Forgery

"Forger" redirects here. For the Soviet aircraft, see Yakovlev Yak-38.

For the process of shaping metal by localized compressive forces, see Forging. For other uses, see Forgery (disambiguation).

Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or currency is more often called counterfeiting. But consumer goods may also be counterfeits if they are not manufactured or produced by the designated manufacture or producer given on the label or flagged by the trademark symbol. When the object forged is a record or document it is often called a false document.

This usage of "forgery" does not derive from metalwork done at a forge, but it has a parallel history. A sense of "to counterfeit" is already in the Anglo-French verb forger, meaning "falsify."

A forgery is essentially concerned with a produced or altered object. Where the prime concern of a forgery is less focused on the object itself – what it is worth or what it "proves" – than on a tacit statement of criticism that is revealed by the reactions the object provokes in others, then the larger process is a hoax. In a hoax, a rumor or a genuine object planted in a concocted situation, may substitute for a forged physical object.

The similar crime of fraud is the crime of deceiving another, including through the use of objects obtained through forgery. Forgery is one of the techniques of fraud, including identity theft. Forgery is one of the threats addressed by security engineering.

In the 16th century imitators of Albrecht Dürer's style of printmaking improved the market for their own prints by signing them "AD", making them forgeries. In the 20th century the art market made forgeries highly profitable. There are widespread forgeries of especially valued artists, such as drawings originally by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse.

A special case of double forgery is the forging of Vermeer's paintings by Han van Meegeren, and in its turn the forging of Van Meegeren's work by his son Jacques van Meegeren.

England and Wales

See English criminal law#Forgery, personation and cheating

Documentary art

Before the invention of photography, people commonly hired painters and engravers to "re-create" an event or a scene. Artists had to imagine what to illustrate based on the information available to them about the subject. Some artists added elements to make the scene more exotic, while others removed elements out of modesty. In the 18th century, for example, Europeans were curious about what North America looked like and were ready to pay to see illustrations depicting this faraway place. Some of these artists produced prints depicting North America, despite many having never left Europe.

In popular culture

• The 1839 novel by Honoré de Balzac, Pierre Grassou, concerns an artist who lives off forgeries.
• The Orson Welles documentary F for Fake concerns both art and literary forgery. For the movie Welles intercut footage of Elmyr de Hory, an art forger, and Clifford Irving, who wrote an "authorized" autobiography of Howard Hughes that had been revealed to be a hoax. While forgery is the ostensible subject of the film, it also concerns art, film making, storytelling and the creative process.
• In the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the real story of Frank Abagnale, a con man who stole over $2.5 million through forgery, imposture and other frauds, which are dramatized in the film. His career in crime lasted six years from 1963 to 1969.

Topics in forgery

• Archaeological forgery
  • Archaeoraptor
  • Discoveries of Shinichi Fujimura
  • James Ossuary
  • Piltdown Man
  • Moses Shapira
  • Tiara of Saitapharne, Louvre
  • Shepton Mallet, Chi-Rho amulet
  • The Lady of Elx saw a controversy circa 1995 regarding its authenticity. Recently (2005), the Spanish National Research Council concluded in a research that the pigmentation was, in fact, from ancient times.
  • See also Kensington Runestone controversy
  • Drake's Plate of Brass
  • Sinaia lead plates
• Art forgery
  • Tom Keating
  • Eric Hebborn
  • Elmyr de Hory
  • Zhang Daqian
  • Dürer's imitators
  • Camille Corot's imitators
  • Han van Meegeren's Vermeers
  • Jacques van Meegeren's fakes of Han van Meegeren's work
  • Michelangelo's Cupid
  • Etruscan terracotta warriors, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • The Rospigliosi Cup or The 'Cellini Cup'
  • Samson Ceramics forgeries/reproductions
  • Black Admiral
• Currency Forgery
  • Counterfeit money
  • Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group
  • Counterfeit Coin Bulletin
  • Counterfeit United States currency
  • Fake denominations of United States currency
  • William Chaloner (died 1699 at Tyburn), forger, coiner, coin clipper and counterfeiter,
  • Catherine Murphy (counterfeiter) (died 1789) the last woman to be executed by burning.
• Literary forgery - these literary forgeries all had some effect on the course of cultural history. Other literary forgeries, such as the Hitler diaries, briefly achieve wide notoriety, without affecting subsequent history; they are brought together as literary hoaxes.
  • Epistle to the Laodiceans
  • Theology of Aristotle
  • Ademar of Chabannes' forged Life of St. Martial
  • Thomas Chatterton's pseudo-medieval poetry
  • Ossianic poems
  • The Book of the Zohar, a primary text of medieval Kabbalah, was written by a 16th century Spanish Rabbi but attributed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, an ancient sage of the Second Temple period. It was widely accepted as genuine until the advent of modern scholarship.
  • The Salamander Letter, which offered an alternative account of Joseph Smith's finding of the Book of Mormon, written by master forger Mark Hofmann.
  • Jack the Ripper's Diary
  • Clifford Irving's Howard Hughes autobiography
  • Charles Weisberg
• False documents
  • Yellowcake Forgery
  • Mark Hofmann
  • James Maybrick
  • Donation of Constantine
  • Vinland map
  • Dossiers Secrets, the document forgeries planted in the Bibliothèque nationale de France that were developed into Holy Blood, Holy Grail etc.
  • Identity document forgery
• Musical Forgery (Music allegedly written by composers of past eras, but actually composed later by someone else)
  • W. A. Mozart, "Adélaïde" concerto for violin (by Marius Casadesus)
  • G. F. Handel, Viola Concerto (by Henri Casadesus)
  • J. C. Bach, Cello Concerto in C minor (by Henri Casadesus)
  • Valentin Strobel, Concerto (by François-Joseph Fétis)
  • Works for lute by Sautscheck (by Roman Turovsky-Savchuk)
  • Works for lute by Ioannes Leopolita (by Roman Turovsky-Savchuk)
  • Works for baroque guitar by Antonio da Costa (by Paulo Galvao)
  • "Kanzona" for lute by Francesco da Milano (by Vladimir Vavilov)
  • A.Sychra, Elegy for guitar (by Vladimir Vavilov)
  • Fritz Kreisler's works for violin attributed to other composers
  • Joseph Haydn, 6 Keyboard Sonatas (by Winfried Michel)
  • Joseph Haydn, Cello Concerto 'No 5' in C major, Hob VIIb:5 (by David Popper)
• Philatelic fakes and forgeries
• Relic forgery - It is not the efficacy of a relic that is in question, but only its provenance.
  • cf True Cross
  • cf Shroud of Turin
• Biblical archaeology - Ancient artifacts
  • Moses Shapira
• Political forgery - false documents used for purposes of black propaganda.
  • The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
  • Zinoviev Letter
  • Tanaka Memorial
  • Ems Dispatch (actually more of a document altered by Otto von Bismarck in order to incite a war response from France against Germany)
  • Killian documents (Memos critical of the United States National Guard service of President George W. Bush, now widely considered to be forgeries. See also Killian documents authenticity issues.)

See also

• Authentication
• Counterfeiting
  • coins
  • currency
  • drugs
  • watches
  • postage stamps           
• Epigraphy

• False document
• Falsification
• FBI
• