How To Spot a Really Good Art Forgery

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Video written by Amy Muller
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[@yoymate6316]

i vaguely remember reading about a mexican art forger who made such good fakes that he got arrested for trafficking ancient pre-columbian art. he then asked his lawyers for clay and produced a fake inside his cell, which was appraised as genuine by the same specialist that police used to send him to prison, thus proving he was a forger and getting him released. iirc he got hired by a museum as an appraiser

[@littledudefromacrossthestr5755]

Link?

[@scriptonly8728]

@@littledudefromacrossthestr5755 Link deez nutz

[@seanellefson2568]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%ADgido_Lara

[@Shikogo]

@@littledudefromacrossthestr5755 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%ADgido_Lara

[@littledudefromacrossthestr5755]

@@scriptonly8728 gay

[@doomslayerobama]

That's why I keep getting caught. Thanks!

[@_Tipic]

Obamna

[@Kenoboi_42]

🤔

[@doomslayerobama]

SODA

[@mateocabral1660]

@@_Tipic SODA!

[@Scwarzkop]

@@_Tipic SODA!!!!!!

[@magsgraff486]

Just wanted to say that sometimes really old copies weren’t really forgeries-it was and still is common for art students to copy famous works. This is especially common with sketches-is it the prototype for the very famous artwork, or a copy made from a student in a gallery or museum?

[@Talguy21]

In the context of genuine artifacts and originals, the piece still could be considered a fake, even if the artist might not be a forger creating it with the intent to pass it off as the real thing. Illegitimate copies can be made in good faith. It's good practice to try to recreate something that's good! ...it just might get mistaken for something other than practice by someone else at a later date. That doesn't mean the art student did anything wrong, though.

[@sophiedowney1077]

My junior high ceramics teacher told me she had to make a master copy of an art piece for her degree. It was a tiny 2"X2" charcoal sketch from Picasso, maybe? I'm not sure who it was. She said it took her 30 hours of total work, to make an exact, possibly microscopic level perfect copy. This unlocked that memory and I'm happy about that.

[@tz8785]

3:21 - That Tiara is the Tiara of Saitapharnes and the selective damage was only one clue it was faked. Nowadays it's known for certain to be a fake because its creator (Israel Rouchomovsky) proved he had actually made it (embarrassing the Louvre in the process).

[@Hiro_Trevelyan]

Fun fact : the Louvre museum (yes, the one in Paris) has the only particle accelerator in the world that is used for art, and to spot art forgeries. It's one of the best way to do it since it doesn't not require removing a piece of material, thus doesn't damage the piece of art if it's actually an authentic one. I don't remember how it works though. That's how the Louvre discovered that one of their most prized possessions (a blue glass head from Ancient Egypt) was a fake. Also, I wonder if art museums don't use fakes just to keep the real ones safe. Why would you risk having a precious painting punctured by an idiot or an asshole ? Every single museum on the planet has the same "no touch no flash" rules but somehow, there's still idiots who think they're above everyone else.

[@lezhu6856]

It has many different uses, but boils down to looking at how the art/artifact emits radiation. (emission spectrometries) Different materials of different origins may look the same visually, but their chemical composition would be different. It does still carry a small risk of damage, especially to paintings.

[@thomasmcelroy5785]

Many museums commission fakes for high profile displays

[@hedgehog3180]

In the second case usually the museum would just make the copy themselves. They do that all the time with important works. Though I guess if a museum finds out it owns a fake they might just treat it as if someone else made the copy for them.

[@oscassey]

A fake is when you are scammed. When you are not scammed it is a copy or a replica.

[@luis.fcaldeira]

About keeping the real ones safe, it reminds me of when the brazilian football confederation, in possession of the world cup trophy, kept the replica in a vault and exposed the real one. Needless to say it was stolen.

