The Forgery 

Well said. I feel the anguish as an artist burdened with the actual ability to draw ! Checkout on RU-vid , "The Art Damien Hirst Stole". Its all you need to know really. Hwyl from Wales

Me too :D These "experts" don't know shite. The man was a genius

TheFiown, I couldn't agree more with you! The international art market has degenerated into a circus of vanities, and it's not about beautiful works of art anymore but about making money, money, money, money. Even the most imperfect few throw-away squiggly lines on a napkin from an artist like Picasso can be sold for a huge amount of money, while other wonderful art works from less well known artists are ignored. And many so-called experts are vain and pompous, and very often no one is interested in exposing forgeries because it could ruin the reputation of experts and the investment of the buyers. This creates fertive soils for clever forgers, and very often I have to admire their intelligence, craftmanship and inventiveness - and many of them are gifted artists in their own right! There are many cases where exposed forgers are admired, and they are able to make a living with their own art works.

If you read the Van Meegeren affair where is tells of his selling Vermeers to a museum 'authenticated' by the greatest expert of the time, bought for millions back in the day. When it came out that the Vermeers were 'forgeries' the expert denied that they were as otherwise his expertise was gone. They were not sold as Vermeers but said to be Vermeers by the experts. When you see those paintings today you wonder how they could have been authenticated as such but the expert saw a way to become great. They even wanted to burn them as worthless!! Van Meegeren was finally not convicted but died soon after. Eric Hebborn, another 'forger' sold drawings that later appeared in famous Auction catalogues with high end provenance mysteriously! He was murdered in the streets of Rome and his killer never caught or even looked for. He was a threat to too many experts and galleries as he wrote two books on his 'forgeries' full of disdain for the experts. I have perhaps a 100 or more books on forgers, fakes, art theft etc, it's a passion of mine and great reading. For me a 'fake painting' doesn't exist, art is art.@@sabineb.5616

So you like criminal activity. Says a lot about you

@@bubbaclark4355 Thank you for your feedback. I'm overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. I probably won't sleep tonight mulling it all over.

@@bubbaclark4355The biggest criminals are the auction houses that sell them and charge a sellers commission and buyers commission which is when all is said and done around 30% on Artwork.