which actuated most forgers was a desire to win distinction by the number or importance of their discoveries; some of them wished to prove a point, or to establish the antiquity of their own families. This last motive accounts for Lupoli's invention of IX. 157*: C. Baebius Lu | pulus. et C. Baebius Lupul. f | Silvano. deo | vot. s. 1. m. [Google translate: C. Baebius Lu | flea and C. Baebius Lupul. f | Silvanus god vot s. 1. m.]

It may not be out of place to give a few of the spurious inscriptions which are most interesting in themselves or show a feeling for the picturesque or a sense of. humor on the part of the forger. In VI. 3439* we have the epitaph of Mithradates which reads: Haec est effigies regis | magni Mithradatis divi | tis et summi pauperis et | tenui hic positum horarum | rationes reddere cogit | post obitum nullum | tempus habere doces. [Google translate: This is the portrait of the king the god of the great Mithradates | tis and the most poor and | here is a thin set of hours | compels him to pay his bills after death no | You have time to teach.] The monument which Hannibal set up on the field of Cannae for Paulus Aemilius bore this epitaph: Annibal Pauli Aemilii Romanorum consulis apud Cannas trucidati conquisitum corpus inhumatum iacere passus non est; summo cum honore Romanis militibus mandavit sub hoc marmore reponendum et ossa eius ad urbem deportanda, IX. 99*. [Google translate: Hannibal did not suffer Paulus Aemilius, the Roman consuls at Cannae, to slay the body of the captured body inhumed; with the highest honor he ordered the Roman soldiers to be placed under this marble and his bones to be carried to the city, 9. 99*.] This is the passport which Caesar gave Cicero: C. Caesar M. T. Ciceronem ob egregias eius virtutes singularesque animi dotes per universum orbem virtute nostra armisque perdomitum salvum et incolumem esse iubemus, VI. 81*. [Google translate: C. Caesar M. T. Cicero, because of his excellent virtues and unique gifts of mind, we command to be safe and secure throughout the whole world by our power and weapons, tamed, 6. 81*.] We should have no hesitation in assigning this inscription to Sept. 47 B.C., and we owe its anonymous composer a debt of gratitude for bringing up in so concrete a way the memory of that dramatic meeting of the conqueror and the conquered at Tarentum or Brundisium, at the close of a long year of anxious and frightened waiting -- a meeting of which no other record has survived. The inscription, however, whose spurious character we admit with the greatest reluctance is VI. 3403*, which purports to contain fragments, eleven in all, from the Acta diurna [Google translate: Daily newspaper] of the second and first centuries before our era. The composition seems to go back to the close of the sixteenth century, and is perhaps to be traced to Ludovicus Vives (cf. Heinze De spuriis actorum diurnorum fragmentis) [Google translate: (see Heinze On spurious fragments of newspaper articles)]. It passed unquestioned through the hands of a number of distinguished scholars, Lipsius, Pighius, Camerarius, Graevius, and Vossius, and its authenticity was vigorously defended as late as the middle of the last century. It aroused the special interest of British scholars. John Locke called the attention of Graevius to it about the end of the seventeenth century, and Dodwell devoted himself particularly to its explanation and defense. How cleverly it was composed, so far as content goes, and how valuable it would be, were it authentic, may be illustrated by an extract from the year 586 A.U.C.: IV K. Aprileis fasceis penes Licinium | fulguravit tonuit et quercus tacta in | summa Velia paullum a meridie | rixa ad Ianum infimum in caupona et | caupo ad ursum galeatum graviter | sauciatus | C. Titinius aed. pl. mulcavit lanios | quod carnem vendidissent populo | non inspectam | de pecunia mulcatitia cella exstructa | ad Telluris Lavernae. [Google translate: 4 K. Aprileis fasces near Licinium | it flashed and thundered and the oak touched in | the summa of Velia a little to the south | Argued with Janus at the bottom of the restaurant and | keeper to the helmeted bear heavily | sauciatus | C. Titinius aed. pl. mulcavit lanios | that they had sold the flesh to the people I will not inspect a cell was built with fines to the land of Lavernae.] This whole composition, in fact, is the chef d'oeuvre of the epigraphical forger's art, and reminds one of the missing chapters of Petronius which Nodot cleverly composed and gave to the world a century later.

_______________

Notes:

1 These numbers represent the inscriptions published up to the present time in Vols. II-XIV of the CIL. Vol. I is not included because the inscriptions contained in it are republished elsewhere, and Vol. XV is excluded from the calculation because the spurious inscriptions have not yet been published for that volume. For our purpose it is also unnecessary to take into consideration the published inscriptions which have not yet been included in the CIL.

[admin]

Part 1 of 10

Real Fake: The Art, Life and Crimes of Elmyr De Hory: Illustrated Screenplay and Screencap Gallery
directed by Jeff Oppenheim
written by Robert K. Wittman
2017

He forged Modigliani, Picasso & Matisse, but was never caught? The life of Elmyr de Hory is a bizarre one, and this film dives into one of history's most notorious art forgers, reopening the criminal case, examining his art, his life, and his crimes.

-- Noble lie [Pious Fiction] [Pious Fraud] [Pious Invention], by Wikipedia
-- Outline of forgery, by Wikipedia
-- Literary forgery, by Wikipedia
-- False document, by Wikipedia
-- Pseudepigrapha, by Wikipedia
-- Donation of Constantine, by Wikipedia
-- A treasured manuscript in a college library that was believed to have been written by Galileo is a forgery, university says, by Aya Elamroussi
-- The Artist Who Got Rich Forging Picasso & Matisse: Real Fake: Elmyr de Hory, by Perspective
-- Forgery, by Wikipedia

REAL FAKE: THE ART, LIFE & CRIMES OF ELMYR DE HORY (2017)

Walk into any of the world's museums or art auction houses, and you have good reason to doubt your own eyes. Is that Picasso real? Did Modigliani really paint that masterpiece? The answer may be no. These works could very well be the hand of one of history's most versatile and prolific art forger -- Elmyr de Hory. 40-years after Elmyr's death, Filmmaker Jeff Oppenheim ("Funny Valentine," Universal Pictures, "A Passion for Giving," PBS) embarks on a re-examination of the facts of the case. A cadre of art experts discuss the issue of forgery within the art market at large, while a team of investigators dig into the life, art and crimes of this enigmatic forger. Assuming all previous information known about this forger might be as "wrong" as his art, the team examines the provenance, forensics and connoisseurship of Elmyr de Hory. Together they cut through a myriad of aliases, searching for never-before-revealed archival records, police files and personal remembrances of those that knew him. In the center of it all is a magnificent trail of evidence -- a bedazzling treasure trove of original impressionist and post impressionist masterpieces estimated to number in the thousands and potentially now worth billions. All Fake.



Perspective



presents



A Film by Jeff Oppenheim



[Auctioneer] And for lot 100,
I have an opening bid of $100,000.
One hundred? Any bids? $110,000.

Produced by Jeff Oppenheim



[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] The art market is booming right now.

Executive Producers
Pun Bandhu
Marc Falato

[Auctioneer] $120 on the telephone now. $120,000.



[Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London] Let's face it,
it's a feeding frenzy, isn't it?

Associate Producers
Elliot Antebi
Stephane Decker
Glenn Macura
Linda Porto

[Auctioneer] ...on my right. $160... $200,000.

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] The auction houses are having
pretty fantastic success.



Camera Operators (US)
Jason Basso
Antonio Fair
Christian Huguenot

[Auctioneer] ...on my right for $230,000.



[Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City] The art market is totally unregulated.
It's rife with fraud.

The art market is totally unregulated. It's rife with fraud. -- Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City

Camera Operators (EU)
Stephanie Oppenheim
David Smadia



Assistant Directors
Stephanie Oppenheim
David Smadia

[Auctioneer] At $250,000...

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] You can open the "New York Times,"
or the "Wall Street Journal,"
almost any day, and see some story.

[Auctioneer] $260.

Production Designer
Robert B. Greene, III

[Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City] Sort of like the penny
stock market in the 1960s.

[Auctioneer] $260,000.



Graphics & Titles
Jamie Leo

[Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City] It's kinda fun that way,
but you have to pay a lot of attention.

[Auctioneer] $260,000.

Editors
Jeff Oppenheim
Robert Reitano

[Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London] The trough is the art market.
The trough is what's selling.

When we talk about that market, we are not just talking about theft, we are talking about frauds, forgeries, and fakes, as well as theft. And from my experience, what I've seen, probably 75% of that market is frauds, forgeries, or fakes. -- Robert Wittman, Former Senior Investigator, Arts Crimes Team, FBI

Sound Design
Soundtrack New York

[Auctioneer] Going once. Going twice. On for third.
On the hammer, $270,000.

[Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London] What you're doing is putting
what's going down well
with the animals at the time.

What you're doing is putting what's going down well with the animals at the time. -- Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London

Music Supervision
Greg Arnold
No Fat Music

[Auctioneer] $280. Back in. $290.

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] People collect art
for all sorts of reasons.



Soundtrack Composer
Mark Berman

[Auctioneer] Do I hear $300,000?

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] And to find out that what
you're collecting isn't real.



Director
Jeff Oppenheim

[Auctioneer] Last chance. $300,000. I will sell.



[Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City] I've seen probably a fake a week,
but I don't get caught with them.

I've seen probably a fake a week, but I don't get caught with them. --- Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] The concept of "caveat emptor" is alive and well in the U.S.