[@dancoroian1]

It's pretty insane that powdered mummified human remains used to just be a regular commodity like any other, widely available and used for all manner of things (including as the crucial ingredient in the aptly named "mummy brown" paint...) Imagine having that on your shopping list!

[@Gamer3427]

They were probably relatively common since it was essentially like robbing an old cemetery in normal towns, but with the difference being that it wasn't as illegal during that time period.

[@dancoroian1]

@@Gamer3427 I get that, I was just talking about how conceptually insane it is when you actually stop and think about it

[@Gamer3427]

@@dancoroian1 Yea, human history has a lot of things in it that seem really bizarre that we've done. Particularly when you compare them to modern sensibilities.

[@dancoroian1]

As to modern sensibilities, pretty sure exhuming corpses and the like (whether for mystic, medicinal, or more frivolous purposes like the aforementioned pigment) would have been seen by most people in most societies throughout most of human history as quite taboo or at the very least, creepy and macabre. Yet, when the corpses in question are a few millenia removed, somehow the normal sensibilities seem to have gone out the window

[@Carewolf]

@@dancoroian1Yet, that is how most cemeteries are run. To not run out of space, they keep exhuming old bodies at some point after the family stops paying, unless the person was famous and can generate traffic and prestige.

[@YusriRilke]

One of my art professors was banned from the Met for pointing out fakes. That's how I know she's legit

[@casuallystalled]

so how many fakes are in the MET?

[@zagreus5773]

@@casuallystalled Don't know about the MET, but at the MET Gala: 100%

[@gamagama69]

they might of been replicas tho

[@nasis18]

Did everyone stand up and clap?

[@YusriRilke]

@@casuallystalledKouroi gallery, almost entire left wall is fakes. Real ones are about 5 inches tall, upright, folded arms, pronounced nose, flat chest.

[@reklin]

The stuff in King Tut's tomb wasn't fake. Glass like that would have been very valuable at the time.

[@reganator5000]

especially as naturally it was a rather rare gemstone, even after we worked out how to easily make it.

[@tomthedespoiler]

I really hope that the frog sculpture side hustle writer is the same one that learned how to crochet on Sam's time. I hope their Etsy store is going well.

[@prettypic444]

This ties in SO WELL with the repatriation debate- if the vast majority of people can't tell a real work from a fake, why not display a recreation and send the original back to its rightful homeland?

[@Cenentury0941]

Sir, this is the British museum. We only steal art not redistribute it. The exit is to your left.

[@SuperSpider9098]

why send them back tho? people have stolen artifacts for millennia, why should the British have to return the stuff they took when the egyptians stole stuff from, say, the persians? the idea of returning stuff (for the most part) is truly ridiculous, especially when its one sided

[@darklex5150]

​@@SuperSpider9098the egyptians do not have to give back the Persians nothing because the Persian state doesn't exist anymore. No one identifies as Persian, so there is no one to give it back to. The British museum on the other hand, has tons of stuff of nations that still exist today.

[@SuperSpider9098]

@@darklex5150 and? The area that was Persia still exists, the people who were Persian still exist in countries in the area, the treasures they took were still taken, someone has them, shouldn't they be returned too? But then, some of the stuff they stole from the Greeks, the Greeks stole from other people, how extreme are we gonna get with returning stuff? Why does it matter, if the British want to return stuff out of the kindness of their hearts (haha) then they can, but they have no obligation to, and no one should hold it against them if they don't

[@yunaru3643]

@@darklex5150 bro Persia still exists, it's called Iran now. Your logic does not hold unless the Egyptians today actually speak ancient Kemetic.

[@allangibson8494]

Gold can be traced to its source by trace elements. Western Australian gold for example always has traces of selenium from the copper selenide ore it is extracted from.

