Art Imitates Art

by Haidee Heyward

photo courtesy of the Bayly Art Museum

Museums often serve as hallowed halls of fine and famous art. Visitors enter with hushed voices and arms clamped at their sides. Paintings dominate galleries from their lofty positions on plush walls. Sculptures loom overhead and viewers gaze upwards in reverence. Crowded galleries and museums are testaments to the celebrity achieved by works of art. At the National Gallery of Art, one must contend with mobs of hovering crowds to secure a position from which he can garner a full view of a Monet or a Renoir. My trip to the Louvre as a small child impressed on me memories of a glass-encased Mona Lisa obscured by camera flashes. This I viewed, perched upon my father's shoulder, across what seemed to be hundreds of lustful tourists marveling in just as many languages.

The Bayly Art Museum currently is offering a very different experience of art objects in Treasures of Deceit: Archaeology and the Forger's Craft. The exhibition, prepared by ExhibitsUSA, consists of a portion of the collections of the Nelson-Adkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Treasures of Deceit seeks to inform viewers of the slight but significant discrepancies experts have come to discover between authentic and forged art objects.

Occupying the main gallery on the second floor of the Bayly, Treasures of Deceit gives visitors insight into the techniques used to determine the authenticity of art pieces. The first object I encountered is an imitation of a Roman crater. The large urn-like vessel rests on a fluted pedestal and bears a frieze of Dionysus with fellow maenads and satyrs. A modest label on the mount shows sketches of an actual Roman crater pedestal and of the pedestal on display. The subtle difference lies in the direction in which the fluting on the pedestal extends. Traditionally, the fluting extends upwards to the vessel, but the fluting on this particular pedestal extends downward, as the label describes, like "tongues." A label on the wall nearby mentions that the frieze replicates images discovered on a Roman sarcophagus dated circa 135 A.D. The "Roman crater" serves as an example of a forgery determined by historical analysis.

Other examples follow, including supposed Roman mosaics, Near Eastern Ishtar figures, Etruscan Gorgon-head roof ornaments, and recut marble Roman portraits. The forgeries are identified according to historical anachronisms and evidence of forgers' particular artistic styles. A "Roman mosaic" supposedly from the end of the Roman Empire actually dates from the twentieth century. Experts concluded that the mosaic belongs to a body of work created by a forger whose figures resemble the Statue of Liberty.

Although the pieces on display are interesting in and of themselves, many lack fully definitive explanations. A twentieth-century forgery of an Etruscan Gorgon head by the forger Dossena is identified as such because it appears in photographs Dossena took of his workshop. The terra cotta piece stands as an example of a forgery, but no attempt is made to explain or identify the authentic early fifth century B.C. type of bust the forgery signifies. A pair of lion heads illustrates the distinction between an authentic artifact and a later interpretation. The labels say that the Renaissance adaptation, a functional fountainhead, refers to the mid-third century sarcophagus sculpture without imitating it. The juxtaposition presents the viewer with appropriate material for visual analysis and formal comparison while emphasizing that the purpose of a forgery is to deceive rather than to reinterpret a conventional form.

The remainder of the exhibition couples historical analysis with technology. Photographic enlargement is used to determine that details on forged Near Eastern gold pendants are a result of modern forging processes. More specifically, sphere-like details on the forged pendant alter in shape when attached to the object, while authentic pendants bear perfect spheres. This example offers a misleading use of the word "forgery" -- the difference lies, as the exhibit emphasizes, in the intent to deceive.

Other deceptions are discovered with the use of X-ray and UV technology. X-rays discover that several precious metal plates have been assembled piecemeal, which is uncharacteristic of authentic plates made from a single piece of metal. A 3,000-year-old terra cotta Iranian vase reveals, when exposed to ultraviolet light, that its lower portion has been repainted. Accompanying text explains that the newer paint glows because certain chemicals in its composition absorb the energy of UV rays and re-emit this energy as light. The authentic paint does not respond to UV light. Two displays offer visitors the opportunity to push a button to view objects as they appear normally and as they appear when exposed to UV light.

Another display features comparisons of authentically and manually-weathered sculptures. A first-century A.D. marble portrait blemished with a naturally occurring case of encrustation exemplifies sculptures that have been buried underground for long periods of time. The label explains that forgers often glue dirt and grime to newer pieces to imitate this encrustation, and art restorers then use an unnamed solution to remove such manually-applied encrustations. Another first century A.D. example is characterized by spidery markings of roots on its surface: it has been buried underground for 2,000 years and offers the evidence of antiquity which forgers endeavor to imitate. Accompanying these specimens are two marble portraits, each with a particular condition of weathering. Magnifying glasses are provided so that visitors may inspect the sugary crystalline structure of a polished marble surface worn by exposure to the elements as opposed to the pock-marked face of a marble sculpture subjected to the chisel of a forger. The authentic piece dates from the second century A.D. while the forgery pretends to date from the first century B.C.

The final piece in the exhibit, a third century A.D. Roman portrait of a girl (pictured at left), has been both reworked and reinforced. The head typifies objects which forgers have reworked, rather than restored, to increase the value of the object. A badly damaged object has little value. A forgery has even less, except when sold as a legitimate art object. Gamma-radiographs helped experts determine the extent to which forgers re-worked the portrait and exposed reinforcing metal rods in the neck of the sculpture.

The Bayly's Treasures of Deceit invites visitors to examine and question objects that were initially considered valid works of art. The experience is wholly different from that offered in the adjacent velvet-lined gallery full of American and European masterworks. Treasures of Deceit removes the veneer of infamy from art and instead encourages viewers to take a closer look. This closer look reveals that the real thing is indeed a rarity, that it has achieved its lofty position on velvet walls because it has been subject to scrutiny: it will remain a standard until further evidence suggests that it, too, may be suspect.

Treasures of Deceit is open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays from 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. through March 30, 1998. For further information, contact the Bayly Art Museum at 924-3592.