Purchased in a batch of auctioned artwork in Arizona in the early 2000’s, the painting was laying around a private home until it was recognized as worthy of further research by an amateur art enthusiast in 2011. Having established that the painting bore the marks of a Picasso, he was able to get in touch with people in Malaga, Picasso’s home region in Spain, who were willing to co-operate. They set about researching individuals and institutions that would be able to ascertain whether the painting was genuine.
They contacted Actio Arte y Ciencia, based at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona. After a preliminary investigation of the painting conducted through photographs yielded promising results, the painting was sent to Spain for further analysis. The first formal step was to carry out research into the raw materials used in the painting. This confirmed that they coincided with those used by Picasso in terms of time and location. The next step was a thorough analysis of the artwork in terms of its style and characteristics
Dr. Sergio Ruiz-Moreno is Professor of Optical Communications at the UPC Telecommunications Engineering School. He is in charge of UPC's Raman Spectroscopy Laboratory. His main area of research is the non-destructive analysis of pigments in works of art using Raman spectroscopy fiber-optic systems. Dr. Moreno is also a co-founder of ACTIO, Art, and Science.
Since 1994, Dr. Moreno’s UPC Optical Communications Group has used new photonics technologies that are non-invasive and non-destructive to analyze the pigments used in various art objects provided by numerous museums.
The two basic processes used, both intimately related to the laser, are i) the non-destructive analysis of pigments with Raman spectroscopy and ii) the local micro-elimination of varnishes and spurious surface materials, through the use of radiation with pulsed ultraviolet laser (UV). Other investigative techniques complementary to these processes are infrared reflectography (IR) for the study of underlying preliminary drawings and photomicrography for visualizing brush strokes, craquelure, and other details.
Dr. Moreno has created a database of pigments broken down on temporal, historical, scientific, and geographical levels.
Given that all pigments have a period of utilization, and in many instances, have a point in time of disuse, one can understand the importance of having a global database that provides information not only about the Raman Spectra of pigments used throughout history, but also the key dates relating to the origin and synthesis of those pigments. In short, using Raman spectroscopy the expert can ascertain the artist's palette and successfully discover not only his or her period and school but also have basic qualitative information to establish possible authorship of the work.
All of this is significant as historically the certification of artworks has been carried out by art connoisseurs that have a vast knowledge of a particular artist and his or her works. It is undeniable that there is a great number of professionals with sufficient ability and experience to provide a subjective opinion as to whether an artwork is or is not attributable to a particular artist. But objectivity, precision, and interdisciplinary science are also necessary to corroborate the connoisseurs’ subjective opinions.
Along with the scientific and forensic analysis of an artwork, UPC also conducts historical research to determine the authorship of a particular work of art.
The materials used in a work of art must fit the historical timeline of the suspected
artist and his or her works. Everything must match up without error from the
scientific data, to the style of art that the artist was creating at the time the materials used in the artwork were available.
Dr. Sergio Moreno and his colleague, Dra. M. Concepción Chillón Domínguez issued a report in Spanish concerning the artwork dated January 21, 2015. It determined that the mediums used in the artwork comprised: ink, charcoal, watercolor, and graphite, on Rives paper.
The report measured the artwork to be 53cm x 38cm. There is a dedication in the bottom left corner of the artwork, and there is writing in pencil (graphite) on the back of the artwork.
A preliminary observation using optical technology demonstrated that the
artwork is in excellent condition. Use of the Leica Z12 camera system at 800 times
magnification ruled out the existence of repainting or any additions that could
provide any misleading or inconsistent data. The Raman spectroscopy revealed the
following pigments in the artwork:
• Red: Organic Pigment Red PR4 (monoazo ico, b-naphthol),
•Yellow: Yellow Organic Pigment PY1 (Hansa Yellow G)
•Black: Charcoal (amorphous Carbon)
•Brown mixed with charcoal PR41
•Text: Graphite
Based on the analysis of the identified pigments' historical context, the report suggests that it is reasonable to believe the artwork was created between 1910 and 1940. The artwork portrays a depiction of a nude man with a goat’s head silhouetted within his face, embracing another figure. The nudity and the presence of a beard on the depicted man, along with the adornment of grape and leaf headpieces, indicate a connection to the mythological character Dionysus (Greek) or Bacchus (Roman). Additionally, historically, the facial features and artistic quality of the drawing closely resemble Picasso's engravings for the Vollard Suite, which were created during the 1930s. The artwork within the watercolor strokes with a brown hue (near the man’s right shoulder) make a silhouette of the profile of Marie-Therese Walter, which can be seen in Picasso’s Guernica (1937).
The Report concludes that considering all scientific and historic data, the artwork
presents relevant aspects, which relate directly to the production of the artwork by
Pablo Ruiz Picasso between 1931 and 1937, and which are worth considering in
attribution of final authorship.
