National Gallery announces exhibition of forged paintings

An exhibition of forged and wrongly-attributed paintings is to be at the heart of the National Gallery's next summer season, it was announced today.

A number of works either produced as deliberate fakes or incorrectly thought to be works by great masters will be put on display to highlight the work of gallery researchers who determine the authenticity of items in the collection.

Gallery director Nicholas Penny said forged paintings were a vital part of the collection, as they enabled scholars to learn the techniques of the counterfeiters.

"I wish we had more fakes," he said.
"You only get good at spotting them if you know what you are looking for.

"The National Gallery is a place where we display great masterpieces and it's a place where we study art in all its complexity.

"It's really naive for people to think that having forgeries is something you should just be ashamed of."

Dr Penny said there were very few forged paintings produced with the express intention of deceiving people, but many copies of great paintings were made and then passed off by dealers as the real thing.

Among the works to be shown is a painting acquired by the gallery in the 1920s which was thought to be from the 15th century but has since been found to be a 20th century fake.