Is Cezanne's painting a real or a fake?
Art Historians
- The painting is unsigned like most of Cezanne's work.
- The painting has many of the same visual elements.
- Very characteristic of his contructivist phase in the late 1880s
- The brush work is indistinguishable from other pintings of his in that period
Real
Dr. Pruschy
(Using UV spectrum)
- Each layer of the painting was analysed by UV spectrography and produced nearly identical absorption spectra
- The painting shows an absorbance of 0.6 which suggests that it's not likely to go all the way back to a 100 years old
Fake
Dr. Anderson
(Using IR spectroscopy)
- Although the brushwork applied was charactiristic of Cezanne's early period, the pigments used in the painting weren't widely known known at the time
- The binder is based on animal glue which was used widely until the 1940s
- There's an underdrawing of a male figure. Cezanne wasn't known for making underdrawings
Fake
Dr. Montoya
(Using X-ray fluorescence)
- The pigments tested were used in Cezanne's life span
- The absence of some elements contained in certain pigments reinforces its originality as they were still unknown in Cezanne's period of time
Real
Dr. Simpkins
(Using long and short UV excitation wave)
- The fluorescence of certain areas resemble the ones found in another painting of Cezanne called "Gardanne"
- Pigments were used in the same studio by the same artist
Real