Toilet Paper Forgeries

I own a Cornelius Krieghoff painting. The only trouble is, it’s a fake. A forgery. A cheat. A knock-off. A sham. A phoney.  A brummagem. That’s a long list, but they all mean the same thing, namely, I’ve been taken for a ride, by a dishonest and sleazy individual. It’s an authentic looking watercolour but the signature is misspelled with the i and e reversed, perhaps intentionally, but to the unwitting it might not be obvious until it is too late. Mine came through family inheritance channels so somebody got fooled but I hope they didn’t pay too much for it. When paintings like these can sell for stratospheric prices at auction it is important to have an accurate provenance for the particular piece. Forgeries become the subject matter of books, intrigue, and detailed investigations, and rightfully so as nobody likes to be swindled.

In famous global galleries, you can get permission to make a copy of a famous painting. Permission being given, you may set up your easel in front of a famous painting and learn a lot about style, composition, and use of artist materials, by trying to replicate exactly what the original artist accomplished. This is made possible by “copyist” programs run by the gallery which often have prerequisites for permission to be granted. For example, making a copy with the same size measurements is denied, and so on. Your non-fake academic credentials to be able to participate will likely also be a factor.

If you don’t have permission and you are manufacturing painting copies in your garret studio then your products are considered illegal forgeries. If you are extremely efficient at accomplishing this, it gets very difficult for sleuths to prove the deceit.

To compound the whole scenario, there are numerous cases where the original artist for whatever reason didn’t sign the works they painted. When an unsigned artwork comes to the marketplace, claiming to be an original, it doesn’t have the same weight as a piece that has an obvious artist signature comparable to all of his or her previous signatures. In fact the piece might be worthless.

Most people have a sense of the chaos that would be created by the continuous entrance into the marketplace of fake money. Some will have even received some, and found it to be a very large loss to their budget if it was a big bill in their wallet. Actually that is the problem with fiat money if it is counterfeit because it is only worth as much as a sheet of toilet paper. And when fiat money is not backed by gold or precious metals it literally is the equivalent of toilet rolls. But, that is another story, and is only used here to explore the crucial meanings of forged artwork, which is of course the moral equivalent with the same caveat that the work will in comparison with the real da Vinci be worth a few rolls of toilet paper.

And now having absorbed all these interesting factors you will need to decide if they are true and honest because this could have been written by me or might be a complete fake written by ChatGPT. Just like fake paintings it is often very hard to tell the difference and it might be just another piece of worthless toilet paper. Which makes me think, AI copies may indeed be the next stage in art forgeries, and might even be printed on toilet paper.