The concept of "caveat emptor" is alive and well in the U.S. -- William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City

[Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City] It's just like your mother told you. If it's too good to be true, it's probably not true.

It's just like your mother told you. If it's too good to be true, it's probably not true. -- Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City

[Auctioneer] Sold.



REAL FAKE: THE ART, LIFE AND CRIMES OF ELMYR DE HORY



[Jeff Oppenheim] Like many a good tale,
it all started because of a girl.
Well, sort of.
I saw her across the crowded room.
Her soft shoulders. Her long neck.
Her auburn hair. Her knowing smile.
My friend made the introductions.
They both baited compliments out of me.
I had to get to know her.
I had to have her.
And it was then that my friend told me --



"She's fake."



And that's how my eight-year long journey
into the art, life, and crimes
of Elmyr de Hory all began.





[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] Let's say
we could find
a Modigliani made by Kisling [Moise Kisling]...



a Modigliani by Elmyr,
and one Modigliani by Modigliani [Amedeo Modigliani].



We put these three drawings
in front of a
group.
Let's say one
is a director or curator
of drawings
of the Metropolitan ...



one is a self-proclaimed expert,
and one is a great art dealer.



It could be anyone, ...



from Knoedler [The Knoedler Gallery], to Perls [The Perls Gallery],
or any of the great ones
who consider themselves great, and experts.



And if any of them recognize
which one is which,





I am ready to make a great gift



to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York,...



and they can hang it
next to some other Modiglianis ...



who are possibly also by me.


Elmyr?

Let's say we could find a Modigliani made by Kisling [Moise Kisling], a Modigliani by Elmyr, and one Modigliani by Modigliani [Amedeo Modigliani]. We put these three drawings in front of a group. Let's say one is a director or curator of drawings of the Metropolitan, one is a self-proclaimed expert, and one is a great art dealer. It could be anyone, from Knoedler [The Knoedler Gallery], to Perls [The Perls Gallery], or any of the great ones who consider themselves great, and experts. And if any of them recognize which one is which, I am ready to make a great gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and they can hang it next to some other Modiglianis who are possibly also by me. -- Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger

[Alasdair Nichol, Chair, Freeman's Auction] When you look at the famous forgers,
you look at Tom Keating [Tom Keating, Forger] who did
Samuel Palmer and Constable;
Eric Hebborn [Eric Hebborn, Forger] who specialized
in doing old master drawings --

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] A fellow named Beltracchi [Wolfgang Beltracchi, Forger];
and one named Pirenyi [Ken Perenyi].
At a Qian level [Pei-Shen Qian, Forger] --
very, very talented works.

Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art - Documentary Trailer - Now on Netflix
Feb 23, 2021



Filmmaker Barry Avrich (David Foster: Off the Record, Prosecuting Evil) explores how one of the most respected art galleries in New York City became the center of the largest art fraud in American history and was ultimately forced to close after 165 years. Knoedler & Company, under its president, Ann Freedman, made millions selling previously unseen works by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and others that had supposedly come from a secret collection. But when her prestigious clients discovered they had purchased fakes, the scandal rocked the art world. Avrich secured unprecedented access to Freedman, her clients and other key players for the documentary.

[Alasdair Nichol, Chair, Freeman's Auction] Van Meegeren [Hans van Meegeren, Forger], of course,
who's famous for doing Vermeers.

When you look at the famous forgers, you look at Tom Keating [Tom Keating, Forger] who did Samuel Palmer and Constable; Eric Hebborn [Eric Hebborn, Forger] who specialized in doing old master drawings -- A fellow named Beltracchi [Wolfgang Beltracchi, Forger]; and one named Pirenyi [Ken Perenyi]. At a Qian level [Pei-Shen Qian, Forger] -- very, very talented works. Van Meegeren [Hans van Meegeren, Forger], of course,who's famous for doing Vermeers.

[Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City] It's nothing new.
It's been going on
for probably 2,000 years.

It's nothing new. It's been going on for probably 2,000 years. -- Asher Eldman, CEO, Eldman Arts, New York City

[Alasdair Nichol, Chair, Freeman's Auction] All these people were
pretty much frustrated artists
and so they started to copy
other artists' works
and passing them off as being by them.

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] Of course, for someone like Elmyr,
his fakes were so good,
people would see them
and they wouldn't feel the need
to look much further.



[Don Myers, Director, Hillstrom Museum of Art, St. Peter] He's a person who was able to do
a great deal of tricking others,
to a degree that I think
is not possible anymore today.



When you have fakers coming out now,
you don't have them having passed off
a thousand works. You have them
passing off 100 or 200 works.



And I think that's largely
because of the new tests.
Also, sort of a general suspicion
on the part of the art world.

When you have fakers coming out now, you don't have them having passed off a thousand works. You have them passing off 100 or 200 works. And I think that's largely because of the new tests. Also, sort of a general suspicion on the part of the art world. -- Don Myers, Director, Hillstrom Museum of Art, St. Peter

So he's sort of a watershed moment
for the history of forgery.



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] To make first, a point:
I don't copy paintings, painters.


(Henri Matisse)

I paint in a certain style.
It could be the style of Matisse [Henri Matisse],



(Amedeo Modigliani)

or the style of Modigliani [Amedeo Modigliani],


(Pablo Picasso)

in the style of Picasso [Pablo Picasso],


(Raoul Dufy)

the style of Dufy [Raoul Dufy].

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] His forgeries were so good
that many people wouldn't
recognize them as fakes [Kees van Dongen].


(Kees van Dongen)

A lot of people would look at an Elmyr,


(Marc Chagall)

but think that they are seeing a Picasso,


(Maurice de Vlaminck)

or a Matisse, or Modigliani,
or some of the other greats that he faked.


New Scotland Yard, London



[Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London] His knowledge of art was clearly very good.
Technically, he was a good artist.
So he could replicate pastiche,
and other known artists' work.
And he knew enough about the market
to know how to actually sell it.



[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] Forgers want and need to have
compelling and believable sounding stories
to go along with their fake works.
In his case, Elmyr presented himself
as a sort of down-on-his-luck aristocrat
whose family had fallen on hard times,
and he was selling off
his collection to help
pay his way.

Forgers want and need to have compelling and believable sounding stories to go along with their fake works. -- William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City

[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] Everything what I sold -- very miserably --
the big money what was made
was never made by me.
It was always made by the dealers,
and the people who resold it.
What I got for it was a token.



[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] Like a lot of forgers,
he never identified for anyone
all of the works he did.
So we may never know
how many are out there.

Like a lot of forgers, he never identified for anyone all of the works he did. So we may never know how many are out there. -- William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City

[Alasdair Nichol, Chair, Freeman's Auction] We are never safe from forgeries, frankly.
I think a lot of people have
sleepless nights about this.
They really do.
And the question is,
really, "How many of them
passed into museums?"

We are never safe from forgeries, frankly. I think a lot of people have sleepless nights about this. They really do. And the question is, really, "How many of them passed into museums?" -- Alasdair Nichol, Chair, Freeman's Auction

(The Met)



[Don Myers, Director, Hillstrom Museum of Art, St. Peter] I remember reading Thomas Hoving's book
about fakes. And he claims that
40% of all the works that he saw
when he was at the Met were fakes.

I remember reading Thomas Hoving's book about fakes. And he claims that 40% of all the works that he saw when he was at the Met were fakes... The conservator friends suggest that a full 25% of any one major museum's holdings, including things in storage, are not right. -- Don Myers, Director, Hillstrom Museum of Art, St. Peter

(40%)

Things that were offered to him. 40%.


(25% Of All U.S. Art Museums Collections)

The conservator friends suggest that
a full 25% of any one
major museum's holdings,


(35,000 U.S. Art Museums)

including things in storage, are not right.

[admin]

Part 2 of 10



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] I never offered a painting, or a drawing,
to a museum who didn't buy it.



[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] It's probably true that
there are some in museums,
or in the hands of collectors,
or their heirs today, that could be found.

[Jeff Oppenheim] How many are still out there?

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] It's a mystery.



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] "Expose the man who holds the art world
on red hot threads."



[Robert Wittman, Former Senior Investigator, Arts Crimes Team, FBI] When the art world looks
at a painting, or whatever it is,
and they ooh and aah over it,
and they decide that it's



fantastic, and it's wonderful --
when these kinda sorts find out
that these pieces are not legitimate,
I think there's a certain amount
of egg-on-the-face situation.
And I think it's at that point that
they don't wanna talk about it,
because they made a mistake.

When the art world looks at a painting, or whatever it is, and they ooh and aah over it, and they decide that it's fantastic, and it's wonderful -- when these kinda sorts find out that these pieces are not legitimate, I think there's a certain amount of egg-on-the-face situation. And I think it's at that point that they don't wanna talk about it, because they made a mistake. -- Robert Wittman, Former Senior Investigator, Arts Crimes Team, FBI

In 1896, accompanied by the local Nepalese governor, General Khadga Shamsher, Führer discovered a major inscription on a pillar of Ashoka, an inscription which, together with other evidence, confirmed Lumbini as the birthplace of the Buddha. The pillar itself had been known for sometime already, as it had already been reported by Khadga Shamsher to Vincent Arthur Smith a few year earlier. Führer made his great discovery when he dug the earth around the pillar and reported the discovery of the inscription in a pristine state about one meter under the surface.

Führer claimed that the locals called the site "Rummindei", which he identified with the legendary "Lumbini", whereas it was found that the site was only called "Rupa-devi".

