Collectors and Collections
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People have collected artworks since the earliest times, accumulating objects in tombs, temples, and sanctuaries as a way to display the power and glory of personal individuals, states, and religions. However, it is especially during ancient Rome (with the arrival of massive spoils of war), that art collecting and art market became thriving practices.
Throughout history, the desire to own ‘beautiful objects’ for personal display gradually led to the development of an art market filled with both authentic and fraudulent artworks created with the intent to deceive about a specific artist, culture, and/or time of execution. During the 18th and 19th centuries, thanks to the technological improvements and the opening of public museums especially, the display of artworks gradually became not only accessible to a general and much broader public but also a reflection of contemporary social strata. In the 20th century, in particular, artistic production sought to reflect the social, political and technological changes of the time, aiming to reach the public through different strategies. Art movements like Cubism and Surrealism revolutionized art production for a wider public, introducing new worldviews and techniques. At the same time, the abstract style and dreamlike imagery of artists like Picasso and De Chirico made it more challenging to authenticate the produced works, creating more opportunities for deception.
- G. de Chirico, Cavaliere con Berretto Rosso e Manto Azzurro (Cavalryman with a Red Hat and a Blue Cloak)
Date: 21st century; Forgery of Giorgio de Chirico (Italian [born Greece], Vólos 1888–1978 Rome)
Medium: Tempera on canvas
Dimensions: 39.9 x 33 cm (15.7 x 12.9 in.)
Credit Line: Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC)
This painting is a replica of Giorgio De Chirico’s Cavaliere con Berretto Rosso e Manto Azzurro (1939), currently housed at the GNAM (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea) in Rome. It depicts a man characterized by his red, floppy cap and flowing blue cape riding a horse poised in a dynamic stance. This genre painting reflects De Chirico’s interest in classicism and antiquity, and the ‘horse’ in particular was a subject that features in many of the artists’ paintings in the late 1920s and beyond. Painted in tempera, unlike the original oil painting, this forgery employs a thick impasto and a color palette that create depth in both the horse and rider and produce theatrical movement through the masterful use of light and shadow. The forger, however, struggled to replicate the artists’ original signature.
- G. de Chirico, Portrait of a Young Lady
Date: 21st century; Forgery of Giorgio de Chirico (Italian [born Greece], Vólos 1888–1978 Rome)
Medium: Tempera on canvas
Dimensions: 72.6 x 61.1 cm (28.5 x 24 in.)
Credit Line: Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC)
The Portrait of a Young Lady is a genre painting. It depicts a young damsel sitting outdoor on a wooden stool and facing the audience. She wears a refined ochre colored satin dress and holds in her left hand a light-blue flower. This forgery is not an exact replica of one of De Chirico’s works but imitates the style that the artist embraces at the beginning of his ‘Romantic-classical period’ (1920s), as also indicated by the presence of a horse placed in the background. Iconographically recalling De Chirico’s La Gravida (1920) housed at Fondazione Giorgio De Chirico, this forgery of a seated young lady differs not only by depicting the female figure in an exterior setting but also by the technique used in the execution of the work, namely tempera on canvas, as opposed to De Chirico’s rendering of portraits indoors, mainly through the application of oil pigments onto a plastered fabric surface.
- P. Picasso, Head of a Woman in Profile
Date: 21st century; Forgery of Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
Medium: Tempera on canvas
Dimensions: 40.7 x 31.1 cm (16 x 12.2 in.)
Credit Line: Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC)
This forged Picasso depicts a woman's head in profile with a distinct aquiline nose, almond-shaped eyes, and darker hair. The forger tried to replicate the cool, muted colors typical of Picasso with the intent to imitate, yet not directly replicate the artist’ Cubist style. They seem to have taken inspiration from Picasso’s “Blue Period,” used to define the works produced between 1901 and 1904, when the artist created essentially monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and blue green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. Picasso frequently painted distorted portraits, often inspired by his muses, such as his last muse and wife Jacqueline Roque, who may be the one the forger tried to reproduce here. The signature on the top left corner also proves the unauthenticity of the work. In particular, the letter “P” appears to be quite elongated and stands out very prominently in height compared to the other letters, unlike Picasso’s authentic signature.
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