The artwork was then sent to Ahmed Elgammal, an associate professor at Rutgers University, who had been researching the use of artificial intelligence in the authentication of art. Dr. Ahmed Elgammal is a Professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University. He is an expert in the field of computer vision and machine learning. He is the founding director of the Art and Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers.
Dr. Elgammal's research focuses on developing algorithms and systems to understand visual data, such as images and videos. He has published over 200 papers in the areas of computer vision, machine learning, and multimedia. Additionally, he served on the editorial boards of several journals, including the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, the International Journal of Computer Vision, and the International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award in 2017. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the ACM, and a Distinguished Scientist of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Dr. Elgammal provides a service through Artrendex, his company, which runs artwork through his patented Artificial Intelligence algorithms to establish authorhsip. Artrendex is a leading art authentication and authentication services provider. Founded in 2006, Artrendex has become a trusted source for authentication, authentication of artworks, authentication of provenance, authentication of authenticity, authentication of the provenance of artworks, and authentication of the authenticity of artworks. Artrendex provides authentication services to museums, galleries, auction houses, and private collectors. They use a combination of advanced scientific testing, provenance research, and expert opinion to authenticate artworks.
Artrendex has a team of experienced art authentication experts with a deep knowledge of the history, materials, and techniques of artworks. They use a range of scientific methods to authenticate artworks, including infrared reflectography, X-ray fluorescence, and microscopic analysis. They also use provenance research to trace the history of an artwork and its ownership.
The particular strength of these studies lies in their ability to examine distinctive attributes of individual brushstrokes, deliberately excluding subject matter and composition from the initial analysis. This deliberate exclusion is due to the fact that forgers encounter significant difficulties replicating these particular characteristics accurately. Taking this approach on studying the brush strokes rules out the possibility that an erroneous conclusion might be reached based on apparent stylistic similarities with recognized artworks by a particular artist.
Artrendex conducted a study on the artwork in order to establish whether Pablo Picasso was the artist behind the piece. The research aimed to measure and analyze the statistical attributes of the distinct brushstrokes in the artwork under investigation. It sought to draw a comparison between these strokes and recognized drawings by Picasso, as well as other artists known for creating similar line drawings. When it comes to these kinds of drawing works, this study used Henry Matisse and Egon Schiele as reference points for the comparison.
In the opinion of Artrendex, the artwork is an authentic work of Pablo Ruiz Picasso. This conclusion is based on scientific testing and is drawn with a reasonable degree of certainty. There is enough evidence to support this assertion based on the study of the strokes' characteristics and how similar they are to Picasso strokes in his drawings done in ink.
Since first being unearthed in 2011, the painting has gone through various examinations at world-class research institutes by experts who are renowned in their field. These examinations have increased in scope and technological complexity. They have all reached the conclusion that the painting was drawn by Picasso in the 1930’s and truly is a Artistic Marvel
-The artwork has been concluded to have the same paint and paper (Rives) that Picasso was known to use according to the forensic and scientific report from Dr. Sergio Moreno and the art historian Dra. M. Concepcion Dominguez.
- The artwork is in pristine condition, as stated in the UPC report, which overall emphasizes the quality of the artwork, surpassing even what the human eye can perceive, "... observation analysis of the pictorial surface using a binocular Leica Z12 which allows up to 800x augmentation. It was possible to observe the excellent state of conservation and the different shades that appear in the work, ruling out the existence of repainting or additions that could provide misleading or inconsistent information with that of the rest of the original palette," UPC Report [p5].
- Any refurbishing of the art by anyone would have been detected in both reports. First, the UPC report includes forensic and scientific findings that reveal irregularities in Raman spectroscopy, pigments used during specific time periods, and clear-cut signs in high-resolution imaging. Secondly, it is important to understand the accuracy and precision of Dr. Elgammal's algorithm, as demonstrated in his validation analysis;
"The validation analysis in this study included over 80,000 strokes by 16 artists. The validation shows that the new methodology can identify authorship of individual strokes with accuracy[...]. where the technology rejected these fakes with 100% accuracy," Ahmed Elgammal CEO Artrendex.
-The artwork has the same consistency as not only being executed in the 1930’s (from the forensics and scientific analysis), but also showing major similarities to a connection to The Vollard Suite which was also executed in the 1930’s by Picasso.
-As documented in the report by Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, one can observe the presence of the Marie-Therese Walter bust, which holds significance in Picasso's renowned masterpiece Guernica from 1937. Along with dozens of other works of Picasso, Marie-Therese's bust in his art was very prominent from the mid to late 1920s all the way to the late 1930s, when it became seemingly less common going into the 1940s-50s to see her symbolic presence used.
-Located at the bottom left corner of the artwork, there is a graphite (pencil) inscription which bears a dedication that reads, 'Les Friendship pour ve, Charles Eames Ray Eames'. Charles Eames and Ray Eames, highly regarded American artists, hold a prominent place in the art world and are celebrated for their significant contributions.
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