The authenticity of the discovery has long been doubted, and was openly disputed in a 2008 book by British writer Charles Allen.

Following the discovery of the pillar, Führer relied on the accounts of ancient Chinese pilgrims to search for Kapilavastu, which he thought had to be in Tilaurakot. Unable to find anything, he started excavating some structures he said were stupas, and was in the process of faking pre-Mauryan inscriptions on bricks, when he was caught in the act by Vincent Arthur Smith. The inscriptions were bluntly characterized by Smith as "impudent forgeries".

Around the same time, Führer was selling fake relics "authentified" but an inexistent inscription of Upagupta, the preceptor of Ashoka, to Shin U Ma, an important monk in Burma. He wrote to the Burmese monk: "Perhaps you have seen from the papers that I succeeded in discovering the Lumbini grove where Lord Buddha was born", noting that "you have unpacked the sacred relics of our Blessed Lord Buddha which are undoubtedly authentic, and which will prove a blessing to those which worship them faithfully". An "authentic tooth relics of the Buddha" sent by Führer in 1896 turned out to have been carved from a piece of ivory, and another sent in 1897 was that of a horse. The forgery was reported in 1898 to the British North-Western Provinces Government in India by Burmologist and member of the Burma commission Bernard Houghton, and started an enquiry which would lead to Führer's resignation on 16 September 1898...

These discoveries, at the time they were made, generated fantastic praise for the work of Führer. According to the New York Post (3 May 1896) the Nigliva discovery "seems to carry the origin of Buddhism much further back". The Liverpool Mercury (29 December 1896) reports that the discovery that Lumbini (also called Paderia) was "the actual birthplace of the Buddha ought to bring devout joy to about 627,000,000 people". The Pall Mall Gazette (18 April 1898) related that the Piprahwa discovery "contains no less a relic than the bones of the Buddha himself".

Führer's archaeological career ended in disgrace. Führer came under suspicion from March 1898 following the reported forgeries of the Buddha's relics.

A formal inquiry was launched into his activities, but officials struggled to find a "printable" reason for Führer's dismissal. Führer was officially confronted by Vincent Arthur Smith, who reported the forgeries of the Buddha's relics. Führer was exposed as "a forger and dealer in fake antiquities". Smith also blamed Führer for administrative failures in filing his reports to the Government, and for a false report about his preparations for future publications on his archaeological research: Führer was obliged to admit "that every statement in it [the report] was absolutely false." The false inscriptions supposed to authentify the Buddha relics were not mentioned in the investigations, apparently out of fear of casting doubt on the other epigraphical discoveries made by Führer. Similarly, the false publication of the ancient Burmese inscriptions, were the object of an institutional cover-up, which would not come to light before 1921, with the revelation of their inexistence made by Charles Duroiselle.

In 1901, Vincent Arthur Smith, after retirement, chose to reveal the blunt truth about the Nepalese discoveries and published a stark analysis of Führer's activities, apparently worried that "the reserved language used in previous official documents has been sometimes misinterpreted". In particular, Smith said of Führer's description of the archaeological remains at Nigali Sagar that "every word of it is false", and characterized several of Führer's epigraphic discoveries as "impudent forgeries". However Smith never challenged the authenticity of the Lumbini pillar inscription and the Nigali Sagar inscription discovered by Führer.

Under official instructions from the Government of India, Führer's resignation was accepted and he was relieved of his positions, his papers seized and his offices inspected by Vincent Arthur Smith on 22 September 1898. Führer had written in 1897 a monograph on his discoveries in Nigali Sagar and Lumbini, Monograph on Buddha Sakyamuni's birth-place in the Nepalese tarai, which was withdrawn from circulation by the Government.

-- Alois Anton Führer, by Wikipedia

[Geraldine Norman] In Auvers, Vincent stayed in a little auberge [inn] run by the Ravoux family. He lived there for just over two months and is credited with having painted eighty-three pictures -- which means more than a picture a day. Some of them must be fakes, and were probably painted by the Gachet circle. Dr. Gachet was a painter, and so was his son Paul known as Coco. After he had shot himself, Vincent struggled back to the auberge mortally wounded.

[Dominique Janssens, Institut Van Gogh, Auvers-Sur-Oise] Adeline, the daughter of the innkeeper, had seen that he was [inaudible]. That's why she came up to his room to check what happened. And then they called the local doctor. And the local doctor didn't want to take care of Vincent, because everybody in the village knew it was Dr. Gachet who takes care for the painters. So Dr. Gachet came over, and then when he had seen there was nothing to do, he asked the neighbor, [Perchick?], to go to Paris to pick up Theo. So Theo arrived at about 12 o'clock, and at one o'clock in the morning he died here in his room. Now Dr. Gachet came over with his son, and he said to his son, "Roll, Coco." because the more he was rolling the paintings, the more he could bring them back home. And that's how he got a collection of paintings on Van Gogh, which are today in the museum at Orsay.

[Geraldine Norman] Dr. Gachet and his son seemed to have taken as many paintings as they could. Gachet specialized in mental illness and homeopathy, but had been a keen amateur painter since his student day. His home attracted many artists, including Renoir, Pissarro and Cezanne, who came to him for medical advice, and loved experimenting with his etching press. Dr. Gachet died in 1909, but his son lived on in the house, becoming more and more eccentric and reclusive. He never had a job, and seems to have lived off selling the pictures and antiques that his father had crammed into the house. One villager, who has devoted her life to the study of local history, is Madame Claude [Migon?].

[Madame Claude (Migon?)] [Speaking French] He wouldn't tolerate people coming to the house. Not even local tradesmen, or people interested in the works.

[Geraldine Norman] [Speaking French] How could he live like that? He had to eat!

[Madame Claude (Migon?)] [Speaking French] It's a mystery. Like many things in this man's life. He was truly his father's son.

[Geraldine Norman] He kept very quiet very quiet about the Van Goghs, until he made a series of donations to French national collections in the 1950s. His gifts, now in the Musee d'Orsay, include works by Van Gogh, Renoir, Pissarro, and Cezanne. He also gave the nation paintings by his father and himself. He signed his pictures, including copies of works by other artists, with the pseudonym Louis Van Ryssel. His father called himself Paul van Ryssel. The museum has reacted to the controversy by having the Gachet Van Goghs scientifically investigated, and announcing that they will mount an exhibition of all Gachet's donations to public institutions in the autumn of 44:30 1998. This is sure to spark another explosive argument.

[Dominique Janssens, Institut Van Gogh, Auvers-Sur-Oise] You have seen when you walk up to the cemetery, the countryside is exactly how it was a hundred years ago. Japanese, they don't come only to visit, but also to bring offers for Vincent. And certain days we just clean the cemetery. And you have lots of little pots of sake, brushes, and also a lot of Japanese who died in in Japan, their dream is to be buried with Vincent. So a lot of Japanese bring over the ashes here, and then they put it on the graves of Vincent and Theo.

[Geraldine Norman] The number of Japanese tourists who come to worship at the van Gogh shrine in Auvers, got a big boost when Yasuda bought the sunflowers in 1987. It will be a terrible disappointment to the nation if they discover their famous sunflower picture is not really by Van Gogh.

[To Tom Hoving, Ex-Director Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC] What do you think Yasuda is going to say if they actually have to face the fact that they are landed with a fake?

[Tom Hoving, Ex-Director Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC] Oh, I don't think they'll face it. I think they hope it'll go away. I do not think that the people in charge of the insurance company are going to let regiments of experts in to take it off the exhibition, and look at it, and maybe even do some analysis, and so on. I just don't think they're gonna do that. I think it would be a very great loss of face. I think the picture was purchased because the only other Vincent van Gogh in Japan prior to the United States firebombing of Tokyo, was a sunflowers, which was destroyed.

[Geraldine Norman] It is said that the painting was relined after its arrival in Japan, which may mean that important evidence has been lost. We asked Yasuda if we could talk to them about this, and our views on the sunflowers problem. Yasuo Goto, the chairman of the company, replied, "We have no intention of participating in any discussion of sunflowers' authenticity, as we hold no doubts whatsoever that it is genuine. We also have no intention of answering the questions mentioned in your letter." I personally find it impossible to believe that the Yasuda sunflowers is by Van Gogh. There's too much evidence against it. It's not mentioned in the letters, or other early documents. It first appears in the hands of Emile Schuffenecker, whose name has long been linked with faking. And it is generally agreed that it is visually inferior to the other two. It does disturb me, however, that so many experts still think it genuine. They aren't talking to each other, and don't know each other's arguments. Which is why the muddle persists. If the experts, the Van Gogh Foundation, and Mr. Goto from Yasuda, could be persuaded to divulge what they know, the truth about the Yasuda picture could be found. Using secrecy to protect their reputations and huge investments just won't do. Christie's has both money and reputation at stake, and has opted for silence. They refused to be interviewed, and issued a statement saying, "We see no reason, on the evidence so far produced, to alter our original opinion that the sunflowers is an authentic work by Van Gogh."

[Tom Hoving, Ex-Director Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC] You don't ever get a concert of opinion in art. Very seldomly you get it. And so this, I think, will just kind of go on forever. And since it's not going to ever be for resale, does it matter?

[Dr. Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, Prof. History of Art, University of Toronto] Most of us who know Van Gogh -- and I think a lot of us do, or profess to know a lot about Van Gogh -- know that this very simple man, filled with great humility and compassion for mankind, saw these works as different legacies than financial ones. I think he would be horrified, and distraught beyond anything you can imagine, to see himself somersaulted to such tremendous value, and such crass commercialism. I think it would have been something that he couldn't have ever tolerated.

