The international art world was plunged into turmoil when it was revealed, in 1980, that many drawings previously attributed to artists as varied as Breughel, Piranesi, and Corot were in fact the work of the English artist Eric Hebborn. Time and again, Hebborn had tempted the experts into making false attributions and putting fakes up for auction. Here in The Art Forger's Handbook, written shortly before his mysterious death, is the artist's master class in the art of faking Old Masters. Packed with wonderfully entertaining and often outrageous speculations about the nature of art, truth, and value, Hebborn details the secrets of his techniques, revealing in the process a truly profound knowledge of the great artists of the past, and above all an overwhelming capacity for deceit, culture, and charm.

The English artist Eric Hebborn (1934-1996) explains the secrets of his forging techniqes in this illustrated work compiled shortly before his death. Drawings previously attributed to artists such as Picasso and Corot were in fact the work of Hebborn and this work provides an insight through explanations of his work. Inks, papers, pigments, monograms and signatures are all explained as well as Hebborn's own often outrageous speculations about the nature of art and value.

This book reveals the secrets of master art forger Eric Hebborn, who fooled the art world for more than 20 years with hundreds of fake Old Masters. Drawings attributed to Bruegel, Piranesi, Corot and Augustus John were unmasked as Hebborn's work in 1980 by London journalist Geraldine Norman. In this book, Hebborn shows how he did it. Shortly before his death in 1996, Hebborn compiled this handbook, revealing the secrets of his techniques, and showing in the process a profound knowledge of the great draughtsmen/artists of the past. Inks, papers, pigments, monograms and signatures are all explained and illustrated, and the tale is told in a witty, entertaining and often outrageous style, as the artist speculates on the nature of art, truth and value.

According to Vasari, the young Michelangelo often borrowed drawings of past masters, which he copied, returning his imitations to the owners and keeping originals. Half a millennium later, Andy Warhol made a game of "forging" the Mona Lisa, questioning the entire concept of originality. Forged explores art forgery from ancient times to the present. In chapters combining lively biography with insightful art criticism, Jonathon Keats profiles individual art forgers and connects their stories to broader themes about the role of forgeries in society. From the Renaissance master Andrea del Sarto who faked a Raphael masterpiece at the request of his Medici patrons, to the Vermeer counterfeiter Han van Meegeren who duped the avaricious Hermann Göring, to the frustrated British artist Eric Hebborn, who began forging to expose the ignorance of experts, art forgers have challenged "legitimate" art in their own time, breaching accepted practices and upsetting the status quo. They have also provocatively confronted many of the present-day cultural anxieties that are major themes in the arts. Keats uncovers what forgeries—and our reactions to them—reveal about changing conceptions of creativity, identity, authorship, integrity, authenticity, success, and how we assign value to works of art. The book concludes by looking at how artists today have appropriated many aspects of forgery through such practices as street-art stenciling and share-and-share-alike licensing, and how these open-source "copyleft" strategies have the potential to make legitimate art meaningful again. Forgery has been much discussed—and decried—as a crime. Forged is the first book to assess great forgeries as high art in their own right.

Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, Metropolis, available now! “[A] highly entertaining literary thriller about fine art and foolish choices.” —Parade “[A] nimble mystery.” —The New York Times Book Review “Gripping.” —O, The Oprah Magazine Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—still the largest unsolved art theft in history—one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece—the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years—may itself be a forgery. The Art Forger is a thrilling novel about seeing—and not seeing—the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.

A premier art forger describes his rags-to-riches journey into the dark side of the art world, detailing the shady intrigues of the world's great museums and auction houses and offering a lesson in forgery techniques. 15,000 first printing.

This handbook showcases studies on art theft, fraud and forgeries, cultural heritage offences and related legal and ethical challenges. It has been authored by prominent scholars, practitioners and journalists in the field and includes both overviews of particular art crime issues as well as regional and national case studies. It is one of the first scholarly books in the current art crime literature that can be utilised as an immediate authoritative reference source or teaching tool. It also includes a bibliographic guide to the current literature across interdisciplinary boundaries. Apart from legal, criminological, archeological and historical perspectives on theft, fraud and looting, this volume contains chapters on iconoclasm and graffiti, underwater cultural heritage, the trade in human remains and the trade, theft and forgery of papyri. The book thereby hopes to encourage scholars from a wider variety of disciplines to contribute their valuable knowledge to art crime research.