With art values rising, forgeries have proliferated. Not surprisingly, authentication has become an ever-greater issue. It’s true with every type of art, but nowhere more so than in the hot sector of Chinese art and ceramics, which has attracted some particularly accomplished forgers, Now Bonhams and the UK’s Cranfield University have come together to develop new forensic techniques to assure authenticity.
Until quite recently, many of the techniques used were as much as forty years old, invasive, and inexact. All that is changing, largely through trace element analysis, which is highly sophisticated and non-invasive. Cranfield’s specialists will focus on the science, and Bonhams on its practical application. The project, said Bonhams’ Colin Sheaf, “will be of immense benefit to both participants, and to the wider academic and commercial art market.”
Read more at Bonhams.