-- Is Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' A Fake?: The Fake Van Gogh's, with Geraldine Norman, Timeline, World History Documentaries

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] It's the ultimate game of cat and mouse.
And how purchasers,



unwitting purchasers of fake art,
are supposed to know that,
I think raises a lot
of very, very difficult
to answer questions.



And certainly difficult in a legal sense,
and something that the law
just has to struggle with
on a case-by-case basis.



[Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London] Really, any area of
crime involving art,
reflects what the marketplace
is doing for art.
So if Picasso is selling well,
you'll find there's an influx of
fake Picassos into the market.
Now how they do that,
whether they do a direct copy,
that's the worst thing they can do.



If they do a pastiche of an artist,
perhaps he's not so well-known,
perhaps he's second tier of that
particular area of art,
and therefore it's
unlikely there's gonna be
a complete catalog raisonné
for the art dealer to check on.
But it looks right.
And hey, it's selling well.
And if he takes it,
"If I don't buy it off this person,
he's gonna take it to a competitor
who sure as hell's gonna buy it,
and I've got somebody who is
really interested in buying
this particular commodity right now."
Dealers go for it. They want to believe.
It's the desire of wanting to see it right.
And this is what the forger
and the conman is playing on.

Dealers go for it. They want to believe. It's the desire of wanting to see it right. And this is what the forger and the conman is playing on. -- Richard Ellis, Former Art Crimes Bureau Chief, Scotland Yard, London

[Robert Wittman, Former Senior Investigator, Arts Crimes Team, FBI] Well, the actual art market
itself, worldwide,
is about $200 billion a year.



That's the consumer part
of that art market.
The largest consumer country in the world
for this type of market
is the United States.



40% of the $200 billion market
is here in the U.S.
Almost $80 billion a year.
To put it in perspective,



if you take the four major
sports in the United States --
baseball, football, hockey, and basketball --
the total receipts each year
is about $26 billion.

[Jeff Oppenheim] How much of that $80 billion
do you think is caused by fakes?



[Robert Wittman, Former Senior Investigator, Arts Crimes Team, FBI] The FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol,
we put together some estimates
as to what the possible
illicit cultural property market
could have been.



And at that time we said,
maybe $6 billion a year.
When we talk about that market,
we are not just talking about theft.
We are talking about frauds,
forgeries, and fakes,
as well as theft.



And from my experience, what I've seen,
probably 75% of that market
is frauds, forgeries, or fakes.
It is not theft.

When we talk about that market, we are not just talking about theft, we are talking about frauds, forgeries, and fakes, as well as theft. And from my experience, what I've seen, probably 75% of that market is frauds, forgeries, or fakes. -- Robert Wittman, Former Senior Investigator, Arts Crimes Team, FBI

(Wildenstein & CC)

[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] All you know is you went
to a gallery of some repute
and bought something with the name "Matisse".



And it looks like a Matisse,
and you spent a lot of money on it.



Are you supposed to suspect
that maybe it was by de Hory all along?



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] It doesn't want to be a Matisse.



It just wants to demonstrate



how, in short minutes,
close I can get to Matisse.

[Jeff Oppenheim] Clearly, I wasn't the first to be fooled.
And probably not the last.



So I packed up a few
questionable works of art



that I had acquired, and headed to Texas,



where apparently one of the greatest cases
against Elmyr and his associates
had been formed by a gentleman of the name
"Algur Meadows,"


"He thought he'd create a tiny Prado in Texas."

who had been fooled not once, not twice,
but, well, in his own words...


Voice of Meadows From NBC Interview

[Voice of Algur Meadows, from NBC Interview] Of the 40 paintings I have
acquired from two Frenchmen,
38 of them were fakes.



[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Well, there's different tracks
that you need to do.
A lot of it is a track that is focused
on the paintings themselves,
and where they're located,.



And another track is following
the forger himself.
Visualize a three-legged stool.
Those three aspects
are: provenance, forensics,
and connoisseurship.

[Jeff Oppenheim] So provenance is --
that's getting to where it came from, yes?





[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Provenance is the history of it.
It includes conservation done to it.





People emphasize the sale,
but they should also focus
on the conservation,
and other things that were
done throughout its history.

[Jeff Oppenheim] Tell me about the connoisseurship side.



[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Connoisseurship is the oldest
of all of the practices.



It's looking at the painting.
Does it correspond with
the style of the artist?



Does it have that air,
that aura, that says,
"This is it.
This is the brush stroke.
This is the content.



The subject matter is correct."



On the forensic side, there's
a lot of new developments.
A lot of this technology
being brought in
to identifying, attributing,



authenticating works of art,



are technologies that were initially done
for other industries.

There's different tracks that you need to do. A lot of it is a track that is focused on the paintings themselves, and where they're located. And another track is following the forger himself. Visualize a three-legged stool. Those three aspects are: provenance, forensics, and connoisseurship. Provenance is the history of it. It includes conservation done to it. People emphasize the sale, but they should also focus on the conservation, and other things that were done throughout its history. Connoisseurship is the oldest of all of the practices. It's looking at the painting. Does it correspond with the style of the artist? Does it have that air, that aura that says, "This is it. This is the brush stroke. This is the content. The subject matter is correct." On the forensic side, there's a lot of new developments. A lot of this technology being brought in to identifying, attributing, authenticating works of art, are technologies that were initially done for other industries. -- Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas

[Narayan Khandekar, Director, Straus Center for Conservation & Technical Studies, Harvard Art Museums] Traditionally, understanding a work of art



has been the world of the art historian,
the curator.



And with conservators and scientists
becoming involved
in the museum environment,
we're finding that
conservators have a certain perspective,
and scientists also can have a perspective
that is valid and different.

Art Forensic Tools

• Carbon Dating
• White Lead
• X-Ray
• Dendrochronology
• Stable Isotope Analysis
• Thermoluminescence

And so these three different areas
have complementary skills.


Art Forensic Tools

[Jeff Oppenheim] So using that investigative platform,
how would you go back in now
and look at Elmyr, the master criminal?



[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] From the provenance side,
we would look at dealers
in the cities matching with
the cities he lived in.



Then see if you can find
records of their operations
with, say, a sales receipt,


Sales Receipt from the Algur Meadows Legal Files

a purchase receipt.



[William Charron, Esq., Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP, New York City] I think a big difference between
a forger in Elmyr's day, and a forger today,
is Elmyr could fake his identity,



and have an easier time
getting away with it.
Because, you know, there was no Internet.
There was no mass media in the same way.


Elmyr de Hory; Joseph Dory-Boutin; Hoppmester; Von Hopry; Haury

So Elmyr could present himself
in San Francisco and have one alias,
then he might be in Texas
or Miami with another alias,


Elemer Hoffmann; Elmyr de Hory; Joseph Dory-Boutin; Hoppmester; Von Horry; Haury; Hury; Charles Curiel; Robert Cassou, E. Raynal de Hory; E. Raynal; Elmyr Rainol; Baron de Bouhady; Von Bouhady; Louis Koundjy; Lazslo Elmire; Andre De Herzog; Joseph Alfred Daury

and he just might not be discovered.
I think it's much harder to do that today,
but not impossible.



[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] On the connoisseurship side,


Investigating a possible Fernand Leger

if you deal a lot in those works,
you get an eye. You pick up on things.



You get a feel for the artist.
And so, dealers can weed that out.



[Colleen Boyle, Sr. VP-National Sales Manager, Pall Mall Art Advisors, King of Prussia] We look for style,
signature, medium.
The second thing we're gonna do
is, once we document
those particular aspects of a painting,



we're gonna start our research.
And the first thing
we're gonna look for is history.
We're gonna look at catalog raisonnés.
Is the piece in a catalog raisonné?



We're gonna look, uh,
to see if there's any literary references.



We're gonna look at exhibition history.
Has the piece ever been on exhibition?
Is there a record of it
ever being on exhibition?
Thirdly, we're gonna
look at the provenance.
Where did the piece come from?
If there's no traceable
evidence of acquisition,
that does create a red flag.

[First], we look for style, signature, medium. The second thing we're gonna do is, once we document those particular aspects of a painting, we're gonna start our research. And the first thing we're gonna look for is history. We're gonna look at catalog raisonnés. Is the piece in a catalog raisonné? We're gonna look to see if there's any literary references. We're gonna look at exhibition history. Has the piece ever been on exhibition? Is there a record of it ever being on exhibition? Thirdly, we're gonna look at the provenance. Where did the piece come from? If there's no traceable evidence of acquisition, that does create a red flag. -- Colleen Boyle, Sr. VP-National Sales Manager, Pall Mall Art Advisors, King of Prussia

[Jeff Oppenheim] What's your feeling looking at it now?



[Colleen Boyle, Sr. VP-National Sales Manager, Pall Mall Art Advisors, King of Prussia] I'd have to say, well,
the color scheme,
and the composition,
do appear similar to Leger's other studies.
The actual execution, from a gut feeling,
doesn't appear to be in the hand of Leger.



[Jeff Oppenheim] You're suspicious?


Elmyr?

[Colleen Boyle, Sr. VP-National Sales Manager, Pall Mall Art Advisors, King of Prussia] Yes, I -- I'm very suspicious.

[admin]

Part 3 of 10



[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Now, in the forensics, it's more difficult,
because a lot of these paints
were used by the same artist.