[@trollbreeder2534]

still not a good clue as gold is more often traded and not directly sourced because it's rare. with stuff like marble and stone you can get that stuff easily everywhere and for cheap, but gold? that ain't in your backyard, it has to come from large distances away

[@allangibson8494]

@@trollbreeder2534 Actually gold is far more common than people think - like diamonds. Gold gets used industrially because it is common enough. The rarer elements don’t generally turn up as nuggets however.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@trollbreeder2534 Well I think if someone was trying to pass some gold object off as an ancient artifact from Europe and it turned out to have gold from Australia that'd be a pretty big clue. Also several historical gold mines have run dry so it would actually be pretty easy to figure out if something is a forgery because actual gold from the period would have come from a mine that is longer in use.

[@alilabeebalkoka]

​@@hedgehog3180 🗝️🧩 clue that ancient European 🏤🏰 countries were in contact with ancient Australia 🌏🦘???

[@polygontower]

@@hedgehog3180 Gold is pretty common.

[@ntlespino]

"What am I supposed to moisturize with now, peasant blood?" Whoa there, Lady Bathory

[@caglarozdemir7384]

"Hands are really hard" HaI is ai, it's confirmed now

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

Half Artificial Intelligence

[@Talonidas7403]

@@imveryangryitsnotbutter Half as Intelligent

[@nasis18]

Some forgeries by famous forgers are worth a lot of money. The forgeries are so good and so close to the original, it has created a maret for them.

[@SalMinella]

I should start making fake art instead of cooking videos with wiener jokes

[@PosterityIslesNews]

start making fake meals (with weiner jokes)

[@emeraed]

Have you thought of cooking wieners with video jokes?

[@cheesegreater5739]

nice channel ad

[@SalMinella]

@@PosterityIslesNews are we talking photoshop or lost boys from Hook?

[@SalMinella]

Thanks@@cheesegreater5739, maybe we can team up for a pasta video!

[@BnORailFan]

I visited the British Museum in London long ago and saw the Rosetta Stone. It looked fake because it was in pristine condition and looked like it was made recently. I suspect it really was a fake one on display so the original couldn't be damaged by viewers.

[@Kokurorokuko]

How many times did Sam say "Ankcient"?

[@2Links]

It's so bad

[@DescendingVelocity]

Lmao, a lot. That’s the beauty of American accents, you could live 20 minutes from someone and say words completely different. I live in baltimore and say “wash” my brother lives in Annapolis and says “warsh”. I have plenty more examples but don’t want this comment to get too long 😂

[@munjee2]

He clearly says "enkshent"

[@somedudeumayknow]

Oh my word! I didn't realize, but now that you say it it's so obvious.

[@somedudeumayknow]

16 times (or maybe 15.5 because one time he says "enkshentness")

[@waderedsox]

"its not legal but it is funny and thats so much more important" Sam-2023 based af

[@bradleyswissman]

truly the best line out of the whole video. i will forever and always find scamming the wealthy absolutely hilarious although i'm too stupid to do it myself.

[@IvyroseGullwhacker]

I know how! You bring it to Blathers the owl at the museum and have it assessed.

[@jfwfreo]

Regardless of value/price/etc, fakes claiming to be a work by a known artist will always be a lot harder to pass of as legit than fakes of things with no artist attached.

[@PositivelyUnpositive]

Hey maybe you can explain how Pallet Lending works? I keep seeing pallets with 'property of' on them, and I'd like to know if it actually works and what the logistics of it are. Just a thought for a future video.

[@MatthiasWill]

Missed sponsorship opportunity for masterworks :P

[@Confucius_Says...]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@sion8]

What I find funny about this is that there are some famous fakes! There are art forgers throughout history that in some circles nowadays their fakes are seen as quite valuable. Which might mean there's an extra level of forgery here where there's a fake of a famous fake!🤣

[@TheSchuetzeP]

I do love "Angshent Art", Sam.

[@douglasboyle6544]

"Scam a rich clown, it's not legal but it's funny!" Yes! I never laughed so hard as when I found out the clowns from Hobby Lobby and their "Museum of the Bible" got ripped off so hard buying up Dea Sea Scroll fragments that were so obviously fake the experts were just about facepalming when they saw them.

