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So, he continued:

Another ingenious counterfeiters who were caught in the trap which many art lovers, especially in the United States was David Stein, but he was eventually arrested, too, after Marc Chagall accidentally saw a fake, exhibited in the window of a gallery owner. Stein's name was on the front pages of all newspapers, and, paradoxically, it helped him earn a living after the scandal, selling them has produced the official "copies.

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It is difficult to understand the motives of manufacturers forgeries, the more that these people are very different psychological warehouse. Some people go to it for the pleasure to deceive the expert or gallerist, others see this as a way to earn, the third is simply entertaining ...

One poddelschikov, who was nicknamed "facsimile" phenomenal simulator still lifes XVII century, created them in 1980. just for fun, that did not prevent some Parisian experts acknowledge its products are originals.

After working for a fair time for the public service restorer of monuments of history and art, Facsimile acquired a comprehensive knowledge of pigments used by artists of the XVII century. Besides his work gave him the opportunity to examine in detail the product stored in museum collections.

To create their simulation, incredibly close to the originals, he could only find an adequate foundation, canvas, or a brass plaque correct era. He began to sell their copies of fans, but one day, gallery owners saw them and decided that these products simply can not be authenticated! Gradually, some copies have been attributed as the originals, gallery owners and threw them to the manufacturer's orders on the still lifes, which could be attributed to the great French, Dutch and Flemish painters. About 40 of his works have received certificates of authenticity, facsimile and, feeling that danger is approaching, I decided it was time to say goodbye to their customers and to move from Paris to some place where the air is fresh and breathe easier.

In general, the art of forgery remarkably quickly evolved when he began to grow rapidly the Art Market, in 1970-ies. Until then, this market was fairly limited, and Paris topped the sales at public auction. The situation changed rapidly, when the Anglo-Saxon auction houses began to use modern marketing methods to attract new customers. Economic expansion has favored the emergence of new buyers, who yearned to make his own collection.

When prices for Impressionist and modern art began to skyrocket, the United States has become an ideal breeding ground for counterfeiters.

In New York and Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas opened the gallery to meet the needs of new customers. However, not without problems, the most important of which is that the experts on the most requested artist for the most part were not the Americans and the French, and that buying paintings, fans failed to take basic precautions - they do not deem it necessary to verify the validity of certificates accompanying these pictures, certificates for some of the works were signed by the experts, had no authority, there were collectors, who bought the product in general, without any certificate.

The owners of the many galleries do not hesitate to sell questionable things, issuing a certificate, signed by themselves and do not have any value. In this context, Legros quickly realized, as can be learned from this situation, profit, emissions on the U.S. market, hundreds of imitations.

At the same time, it would be unfair to blame the Americans, since long before the formation of the American market well-known Parisian collector Duray was the victim of many thieves. After his death, his heirs were astonished to realize that in his magnificent collection of impressionists and others had a large number of fakes.

Thus, the art market has reached maturity, became the target of two types of fraud - theft and fraud, and the number of such actions to increase rapidly throughout the western world. Clever Eastern Europeans soon realized that the production of counterfeit works of artists in great demand in Europe and the United States may be the business very profitable. Thus, since 1970. They began to produce the early works of artists who emigrated to the West, such as Chagall and Lissitzky, and Suprematist or constructivist canvases of famous Russian artists. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West was an orgy of counterfeit Malevich, Goncharova and Popova.

Thus, the increase in prices for works by artists has led to an increase in counterfeiting. Success Botero of Colombia was accompanied by the appearance of host of imitations of his canvases and sculptures. The American market was flooded with carvings Erte, Moore, Rodin, Archipenko, Matisse, priced out of any competition. The phenomenon that became a giant swing with the advent of the Internet and the success of such a site like E-Bay, in which every week offers hundreds of copies and fakes, sophisticated sellers who use the term "assigned" by Picasso, Matisse, Popova, Ribera, Frida Kalo, Botero, Dali, Renoir, Pissarro, Goncharova, Corot, Mac ...

This is - this epidemic is for the market, which suffers from a crisis of the world economy. Any artist who begins to be in demand, generates an influx of forgeries, as was the case of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Watteau, and, later, Vlaminck, Derain, de Chirico, Fujita, Warhol, Basquiat, Pollock, and now Kobmasa and other current artists. This is - in a sense, evidence of success, the flip side of the coin. Falsifiers know perfectly well that the proliferation of counterfeiting is punishable by law is much less severe than, for example, distribution of counterfeit banknotes.

We have already said that there is no single personality type counterfeiter - just as impossible to describe the profile of an ideal victim - one of them appear, and people enjoyed the reputation of the experts. But still try to describe the features of forgery.

Unlike a copy of which is as far as possible the faithful reproduction of the original, is in the manufacture of fake tracks, which should not be a repeat of any of original works, in order to deceive the buyer.

Forger produces the product and gives him for the work of the artist, whom he has forged, and sells it at a price corresponding to the quotation forged artworks. Hence, for the profitability of this activity is necessary to choose artists with the high prices. To produce counterfeits must have talent, be familiar with ancient techniques, know the chemical composition of pigments used by old masters, to be able to create a composition in the spirit of these masters, as well as be able to come up with a plausible story to explain the sudden appearance of a 'found' work.

Not all poddelschiki possess the traits necessary to circle the buyer around your finger, and they often find themselves in the hands of speculators, as Legros, who buy from them the results of their operations for the penny.

It should be noted that some of the famous characters are not squeamish about falsifitsiey - for example, Pope Clement VII commissioned a copy of a portrait of Raphael Leon X brushes, and gave him Federico II Gonzaga, assuring him that he had received the original. In any case, the counterfeit trade is kept on the characters, using naive people to take them off vchistuyu. This happened with PR which gradually from a nice and honest man into a swindler.

Elegant, well hold on, he played the role of senior manager, who lives with his beautiful young wife and charming children in a luxurious villa, located in the fashionable suburb. He developed a whole strategy of deception naive lovers of fine arts.

PR ads in newspapers and magazines on art, pretending that there is a need to sell part of its impressive collection of quality, to build a pool or fund some other work. Making first deal with the new victim, he sold the real work to build trust, while he showed his collection, and hinted that in the near future he will have to part with several other items. For all subsequent transactions, the client received falshaki.

This system functioned well for over 10 years, allowing him to inflate scores of people, as customers are not convinced that he had deceived them, and do not go to court. There was absolutely deadly in the weekly paper "Le Buan", which explains all the details of his strategy. As a result, in 2005, our rogue got 5 years in prison, and his pretty wife was taken under police surveillance.

However, many crooks still at large, they have every reason to hope that they will have to pay is not soon, and the profit achieved as long as the light collectors are willing to buy important works of art at a reasonable price.

This is not the end!

The article, which I translated above, was published on the website http://www.artcult.fr/_Sommaire/