[Narayan Khandekar, Director, Straus Center for Conservation & Technical Studies, Harvard Art Museums] In forgeries, or in something
that has been over-restored,
people will use something
that is not necessarily made
at the right time for that artist.



So, for example, somebody
forging a Botticelli painting



might have used Prussian blue.


Prussian Blue, Pezandie, May, 1936

That's a blue pigment that wasn't available
until several centuries
after the artist had died.
But on the painting it looks right.
And so they'll use it.


Ultra Marine, Tizian Color co., Gift -- J.N. Rosenberg

And afterwards, scientists can come along
and identify that the blue pigment
is not azurite, or ultra marine --
as it should be --
but it is Prussian blue.



And using instruments
that have helped us identify
pigments more carefully --
infrared spectrometry's
been developed to a new level --



we can take
very small amounts of material,
and collect a very good spectrum,


Harvard's Edward W. Forbes Pigment Collection contains 2,500+ samples collected from around the world.

and then connect that to a library.
And we can identify pigments that way.


Laser Desorption Ionization Mass Spectrometry

Also, at Harvard, we've
developed a technique called
"Laser Desorption
Ionization Mass Spectrometry."
And it's a technique
where you put a sample
of pigment on a plate,
zap it with a laser,
and that will volatilize it,
then put it into a mass spectrometer.
And then those very complicated
organic molecules,
that are used for modern paint,
can be identified.

In forgeries, or in something that has been over-restored, people will use something that is not necessarily made at the right time for that artist. So, for example, somebody forging a Botticelli painting might have used Prussian blue. That's a blue pigment that wasn't available until several centuries after the artist had died. But on the painting it looks right. And so they'll use it. And afterwards, scientists can come along and identify that the blue pigment is not azurite, or ultra marine -- as it should be -- but it is Prussian blue. And using instruments that have helped us identify pigments more carefully -- infrared spectrometry's been developed to a new level -- we can take very small amounts of material, and collect a very good spectrum, and then connect that to a library. And we can identify pigments that way. Also, at Harvard, we've developed a technique called "Laser Desorption Ionization Mass Spectrometry." And it's a technique where you put a sample of pigment on a plate, zap it with a laser, and that will volatilize it, then put it into a mass spectrometer. And then those very complicated organic molecules, that are used for modern paint, can be identified. -- Narayan Khandekar, Director, Straus Center for Conservation & Technical Studies, Harvard Art Museums

[Jeff Oppenheim] And if we want to understand Elmyr,
don't we sort of have to understand,
I guess it would be his MO?
Why he did what he did?
Why not be a real legit artist?
And why do this life of crime?

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yeah.

[Jeff Oppenheim] How would we go about that?
What would you suggest?



[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] We study the person,
his profile, his upbringing,
his background,


Budapest

social economic upbringing,
where he comes from.

We study the person, his profile, his upbringing, his background, social economic upbringing, where he comes from. He has an upbringing; he has an art education. What does he do to be able to survive? -- Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas

Elmyr's Alleged Childhood Neighborhood in Budapest, Hungary

[Jeff Oppenheim] It sounds like you're
suggesting we go to Budapest?

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] In Budapest, we'll learn about the history
of that period in which he comes up.


Elmyr's Secondary School in Budapest where he already showed interest in artistic studies.

He has an upbringing;
he has an art education


Elmyr wins prize at prestigious art salon sponsored by his school.

You know, what does
he do to be able to survive?
Like, he changes his name.
That's very common in Jewish people
who went through the Holocaust.

[Jeff Oppenheim] Right.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] ...and survived


Hungarian Jewish Collecting Prison.

But that experience is so heavy,
that it can create a person
in a certain mold.



And so from that, we'll be
able to know him better,
and understand why it was
so easy for him to just
turn away from being an artist himself,



and just flaunt it with forgeries
to fund a lifestyle.





Yet our intention is to find out the truth.
Find out the truth,
and separate the fake from the real.

Our intention is to find out the truth. Find out the truth, and separate the fake from the real. -- Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas

BUDAPEST







[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] I knew that Elmyr was
a very talented faker,
who had a very adventurous life,
and who was a very special character.
But we didn't know very much
about what happened to him
when he lived before here, in Hungary.



His original name was Hoffmann Elemer.
In Hungarian, we change
the order of the names.
We put the surname first,
and then we put the given name.



At the turn of the century,
there was a flourishing
artistic colony in Transylvania.



It was called, "the Nagybanya colony".
It was a beautiful, lovely
little Transylvanian village.



The translation actually of this village
is "Huge Mine" -- Nagybanya.



This is a place
which Elmyr attended himself, too.
For this was a really controversial time [1925],


1925

after the First War until the beginning
of the Second World War.



Plenty of new art unions, and
organizations were established.
A lot of kitschy paintings appeared.
There was a huge battle against
all these kitschy things that
appeared on the market.
But there were very good works as well.



There was also a revival
of avant-gardism.
So Elmyr had lots of,
inspiration,
and lots of impact, I think,
on his artistic character.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yes.

[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] And perhaps, I think this
could be a reason why he felt
a little bit overwhelmed, or maybe --

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Overwhelmed by other artists
that were better, maybe?



[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] Yes. Or maybe he felt that the level
to be reached is too high.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yes.

[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] And maybe it just blocked him.
And that's why he turned to faking things
and not living
his own artistic career.



Or maybe a more deeper part of his character,
a more colorful, and more "liar" character.





[Laszlo Lelkes, Adjunct Professor, University of Fine Arts, Budapest] So this art camp,
or we call it "art colony,"
or "artists' colony,"


Art Colony of Lake Balaton

it has a very rich heritage
in this country.
A very famous artists' colony,
like the Nagybanya artists' colony.
So it's kind of an intellectual circle.



And not only the physical space,
but the common thinking.
But at the same time, trying to
produce artworks that can be
distinguished from other influences,
and other ways of thinking.



Because everything was basically
happening here on the spot.



And there's a very more
important aspect
of being a member of
a regular artist colony,
like Nagybanya.
And many others in this country.
Because it was a kind of brand.



As a brand, it gave you prestige.
You belonged to a certain
intellectual circle
that could give you some more support.


Magyar Nemzeti Galeria



[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] To be a forger is a very
strange psychological situation:
to be someone, and to be
someone else at the same time.
But he needs to expose himself.



The forgers himself, or themselves,
want to be seen somehow.
Not as a forger, but as
the producer of the work.

To be a forger is a very strange psychological situation: to be someone, and to be someone else at the same time. But he needs to expose himself. The forgers himself, or themselves, want to be seen somehow. Not as a forger, but as the producer of the work. -- Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] I first encountered Elmyr's body of work a few years ago when I was fortunate enough to examine one of Maklari Kalman's [Kalman Maklary] [paintings]. It was a Modigliani -- an Elmyr Modigliani. The examinations came to a very interesting conclusion. Elmyr didn't try to replicate paints of the period. Instead, he focused on the spirit, and the process of making art.





[Examining a possible Derain watercolor] Yeah, the surface is old. A lot of cracks
on the surface of the color.



Sometimes I see some bubbles, too.
It means this color is not 100 years old.
The paint is very creamy.



And I'm not able to see
small grains inside.

[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] When we talk about art,
and when we love art,
we love the history --
that which is not seen.
We love that it was painted
by someone who we love.


[Claude Monet]

We love Monet [Claude Monet].
We love Tiziano [Tiziano Vecelli (also known as Titian)]. We love Picasso [Pablo Picasso].
This is part of this whole thing
that we believe is art.



[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] Several times I see artificial aging,
frothing, make it dirty,
and so on, and so on.



[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] When something suddenly
proves to be a forgery,
this is an attack against
this kind of knowledge,
and this kind of belief
in our personality.
And this is something
that's very, very difficult
to cure.
Forgery must be served
as fresh as possible.
So the next day is not as good.
The original things
have the same quality every time,
and give you new questions.
They have new inspirations,
even if its young -- 500 years old.
But you see that, yes,
there is still some power.

When we talk about art, and when we love art, we love the history -- that which is not seen. We love that it was painted by someone who we love. We love Monet. We love Tiziano (Titian). We love Picasso. This is part of this whole thing that we believe is art. When something suddenly proves to be a forgery, this is an attack against this kind of knowledge, and this kind of belief in our personality. And this is something that's very, very difficult to cure. Forgery must be served as fresh as possible. So the next day is not as good. The original things have the same quality every time, and give you new questions. They have new inspirations, even if its young -- 500 years old. -- Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] A hair.
Maybe the hair of the artist. Here.
It's so funny.



[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] The forgeries unveil themselves,
by themselves, automatically.
This is the time. The time executes [puts to death]
the forgeries after some years.



[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] We go step by step, and measure
each color with the XRF gun;
and later on we get
the chemical components.



So first I will measure the red one.
On the red area, we need to find
phosphor with mercury or red lead.
On the white surface, cadmium yellow.
And what is the most important is
that on the white area,
it mustn't be titanium white
if this artwork wasn't painted later on.
So it must be lead white --
a kind of mixture with zinc white.

We go step by step, and measure each color with the XRF gun, and later on we get the chemical components. So first I will measure the red one. On the red area, we need to find phosphor with mercury or red lead. On the white surface, cadmium yellow. And what is the most important is that on the white area, it mustn't be titanium white if this artwork wasn't painted later on. So it must be lead white -- a kind of mixture with zinc white. -- Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest

[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] I think that yes, in an aesthetical sense,
the perfect forgery can be produced.
But in an art-historical sense,
it's impossible.