[@AlexZSteinlauf]

Finally, this will help me with my Animal Crossing New Horizons collection.

[@Esteban-lh7qz]

The coloured glass in king tut's tomb was placed there as a status symbol because, at the time, the technology for producing it was cutting edge. It's basically bragging. It's the same reason why the Washington monument has an aluminum tip. At the time aluminum was prohibitively expensive, and it was meant as a flex of the nation's wealth.

[@apaskiewicz]

I was picking my nose @ 5:20 ... you are a prophet!

[@benz4118]

If anyone is actually making frog sculptures I would happily be a customer

[@onbearfeet]

One of my favorite things to do with out-of-town guests is to take them to a famous museum in my city and walk around airing the exhibits' dirty laundry. Pointing out the fake statue the museum bought for a million dollars and therefore won't acknowledge is fake ... showing off the exhibit widely celebrated as having the best ass in the museum (it's in a gallery designed around it to allow optimal viewing of its posterior) ... and, of course, pointing out all the ancient Greek "wrestlers" who are doing nothing of the sort.

[@richatdastkey3555]

As a prospective artist I really appreciate the mention of how hard hands are lol. And just think, that's not even to mention TOES

[@iSmartMan1]

Another way of considering this: as long as a fake can impart to people the same cultural and historical experience as the original, then even if they had the genuine art piece, would they have any reason to not use the fake as a display version and keep the original somewhere better suited to preserving it?

[@Keovar]

3:47 - Oh, is that from the Liz Bathory collection? I hear that’s good stuff.

[@lancemckenzie1074]

What about the techniques used to create retaining wall facade forgeries?

[@annekeener4119]

Plus copying art was an age-old past-time. Ever wonder why so many marble sculptures are weirdly standing my next to a piece of foliage or rock that doesn’t make sense being there? That’s a sign that what you are looking at is probably a marble copy of a more famous bronze sculpture.

[@ezrakim1323]

"It may not be legal, but it is real fun - Which is far more important" - HAI, 2023

[@crispoman]

You can tell this is a real HAI video, as there's a typo in the quote at 0:28. Unless 40% of the works at the Met were actually telecommunications devices.

[@tinnagigja3723]

I prefer to believe that's not a typo, so I can imagine the curator bringing over an item all reverently: "And this is a religious amulet worn by Axayacatl, he sixth tlatoani of the altepetl of Tenochtitlan and Emperor of the Aztec Triple Alliance" and the expert replying "No, Jim, that's a Nokia 5110"

[@friedeggwhites]

moral of the story: scam the rich

[@emily-kk2vs]

big fan of sam using an absolute built muscular avatar to represent himself

[@xlogophile]

Really love the pronunciation of "anxient art"

[@Budgie_Films]

I need to have a word with Crazy Redd.

[@pinkquartz3404]

What's the name of the frog sculpture business??

[@purplenanite]

3:05 Is there a source for that? I found some references to Leronardo da Vinci regarding 7:1 ideal body proportions, but nothing ancient greek or roman.

[@allangibson8494]

Leonardo da Vinci based his “Vitruvian Man” on a Roman textbook by Vitruvius on art from the 1st Century BC.

[@michaelvick2872]

The way he says “ancient” sounds like anxious😂

[@jonistan9268]

Hey where's the second clip of footage from? I'm pretty sure I've been there before.

[@yourguysheppy]

Honestly, if I had that kind of screw-you money, I'd buy a bunch of cheaper fake art and pretend it was real. Most real art is stolen from the people and locations it was found in anyway (looking at you, British Museum), so I would argue there's less of an ethical dilemma involved in buying the fake stuff

[@sunalwaysshinesonTVs]

If there is a video on KZbin sceaming for a MasterWorks sponsor, this is it. If there is a video on KZbin screaming out MasterWorks bubble, this is also it.

