SPURIOUS PAINTINGS DETECTED.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1944, 30 December 1913, Page 6

SPURIOUS PAINTINGS DETECTED.

WHAT A PROFESSOR'S CAMERA REVEALED. } "The study of brushwork by means of pliotomoicrographs" formed tho subject of a recent lecture by Professor Laurie at the Royal Academy of Arts. Notwithstanding its outwardly prosaic character ,tho lecture embodied tho vesults of investigations of a particularly fascinating character, and mado it clear that tho way of the picture forger will bo harder in tho future than it has been. > Signature, evident antiquity, mellowness, and colour will count no longer. Science and the camera placo authenticity beyond alFUoubt. Professor Laurie has shown that whilst;the brushwork_ of tho master craftsman is unerring'in its strokes, the copyist achieves similar results by entirely different methods. A !o>is is very well, in its way, but, tho Professor urges, the connoisseur cannot keep varying types of brushwork in _ his memory. And this is where scienco comes to tho resouo. "I had for some time been interested in tlie history of pigments," he observed, "w.itli a view to showing how they had varied »t different periods. I began to study the pictures through, a powerful lens, then had portions of the pictures magnified several times, a procedure which was useful in certs in cases. ' 'Ultimately I devised a camera with a special lens in order to sevaro short magnifications." Many curious things has this camera revealed, but it has its limitations, for Professor Laurie says_ that it does not avail much in tho sixteenth century Italian paintings, when tho <iim «F the artist was to present the smokiest- possible. surface. Doubt had cf;st upon the authenticity; of the Spanish Admiral (Velasquez) in the National Gallerv. "I have put this picture to the test, and have found the brushwork of the portrait of Philip IV to be identical." There is likewise the case of 'lie socalled Pntil Potter in tho National Galj lorv, a picture known as "The Old Giey ! Hunter." Dr. Brodius hacl suggested | that the picture had been painted by ; Vcrbeccq. Comparison with a known work of Verbeecq, in Holland, proves that the sleeping" man in the picture is by ths»t artist, though another hand bad painted iu the horse. Tho art authorities at The Hague have been particularly courteous in aiding these investigations, which art lovers as a whole will welcome as placing a further obstacle in the 1 way of spurious imitations. "Daily I News."