I think that yes, in an aesthetical sense, the perfect forgery can be produced. But in an art-historical sense, it's impossible. -- Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] So it's not 100 years old. I'm sure.

[admin]

Part 4 of 10

[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] Now, so it's very easy
to see that yes, it's Elmyr de Hory.
Why didn't collectors of the 1950s
see these bad things?
Because they were living at that time.
And the forgeries were prepared
for the taste of that time.



[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] Yeah, maybe the paper was much more older.

[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] I think that even today, even this moment,
in some corner of the world,
a good quality forged painting is being made.



[Zsofia Vegvari, Head of Komplex Art Forensics, Budapest] I'd say 50.
This painting is around 50 or 60 years old.


Elmyr?



[Dr. Gabor Bellak, Curator, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest] And if someone [were to] ask if there are forgeries
in an art collection
in the Hungarian National Gallery,
I would say that as much as I know
today, we don't know about forgeries.
But there might be in 100 years.




National Archives of Hungary



[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] So, for me, this whole research
was very interesting because when we met,
we started to investigate
a little bit more deeper.
We started to dig a little bit more deeper,
here in Hungary,
in the archives, and in databases.





And that opened another,
or maybe more deeper, part of his character,
a more colorful, and more "liar" character.



I'm not sure that it's here,
but I can't really imagine that there was
another Hoffmann Elemer at the same time.







And it says that, uh...
The story goes back to the last year
when there was a huge case,
that Hoffmann Elemer,
Elmyr Hoffmann, the painter,



was arrested by the police
because of stealing something.


Perczel Zita, Actress of Stage & Screen

And later, against this artist,
Zita Perczel [Perczel Zita, Actress of Stage & Screen],
who was the actress of the
Hungarian theater.




Elmyr 1935

Yes, we found something
very interesting about Elmyr
in an archive.
A newspaper article, actually.

"Kleptomaniac Painter ..."
-- Az Est (The Evening) Budapest, March3, 1935 p. 7

"Elmer Bonyhadi-Hoffman is Wanted ...
-- Esti Kurir (Evening Courier) Budapest, March 2, 1935 p. 2

"Painter Elemer Bonyhadi Hoffman Captured and Arrested"
-- Pesti Naplo (Pest Diary) Budapest, March 12, 1935 p. 12

"I didn't really know what I was doing ..."

"I had just gotten back from Spalato where I was mistakenly accused of being a spy ..."

"I was sick and treated with Morphine. Even Prince Joseph can confirm this as I was injected while painting his portrait."

"Police Doctors Examine Kleptomaniac Painter"
-- Pesti Napio (Pest Diary) Budapest, July 22, 1936 p. 8

"Jury examines Mental State"
-- Pesti Hirlap (Budapest News Sheet), April 17, 1936 p. 9

"Bonyhadi-Hoffman deemed limited compos mentis"
-- Pesti Hirlap (Budapest News Sheet), September 20, 1936 p. 9

"compos mentis" deemed limited

And it was
a very interesting story that
once he painted a portrait of an actress.



And while painting this actress
in the apartment of her family,



when they didn't pay attention, he just
took a few things away.
He has stolen a few things away,
like silver things, and jewelries.



And of course, the parents
of this actress
discovered that he was
a thief, basically.
And they went to the police.
The police investigated, and
they found everything
in Elmyr's flat:
all the silver; all the jewelries.
And of course, he was arrested.



It's a funny story, I think. No?



And he told them that, "Well,
those were very, very strange times."
He doesn't exactly remember
what happened in those times.
Probably, it all happened
because he was in Serbia
when the King was killed.
And he was arrested then
because they thought he was a spy.
And he was even treated with morphine.



And even Prince Joseph
can tell that it was the truth.



Because while he was painting his portrait,
he was treated with morphine,
because he was so extremely exhausted,
and excited, and sick.



And his lawyer asked him
to examine his state of mind --



whether he has some psychological problems.



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] And then I proceeded to France, to Paris,
where I studied under Fernand Leger
at the Academie la Grande Chaumiere.


Cafe Montmartre



[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] And I must also add that
in this article, we can read that
he was punished,





and he was arrested before several times.
Not only in Budapest,



but also in London, in Zurich,
and other European cities.




Societe d'Avocats [Society of Attorneys]






Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris



[Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris] [Speaking French] "Convictions. The 18th of March, 1927. Check fraud. The 21st of September, 1927. Fraud. Three months prison. The 15th of October, 1927. Six months prison. Theft. The 27th of October, 1928. Berlin. Two months prison for theft. The 28th of December, 1928. Charlottenburg. Concealment. This is better! February 1929. Here it is. It begins. Concealment. Concurrent sentences. The 10th of May, 1929. The same. Attention, a judgment of fraud and embezzlement. The 21st of August, 1929. London. Infraction with foreign police. Two months prison. The 23rd of December, 1930. Vale-ville. Forgery. Repeated offense. Abusive use of proof of evidence. Three months prison. 1933. Zurich. Fraud. Forgery." And after it stops.

"Convictions. The 18th of March, 1927. Check fraud. The 21st of September, 1927. Fraud. Three months prison. The 15th of October, 1927. Six months prison. Theft. The 27th of October, 1928. Berlin. Two months prison for theft. The 28th of December, 1928. Charlottenburg. Concealment. February 1929. Concealment. Concurrent sentences. The 10th of May, 1929. The same. Attention, a judgment of fraud and embezzlement. The 21st of August, 1929. London. Infraction with foreign police. Two months prison. The 23rd of December, 1930. Vale-ville. Forgery. Repeated offense. Abusive use of proof of evidence. Three months prison. 1933. Zurich. Fraud. Forgery." -- Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris

[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] Actually, this is something that he denied,
and said that his passport was stolen,
and someone under his name
committed these crimes.



[Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris] [Speaking French] It's incredible! Elmyr has the criminal record of a drug addict. Like an addict, it keeps mounting and mounting without end.



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] When all of the other people sort of
tried to get over the Atlantic,
I returned to Budapest.



[Marc Masuorvsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.] Just imagine what it's like:
You're in France,
war's about to break out,
the French are getting
a little excited because,
all of a sudden, they realize,
"Well, if there's Germans coming in,



then anybody with a Germanic background
is gonna be suspect."



So they are already starting
to put people in prison.


Zita Perczel in "Meseauto"

If Hungary's his home,
then the natural thing
to do is go back home.
Elmyr goes back to Hungary.
And Hungary's far away.
So, technically speaking,
it's also a point of escape.
And he is a mischievous,
opportunistic person,
based on the background
that we've come to know of him.


June 1941, Elemer released from prison. His parents have long divorced. His father Adolph Hoffman has died. His mother Irene Tener has remarried. His family, disgraced, disowns him. His brother Istvan (Hont) Hoffman has, like Elemer, been in and out of jail. Istvan claims addiction to Morphine.

So I think, honestly,
it was the right choice for him.
And he probably felt that,
being back in the homestead
would allow him to sort of
regroup and figure out
what the next step would be.



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] The war broke out.

[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] And the stories around
he is staying in a concentration camp
are very questionable.


Hungary's Collecting Prison

[Marc Masuorvsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.] But clearly, if it's before 1944,
then obviously
it's the Hungarian authorities.



[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] He explains that
he was injured.
I think his leg was broken.
And he was sent to hospital.
This didn't happen in those times.

He explains that he was injured. I think his leg was broken. And he was sent to hospital. This didn't happen in those times. -- Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest

Special Exhibition. State of Deception. The Power of Nazi Propaganda. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

[Marc Masuorvsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.] You think that somebody
like Elmyr might realize that
his background could work against him.
But it can also work for him.



The International Tracing Service
is really about anybody who disappeared,
or went missing.


Marc Masurovsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.

The fact that we do have
so many Hungarian names,
is predicated both in part
because of the Budapest situation,
but also because
so many deportations occurred.
And once you cross the "border,"


Counted Remnant: Register of the __ Survivors in Budapest

and face incarceration in a camp,
then your name will surface.



In other words, you have to be in a prison.
You have to be in a camp.
You have to be in a place where
you're gonna be registered.
So we use this card index
to see if we can find anything
on Elmyr's family.



[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] Because if we start to look at the archives,
we mustn't use his
invented name, "Elmyr de Hory."



But we must use,
of course, his original name:
"Hoffmann Elemer."



[Marc Masurovsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.] Now, they did confirm the mother.
They confirmed he had a family.

[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] And also, another relative's grave was mentioned
in the letter, who was called Adin.


Comite International De La Croix-Rouge

[Marc Masurovsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.] But we couldn't go too much beyond that.
It's only if he somehow
just fell off the radar screen,
then he wouldn't be listed.




Marc Masurovsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.

But people like Istvan and Elmyr,
at this point we're sort of
looking at them as a duo
that enable one another to do things,
more illicit than licit.
And those are the kinds
of people, frankly, who,
wake up interests in intelligence agencies.


Istvan Hoffman appears to have been sent to the Garany Camp. In 1944, all internees were relocated to Auschwitz. According to a court document, Istvan was released from Garany before relocation. All records of Istvan disappear till after the war is over.

And if his talents
are known even to Istvan,
and if Istvan is close to the Germans,
for whatever reasons,
then that's the kind of message
that doesn't go unheeded.
Because, by the early '40s BND,
which is really the foreign
counter-intelligence arm
of German secret service,
is looking for people like that.
Because they need
fake passports, fake visas.
And if you have
skilled individuals like Elmyr
who are available,
then they're likely to recruit them.

