Have you ever heard of Wolfgang Beltracchi, probably the biggest art forger in history, who fooled the most respected art experts, by painting and selling his own reproductions of works by Max Ernst, Fernand Léger and even Pablo Picasso? Well, if you have, the following account of events might sound familiar.
In early December 2017, The Great Masters Art Foundation contacted Teledyne ICM in search of a portable x-ray generator to radiograph a 16th century Italian painting, as some doubt had been cast around the authenticity of the old piece. Just like Beltracchi’s titanium white paint (the cause of his eventual imprisonment), green pigments dating from the 1930’s were found on the supposed 16th century painting. Saint Jerome, a canvas attributed to Parmigianino or his circle, valuated at about $850,000, was on the verge of becoming a fraud.
Since the questionable pigments were not in direct contact with the canvas, this particular color could have been added much later, during a restoration, for instance. To settle the case and determine the authenticity of the painting, Sotheby’s, Britain’s world-renowned auction house, hired a top expert, Dr. Maurizio Seracini, to study the painting with all the scientific tools available to finally ascertain the true nature of the masterpiece.