2025 Art History Festival at the Château de Fontainebleau: Spotlight on the Genuine and the Fake

The concept of authenticity will be the focus of debates, talks and round tables staged by the INHA. A genuinely appealing program!

Stories of forgeries and forgers fascinate people far beyond the circle of those in the know. The latest case brought to light the hoax of the fake Marie-Antoinette chairs bought by the Château de Versailles, with the verdict due on June 11. For professionals who are duped, the stakes are very different. It calls into question their knowledge and profession regarding the rule established since the Renaissance: one original work, one name, one signature. For art is judged on its authenticity. As the theme of or this 14^th edition, the scientific committee chose this complex idea and its natural counterpart, the fake. “The festival’s focus reflects the concerns of curators, art historians and, of course, art market players. Illustrating this interest, the INHA received no fewer than 140 proposals in response to a widely publicized call for submissions, compared with the usual 60 or so,” says Sophie Goetzmann, the festival’s scientific program director. The selection, expanded to include different art forms, media and cultures, provides a good overview of current research. Some cases that sparked heated debate will be reexamined, like the fake Van Goghs sold in the 1920s by the German dealer Otto Wacker. Others will be discussed, like the fake Fragonard drawings and forgeries in Islamic art.

Fakes Are Among Us

Forgers need to be highly skilled artists with an in-depth knowledge of art and its history to think up works with no point of reference. As Sophie Goetzmann points out, deciphering them is also a way of “deconstructing the myth of the forger as someone brilliant, a kind of outsider who takes delight in duping the authorities and swindling rich people. In fact, forgers often come from the same milieu: they are experts and artists. So, do they become geniuses when they put their talents to use in counterfeiting?” It means that detecting fakes requires the arsenal of tools deployed by the C2RMF (Museums of France Research and Restoration Center). One speaker, restorer Marc-André Paulin, will discuss the various ways of assessing the authenticity of a piece of furniture. The perspective of physicist Antoine Zink, a specialist in thermoluminescence applied to terracotta, will illustrate how technology contributes to dating, with one proviso: the authenticity of an object ultimately depends on the judgment of art historians. This high-profile expertise, which is based on visual and written sources, has its own history. For example, the criteria for assessing paintings in Rome in around 1600—the subject of a discussion—were very different from those used today. This will be confirmed by Pierre Rosenberg, honorary president of the Louvre Museum and former president of the festival’s scientific committee, who will talk about his work: attributing and re-attributing works by Poussin. In the 14^th and 15^th centuries, paintings were often collective creations. During the Renaissance, apprenticeship and training involved copying and imitating the masters. Though in theory there was no fraudulent intent, the line between this and faking was sometimes very tenuous. Ilaria Andreoli, art historian and scientific coordinator at INHA, is researching this aspect in a corpus of nearly 1000 listed copies of Albrecht Dürer’s works, where a significant number feature his monogram. In a completely different sphere of forgery, visual arts researcher André Gunthert will draw on his expertise in photographs generated by artificial intelligence. As potential tools for disinformation, they reflect no fidelity to reality from a technical point of view. In a highly anticipated lecture, expert Éric Turquin will look back over the mistakes he has made, with examples. Far from seeing forgers as romantic and heroic, he thinks that fakes, which sometimes involve considerable financial stakes, are a disease of the art market. A round table discussion will be an opportunity to address the role of this market in the circulation of fake antiques in the 19th century. As an indicator of authenticity and attribution, signatures—which were frequently forged—became less reliable in around 1800, as art historian Charlotte Guichard will explain.

Authenticity: A Moral Value?

The existence of forgeries in public collections is no longer disputed. But have museums become more transparent on this issue? “That’s my feeling,” says Sophie Goetzmann. “And indeed, many curators will be attending, more than in previous years.” Federica Mancini, in charge of collections at the Louvre, will talk about fake drawings in the museum’s possession. There will also be a round table led by heritage curator Catherine Chevillot, who will talk about forged sculptures in French museums and the questions this raises: what should be done with these fakes? Should they be shown to the public, and if so, how? What lessons can be learned regarding the history of art, the history of collections, and the history of taste? While remaining the cornerstone of art history and the art market, the concept of authenticity does not apply to all situations. Between the modeling and casting of a sculpture, which is the authentic piece? Can we talk about “authentic multiples” with prints? What status should be given to period copies and pastiches and other works declared inauthentic? How should we approach the authenticity of works undermined by the very practice of their creators, particularly street art, an anonymous and illegal form of counterculture? The most pressing questions concern ethnic art, a market that grew considerably in Europe at the end of the 19^th century. Are objects specifically made in Africa and Oceania to meet this demand authentic? Is authenticity becoming a moral value? A round table organized by Yaëlle Biro, an art historian and scientific coordinator at INHA, will take stock of copies made in Africa in the 20^th century to replace objects that had often been looted. Over time, these works have acquired a historical and symbolic importance that goes beyond their status as mere copies: a subject that has spawned a new research program at INHA. The very idea of authenticity is now not always written in stone, and the usual categories of genuine and fake are also being questioned in Asia, where some countries are faithfully reconstructing their destroyed architectural heritage. These practices are championed by experts and citizens alike, as Delphine Vomscheid of the French Institute for Research on Japan will point out. “Penny bazaar chromos” also played on the illusion of authenticity, as art historian Emmanuel Pernoud will recall. These pieces, which were very popular in the late 19^th century, reproduced paintings in minute detail using oleography. Art critics were quick to condemn this tastelessness. But isn’t there also a certain pleasure in being taken in by the effect of illusion? Aurélie Gavoille and Sylvie Carlier will explore the meaning of the exhibition “Trompe-l’œil, from 1520 to the present day,” which they staged at the Musée Marmottan Monet. Meanwhile, Maximilien Theinhardt from the Musée National d’Art Moderne will tell us about the improbable “Boronali affair” in 1910, involving the fictional creator of a real painting produced with a donkey’s tail!

Worth Knowing
“Le vrai, le faux” (“The Genuine and the Fake”)
14^th Festival of Art History
Château de Fontainebleau (Seine et Marne)
June 6-8, 2025
festivaldelhistoiredelart.fr