People like Istvan and Elmyr -- those are the kinds of people, frankly, who, wake up interests in intelligence agencies. And if his talents are known even to Istvan, and if Istvan is close to the Germans, for whatever reasons, then that's the kind of message that doesn't go unheeded. Because by the early '40s, BND, which is really the foreign counter-intelligence arm of German secret service, is looking for people like that. Because they need fake passports; fake visas. And if you have skilled individuals like Elmyr who are available, then they're likely to recruit them. -- Marc Masurovsky, Co-founder, The Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Washington, D.C.

The Nazi Forgery Efforts Included:

• Foreign Identification Papers
• British Pound Notes
• Art Work

[Dr. Katalin Gereben, Attorney & Arts Restitution Specialist, Budapest] "I was taught to question everything."

[admin]

Part 5 of 10



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] Who knows? What is it?
What makes you travel?
You want to change your landscape,
you want to meet new people,
you want to meet new faces,
you think you'll meet
somebody more attractive
in the next town
as you met there. You never know why,
why people travel.









[Jeff???] Michel Braudeau, please. Ah, yes. Hello, Michel. This is Jeff. Yes. Yes, yes. We are here in Paris. 4:00 pm? Yes. Thank you. See you soon.



[Michel Braudeau, Journalist/Author, Paris] [Speaking French] The story of de Hory is a story of someone who endlessly hid.







He died in 1976, so you can still meet people who knew him.


Michel Braudeau, Journalist/Author, Paris

I never met him, but I hope you've met others who did. When Elmyr was young, he faced two problems.



He lived the life of an artist, and he was homosexual. So, he went to Munich, where he had more freedom away from his family.



That didn't go well for long,



so he came to Paris, because that was where it was all happening.



It was the epoch there, in 1926, when it was all happening.





He worked with Fernand Leger at the Grand Chaumiere.



Even Fernand Leger created fakes.



And if he could create a small drawing by copying somebody else -- there it is!



He would play between fellow



by making a fake amongst colleagues. During the era of Courbet, there were many fakes.



Jean-Baptise de CamilleCorot had a factory, because he couldn't keep up with the demand. So he had people serving as his agent, making Corots.



All the painters from the beginning of the 20th century -- all of them copied each other. Even Van Goghs.



There are even two versions of the Irises. I think Elmyr was someone who



benefited greatly from this time,



when there were less checks and balances than today.



And through the good graces of this, he prospered.



[Marc Restellini, Founder/President, Pinacotheque Museum, Paris] [Speaking French] Also with the aid of his accomplice,



Fernand Legros, who was more ill-intentioned than Elmyr. He was happy to stay in his corner without suffering the consequences of his commercial actions in the market of all these artists, and which had monstrous consequence. I think that since de Hory had no money, he would say, "If Fernand Leger did it, why not me?"



[Michel Braudeau, Journalist/Author, Paris] [Speaking French] And if he were to make a little Picasso, which was easy for him, and he could pay his rent -- why not?


1946: Picasso



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] A titled Englishwoman
walked in one day to my room,
and she saw on the wall,
pinned on the wall, a drawing.



And say, "Hey, where you got that Picasso?"
I say, "Well, do you think it's a Picasso?"
She said, "Well, I know enough about Picasso
to know whether it's a Picasso or not."
I say, "Fine."
She say, "Would you sell it?"
I say, "Well, delighted."
So she says, "Well, how much?"



Well, I can't remember saying.
I think 50 pounds, I think she offered me.
And I did sell it to her.
I didn't feel good about. She was a friend.
But the 50 pound helped me a great deal,
because it was the day
of the payment for the rent,



and I didn't have the money for the rent.



[Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris] [Speaking French] Elmyr was absolutely without right to copy these eminent artists. He was prolific.


Henri Matisse

Elmyr de Hory copied as a full-time job.



[Michel Braudeau, Journalist/Author, Paris] [Speaking French] But if we think that perhaps he didn't have the creativity, he would create and learn and become the author of the copy.



[Marc Restellini, Founder/President, Pinacotheque Museum, Paris] [Speaking French] "The Real Fake" is a work eminently complex, that can only be done by a true artist. You must have the capacity of a person that can say, "What type of work would that artist have painted?" To put yourself in the artist's mindset, then take out an oeuvre ...



that is not necessarily what the forger is trying to copy, which reproduces the idea of that artist as if he had painted it himself. That practically never happens.



Forgers are often people who do patchworks.



So, with Modigliani, there were a lot of these types. And play like that, and "boom", there it is.





This is typical as a standard for fakes. The real fake is the oeuvre of the forger.



You regard a subject, and you say, "Okay, I am going to paint this the way Modigliani would have painted this." And then you put yourself into the shoes of the artist completely.










[Examining a Modigliani that was exhibited at the Miami Museum of Art for many years, before being removed.]



[Alexandra Tice Painting Conservator, Washington, D.C.] I'd need to take it out of the frame,
but it's pretty rigid.
So I think there may be
another canvas attached to that,



which would prevent me from
seeing the back of the original.

I think there may be another canvas attached to that, which would prevent me from seeing the back of the original. If a painting's been torn badly, if a painting is flaking, if it's been terribly buckled, crimpled up, to put it back in a single plane, and to consolidate the paint film -- Linings have also been done, perhaps to disguise the back of the original painting. Let's take a look in ultraviolet light. -- Alexandra Tice Painting Conservator, Washington, D.C.

Here, I ... offer a definitive chronology of the true Asokan pillar, discounting those we now know were pre-Asokan. In other words our aim is to state clearly the order and dates of those pillars we know were both carved and erected by Asoka -- which are they? The latter question can be answered only after we are clear about which ones they are not. They do not include the Prayaga (Allahabad) pillar, since we now know that that monument had been standing with a plain shaft before Asoka instructed his mahamatras to engrave it with his first six Pillar Edicts which were issued in 243 B.C. However, in addition to the latter were engraved two earlier edicts: the first of these had been addressed by Asoka to the nearest dharma-mahamatras or 'ministers of morality' located at the regional capital, Kosambi, 30 km. to the west; the second was one of those 'Schism Edicts' first discovered and translated by Alexander Cunningham in 1870, and published in facsimile nine years later in the first edition of Inscriptions of Asoka. It is now important to recognise that nobody before Cunningham had known about this inscription -- and the reason why.



My inability to publish an actual photograph, depending instead on a reproduction of Cunningham's facsimile (fig. 4), has nothing to do with bureaucratic restrictions forbidding a camera in the Fort: the truth is that even if I had been allowed to take my camera, I could not have photographed the inscription satisfactorily, since it is too high and awkwardly placed on the shaft to be taken from the ground without special lenses. It is likewise important to know that the height above ground-level at which the inscription now appears is not the original height, which was lower on the shaft. The explanation is that when the shaft was re-erected in 1837 (after lying for a long period on the ground), the antiquarians of the Bengal Asiatic Society who had planned the restoration,... went out of their way to re-install it on a specially-designed plinth that it was never meant to have.

-- The True Chronology of Aśokan Pillars, by John Irwin

The Ashokan Pillar, located in the Allahabad Fort (madrascourier.com, "Why the Allahabad Pillar Inscriptions Are a National Heritage," by Karthik Venkatesh, November 16, 2018)

Allahabad pillar is a stambha, containing one of the pillar edicts of Ashoka, possibly erected by Ashoka, emperor of the Maurya dynasty, who reigned in the 3rd century BCE, or it may have prior origins. While it is one of the few extant pillars that carry Ashokan edicts, it is particularly notable for containing later inscriptions attributed to the Gupta emperor Samudragupta (4th century CE). Also engraved on the stone are inscriptions by the Mughal emperor Jahangir, from the 17th century.

According to some scholars, the pillar was moved from its original location and installed within Akbar's Allahabad Fort in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh by Emperor Akbar himself, but this theory is disputed by other scholars who point out the absence of any confirmatory evidence that the pillar was moved, and pre-Mughal inscriptions that indicate that it was already present in its current location. As the fort is now occupied by the Indian Army, the public are only allowed limited access to the premises and special permission is required to view the pillar. [FN: Once a visitor enters the fort via one of the well-guarded gates, a long driveway brings him to the main gate of what is now an ordnance factory. Permission from the army’s station headquarters is required to enter and photography is prohibited from this point onwards. -- Allahabad’s hidden treasure, by Arjun Kumar, Times of India, August 13, 2012]

-- Allahabad Pillar, by Wikipedia

***

Pillar at Allahabad

In Allahabad there is a pillar with inscriptions from Ashoka and later inscriptions attributed to Samudragupta and Jehangir. It is clear from the inscription that the pillar was first erected at Kaushambi, an ancient town some 30 kilometres west of Allahabad that was the capital of the Koshala kingdom, and moved to Allahabad, presumably under Muslim rule.

The pillar is now located inside the Allahabad Fort, also the royal palace, built during the 16th century by Akbar at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. As the fort is occupied by the Indian Army it is essentially closed to the public and special permission is required to see the pillar. The Ashokan inscription is in Brahmi and is dated around 232 BC. A later inscription attributed to the second king of the Gupta empire, Samudragupta, is in the more refined Gupta script, a later version of Brahmi, and is dated to around 375 AD. This inscription lists the extent of the empire that Samudragupta built during his long reign. He had already been king for forty years at that time and would rule for another five. A still later inscription in Persian is from the Mughal emperor Jahangir. The Akbar Fort also houses the Akshay Vat, an Indian fig tree of great antiquity. The Ramayana refers to this tree under which Lord Rama is supposed to have prayed while on exile.

