Art counterfeiting is on the rise, with fraudsters selling fakes across the globe and reaping immense rewards for their criminal activities. Even if you’re buying an Old Master for a couple of million dollars, you can never be sure whether it’s an original work or not without engaging an expert. That’s why art collectors, dealers, and auction houses often hire art authentication experts to verify the art object’s provenance and authenticity.
When should you turn to art authentication experts?
So, what do these experts do for various participants in the art market? Here are a couple of tasks that you can’t perform without the assistance of a professional authentication expert.
Authenticity checks
An expert can help determine whether a certain art object indeed belongs to a particular artist or historical period. They use advanced scientific methods, such as carbon dating and pigment analysis, to perform authentication and give an art object a seal of verified authorship.
Market transparency and trust
A market player with authenticated art objects is sure to enjoy greater trust in the art market because of transparency and confidence in ownership. This way, art businesses and private collections are sure to enjoy the gains of inviting authentication pros and getting confirmation for each asset’s genuineness.
Legal dispute management
As soon as fraud is suspected in the art market, authentication experts can help clarify the claims and either prove the art object’s fraudulent nature or protect the defendant’s interests in court. An expert’s opinion is highly valued in court proceedings and can affect the judge’s final decision in a lawsuit about a contested art object.
Artwork valuation
Authentic artwork is surely valued much higher than that of dubious origin and unconfirmed authorship. That’s why it’s in the owner’s interest to hire an expert who will perform a thorough audit and issue a certification of authenticity, thus making the artwork easier to sell.
Art authentication challenges
While art authentication experts can handle a variety of tasks to simplify the activities of dealers and art collectors, making art deals safer, the performance of art authentication procedures also faces some challenges that should be taken seriously. First, it’s the art expert’s subjectivity, which may affect the art object’s evaluation, especially for works by unknown artists or scarcely researched historical periods. Second, it is tech innovation that makes counterfeiting less detectable. Finally, authentication experts may face litigation for incorrect or dissatisfactory assessment results, which is always a source of risk for the job.