[@kevinsips3658]

Wow, so with Factor I can get frozen food just like from the grocery store, but with the benefit of buying it on the internet and also

[@I_Love_Learning]

But it isn't frozen food, that is the point.

[@NovelNovelist]

The quote from Thomas Hoving at 0:28 says that "Fully 40 percent were either 'phones' or..." I'm sure that should be 'phonies'...unless of course the Ancient Greeks were somehow trying to pass off the latest Samsung as a bust of Athena.

[@isaacdost2975]

The video starts zooming into butts as if the title isn't "How To Spot a Really Good Fart"

[@bigjared8946]

The fine art market is just a craven tax dodge for the uber rich these days so I kind of like them getting ripped off by forgeries.

[@greensteve9307]

Yeah, I'm surprised that wasn't included in the script as a side comment.

[@VoidHalo]

Colored glass you say. Heh, I bought some amethyst on ali express that I determined to be colored glass. The density of it was something like 2.2g/cm^3 where it should have been closer to 1.6 +/-0.1. It's weird because I bought a bunch of other amethysts from the same place which WERE real. It was just these polished ones that were obvious fakes. Not that I was out more than a few bucks. And they still look really nice. There are other types of colored glass like blue sandstone which are stunning in real life.

[@JR-mj8ph]

Now I know the name of that 'r' sound the king always uses in his speech!

[@13thravenpurple94]

Great video THank you

[@buitenzorg5970]

So this begs a question, how long does a fake artefacts need to be preserved before it can be recognized as authentic fake artefact like King Tut's?

[@nooternootey9666]

Thanks Sam, that stupid fox living in his boat will never scam me again!

[@vilitspiipol]

Having both channels upload at the same time gives me same vibe as that DVD screensaver hitting corner

[@nancycowell-miller4321]

I'm glad this video wasn't sponsored by Masterworks 😂

[@MMMMatt]

Tell more about these frog sculptures...

[@mauriciosolano9342]

I wouldn't mind having one at home

[@ChapatiMan]

1:02 Van Go 💀

[@TheDigigram]

Having fake art is like exposed ductwork or booze on display in your house, works if your poor or if your super rich, but in a middle class house it just doesn't fit in 🤣

[@davidschleim1404]

"it´s not legal but it is funny, and thats so much more important"- HaI

[@adamdickinson2894]

I appreciated the Love Island joke

[@justicevidanes4072]

Thanks. I’m waiting for the one viewer who saw this to do his thing. It’ll be quite a show. Good prank.

[@TheRealCartman1]

Is there anyway to prove if an artist or his/her student made the art? I'm thinking of the Salvator Mundi, was it done by da Vinci or a student, same thing with the last couple Van Gogh's that may have been done by people he lived with right after his death.

[@av_oid]

This is such a great Masterworks ad. Masterworks: it’s mostly fake.

[@alphax4785]

1:40 It sure would be inconvenient to point out how difficult glass was to make at that time, period, let alone sculpt and craft into art such that if it could be done, it would be only for the most important of people and events and valued more than natural gemstones.

[@andreworders7305]

Boiling peasant mummies? Lol.

[@Hounkey]

So that means if I time travel back in time bring back a sculpture it would be passed on as a fake?

[@scottkirby5016]

There is a weakness i theories behind a lot of forgery detection. Like the idea the Greeks created statues to a mathematical set not reality, is that ancient artists had little to no variety and basically always did things the same way....over hundreds or even thousands of years. There is little space for that avant garde artist of the 4th century BC who did things their own way and some single rich bloke he convinced to go along and pay for it. Or whose marble shipment didn't arrive and so he had to grab stone from somewhere else (that isn't on the list of where "artists got their stone). It may be a good way to raise suspitions and double check the due dilligence.

[@antikommunistischaktion]

3:44 wouldn't it actually be peasant broth?