-- Pillars of Ashoka, by Wikipedia

The ashoka pillar is superb structure of mauryan period and kept inside the Allahabad fort. This fort is under the control of Army and tourists are not allowed to go inside without obtaining special pass.

Its out of bounds: The place now serves as a cantonment for the army and is out of bounds for visitors. Special passes may be arranged but the process is not a regular thing. Simply put, nothing worth at the place except for a temple.

-- by Dev1972, Kolkata (Calcutta), India, tripadvisor.com (March, 2016)

Allahabad fort is built by Emperor Akbar. Situated near banks of river Ganga and Yamuna. Close to Sangam. The fort is in control of Indian Army as Ordnance depot or army stores. Common People has very less access inside it. So no one exactly knows what's exactly inside it. Army keep it very secret. Inside fort where people can go, is akshayvat temple, having ancient tree of fig. Which covers many mythological stories, being home of man eating demon where people used to do suicide and other myths. If one wants to go there, they need special permission from commander of ordnance depot.

-- Samreen Siddiqu, Lives in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, Author

The picture hangs in the shadows at the top of a dark, oak-panelled staircase. It is not a masterpiece, but it does repay close study. An effete Indian prince, wearing cloth of gold, sits high on his throne under a silken canopy. On his left stand scimitar and spear carrying officers from his own army; to his right, a group of powdered and periwigged Georgian gentlemen. The prince is eagerly thrusting a scroll into the hands of a statesmanlike, slightly overweight Englishman in a red frock coat.

The painting shows a scene from August 1765, when the young Mughal emperor Shah Alam, exiled from Delhi and defeated by East India Company troops, was forced into what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation. The scroll is an order to dismiss his own Mughal revenue officials in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and replace them with a set of English traders appointed by Robert Clive – the new governor of Bengal – and the directors of the EIC, who the document describes as “the high and mighty, the noblest of exalted nobles, the chief of illustrious warriors, our faithful servants and sincere well-wishers, worthy of our royal favours, the English Company”. The collecting of Mughal taxes was henceforth subcontracted to a powerful multinational corporation – whose revenue-collecting operations were protected by its own private army.

It was at this moment that the East India Company (EIC) ceased to be a conventional corporation, trading and silks and spices, and became something much more unusual. Within a few years, 250 company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 locally recruited Indian soldiers had become the effective rulers of Bengal. An international corporation was transforming itself into an aggressive colonial power.

Using its rapidly growing security force – its army had grown to 260,000 men by 1803 – it swiftly subdued and seized an entire subcontinent. Astonishingly, this took less than half a century. The first serious territorial conquests began in Bengal in 1756; 47 years later, the company’s reach extended as far north as the Mughal capital of Delhi, and almost all of India south of that city was by then effectively ruled from a boardroom in the City of London. “What honour is left to us?” asked a Mughal official named Narayan Singh, shortly after 1765, “when we have to take orders from a handful of traders who have not yet learned to wash their bottoms?”...

The transaction depicted in the painting was to have catastrophic consequences. As with all such corporations, then as now, the EIC was answerable only to its shareholders. With no stake in the just governance of the region, or its long-term well-being, the company’s rule quickly turned into the straightforward pillage of Bengal, and the rapid transfer westwards of its wealth.

Before long the province, already devastated by war, was struck down by the famine of 1769, then further ruined by high taxation. Company tax collectors were guilty of what today would be described as human rights violations. A senior official of the old Mughal regime in Bengal wrote in his diaries: “Indians were tortured to disclose their treasure; cities, towns and villages ransacked; jaghires and provinces purloined: these were the ‘delights’ and ‘religions’ of the directors and their servants.”

Bengal’s wealth rapidly drained into Britain, while its prosperous weavers and artisans were coerced “like so many slaves” by their new masters, and its markets flooded with British products. A proportion of the loot of Bengal went directly into Clive’s pocket. He returned to Britain with a personal fortune – then valued at £234,000 – that made him the richest self-made man in Europe. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, a victory that owed more to treachery, forged contracts, bankers and bribes than military prowess, he transferred to the EIC treasury no less than £2.5m seized from the defeated rulers of Bengal – in today’s currency, around £23m for Clive and £250m for the company.

No great sophistication was required. The entire contents of the Bengal treasury were simply loaded into 100 boats and punted down the Ganges from the Nawab of Bengal’s palace to Fort William, the company’s Calcutta headquarters. A portion of the proceeds was later spent rebuilding Powis.

The painting at Powis that shows the granting of the Diwani is suitably deceptive: the painter, Benjamin West, had never been to India. Even at the time, a reviewer noted that the mosque in the background bore a suspiciously strong resemblance “to our venerable dome of St Paul”. In reality, there had been no grand public ceremony. The transfer took place privately, inside Clive’s tent, which had just been erected on the parade ground of the newly seized Mughal fort at Allahabad. As for Shah Alam’s silken throne, it was in fact Clive’s armchair, which for the occasion had been hoisted on to his dining room table and covered with a chintz bedspread.

Later, the British dignified the document by calling it the Treaty of Allahabad, though Clive had dictated the terms and a terrified Shah Alam had simply waved them through. As the contemporary Mughal historian Sayyid Ghulam Husain Khan put it: “A business of such magnitude, as left neither pretence nor subterfuge, and which at any other time would have required the sending of wise ambassadors and able negotiators, as well as much parley and conference with the East India Company and the King of England, and much negotiation and contention with the ministers, was done and finished in less time than would usually have been taken up for the sale of a jack-ass, or a beast of burden, or a head of cattle.”...

The people of Allahabad have also chosen to forget this episode in their history. The red sandstone Mughal fort where the treaty was extracted from Shah Alam -– a much larger fort than those visited by tourists in Lahore, Agra or Delhi -– is still a closed-off military zone and, when I visited it late last year, neither the guards at the gate nor their officers knew anything of the events that had taken place there; none of the sentries had even heard of the company whose cannons still dot the parade ground where Clive’s tent was erected....

In 1859, it was again within the walls of Allahabad Fort that the governor general, Lord Canning, formally announced that the company’s Indian possessions would be nationalised and pass into the control of the British Crown. Queen Victoria, rather than the directors of the EIC would henceforth be ruler of India.

-- The East India Company: The original corporate raiders. For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant, by William Dalrymple

[knocks on the canvas] Yeah, it has that feel.
If a painting's been torn badly,
if a painting is flaking...



if it's been terribly buckled, crimpled up,
to put it back in a single plane
and to consolidate the paint film.



Linings have also been done, um...



Perhaps to disguise the back
of the original painting.
Let's take a look
in ultraviolet light, to get a good look.



Um, the varnish...
is fluorescing, which indicates
it's been on there for a while.
If it's been in a restorer's hands



this might well be the restoration varnish.
It's uneven.


(This strongly suggests that whoever painted this work was the same person to forge the signature.)



And the hair, the pigment in the hair,
fluoresces the same way the signature does.
So it certainly suggests that it is


(Elmyr?)

similar paint to that hair.

[??? ] [Speaking Spanish] It's as if he had the same talent as Modigliani.

[Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris] [Speaking French] There are fake Picasso, fake Dufy, fake Van Dogen. The man was extraordinarily prolific. He was the most adept in all of the masters. Matisse --



He had incredible artistic precision above all else.

There are fake Picasso, fake Dufy, fake Van Dogen. The man was extraordinarily prolific. He was the most adept in all of the masters. Matisse. He had incredible artistic precision above all else. -- Sabine Cordesse, Attorney, Paris

(Henri Matisse)



[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Now we do think this is a Elmyr de Hory.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Oh.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Um, it is very good.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yes.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] And, uh...
however, ultimately,
to fool the eye even more...

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yes.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] ...this is passed off
as a print.

To fool the eye even more, this is passed off as a print. -- Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City

If you look at this image, you'll see
lines, and they form
a very pleasant face...

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yes.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] ...of a woman.
And what else do you see?

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Oh, I see a signature.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Yeah.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] We see it's a series. It says 23-50.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Okay.
So the edition is 50,



there's 50 in existence,
and this is the 23rd.
Now, lithographs
are a print making technique.
You think of a Crayola crayon
drived across a paper with texture
what happens to the little bits
of Crayola crayon?

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Well, they stay on the paper.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Yeah, on the high
points, on the high points.
When you're drawing with a wax crayon,
the longer you draw,



the softer the wax gets
and the darker the line.
So what you generally see
is an accumulation of



more and more crayon
onto the surface of the paper.



So let's follow this line down.



[Elmyr de Hory, Art Forger] Matisse drawings,



line were never as sure as mine.
He was hesitant.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] These are very long complex lines.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Yeah, that's a very long line.



[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Look at that.
That is a long line.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] And it's a lot of
confidence in doing that,
with starting it and finishing it.
You think he understood that...

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] It is this line right here.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] Oh, that went on for a while.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Yep.

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] And we can see it ends over here,
just when it gets really warm.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] Yep. Yeah. Yeah.


(Elmyr?)

[Allen Olson-Urtecho, Fine Arts Adjuster, Texas] That's a very confident hand.

[Peggy Holbein Ellis, Conservator, Institute of Fine Art, NYU, New York City] That's an extremely confident hand.