Authentication & Attribution
IDENTIFICATION
Our studio is frequently involved in the authentication of previously unattributed work. Sometimes, conservation treatment (removing obscuring layers of varnish and overpaint, and redoing poor-quality past repairs that have disguised a work’s true quality) are all that’s needed to reveal the hand of a master at work. Our experienced conservators conduct a thorough analysis of the artwork and apply our in-depth knowledge of materials, eras, methods, brushstrokes, composition and more. We work with conservation scientists specialising in imaging, dendrochronology, pigment analysis, canvas dating and other scientific methods of enquiry. Our findings can then be shared with an art historian or curator expert on the artist for formal authentication. Please note that we do not authenticate or attribute artworks ourselves, nor can we provide a ‘certificate of attribution’.
To see our work in action, watch BBC television series ‘Britain’s Lost Masterpieces’, where Simon Gillespie is the conservation expert, helping to bring to light masterpieces by famous artists whose attribution has over time fallen into oblivion or been brought into question.
COUNTERFEITS AND FORGERIES
Our observation, analysis and expertise sometimes reveal that a painting is not what it purports to be, and is a deliberate counterfeit or forgery. Sometimes the giveaway is the materials used, or what we find underneath a picture if an x-ray or IR analysis is carried out. If we find that a work is a fake, we can produce a report outlining our findings that may support the owner in any recovery efforts, if the work was recently acquired.