[@adamdapatsfan]

Important discrepancy: the practice of preserving human body parts for long periods of time using mildly low temperatures is _cryonics,_ not cryogenics (and cryogenics experts, who deal with temperatures cold enough to turn gases into liquids, will get very angry if you mix them up). While a human head would probably be mostly the same after 1500 years immersed in liquid nitrogen, it could have internal and external scars from the initial dunk. Cryonics generally uses temperatures just above freezing, to try and avoid those problems.

[@stormerkromy988]

Honestly, if there is that good art then whatever! It looks really damn good and genuine enough that the only different thing is how old it is.

[@Game_Hero]

..If it didn't pretend to be something else with the intent to scam people. The "old" part is what visibly connects us to our human past, to things people like you and me made and probably are the sole things left of them, of their lives when their existence has long been forgotten, of the effort and passion they put into it. Such effort is worth being in a museum, with the touching message of "I existed". If these scammers simply made pastiche and told it wasn't ancient, but an hommage, then I and many others wouldn't have a problem with that and even would encourage them.

[@SoloTURK11]

0:11 why are u using a magnifying glass?

[@BurningheartofSILVER]

Anyone else get more ‘anxious’ every time the guy from Wendover says “ancient”?

[@Menstral]

2:43 Hysterical, but more info and less cleverness

[@mirzaahmed6589]

My head won't even look like a head in 16 years.

[@VanBurenOfficial]

Sam, more like Sammyboi213 back from the NeoPets days

[@unoriginalclips9923]

Imagine if the guy who stole the Mona Lisa actually just made a fake and that’s the one they “found” after catching him

[@luipaardprint]

I already finished at least 100 frog fakes, bummer.

[@alhypo]

Somehow I find myself unconcerned about silly rich people getting duped by highly skilled forgers. I'm firmly on the side of Team Forger here.

[@Lizzyc0077]

All you have to do is take your art to Blathers and he’ll tell you it’s fake

[@ajrobbins368]

Isn't ancient glass jewelry just as precious? Was it common before modern mass production?

[@friemo660]

As far as I know, the only glass available to the ancient egyptians was from lightning strikes in the desert.

[@Sophiebryson510]

Interesting

[@felipea1399]

Only half as

[@TorrynG59]

Half as

[@yo.adrian]

With this KZbin video, Redd from the video game Animal Crossing New Horizons will be cleaned out by me.

[@AirsickDolphin]

The girl at 5:39 looks like Sam from Wendover.

[@catube6915]

I have an idea for a new video about ancient brincks.

[@SwannDog]

Fake art is like Wisconsin: It isn't real.

[@sechran]

You're thinking of Wyoming.

[@nickbarrow2805]

@@sechran No, you're thinking of West Virginia

[@Thylaacine]

@@nickbarrow2805 you’re thinking of Missouri, Missouri isn’t real is just a glorified part of Great Illinois.

[@NonTwinBrothers]

"There are states other than Texas?" -Texas

[@Thylaacine]

@@NonTwinBrothers Texas is part of Great Illinois.

[@idontreallylikeyoutube]

is the coupon code for factor box just for Americans?

[@LaGuerre19]

0:09 brick

[@plumjet0930]

Make forgeries of forgeries

[@SK_Wizzard]

Also for ancien art provenance is pretty much non existant. So one less thing to worry about.

[@hedgehog3180]

What if this was just a scheme by the museums all along to get people to make good replicas for them without having to do any work themselves?

[@jacor653]

3:28 You shouldn't use an apostrophe when writing the numbers for centuries. The correct format is "1800s" instead of "1800's." As for decades, you would write "50s" instead of "50's" or "'50s."

[@Brick-Life]

Crazy!

[@HarvestStore]

Great video.

[@Game_Hero]

0:10 Why is there a smiley on this butt?

[@eironbull]

Great content, hate the advertisement

[@cd5433]

You can detect nuclear radiation isotopes in everything nowadays that wasn’t on earth when the ancient stuff was made so it’s a way they tell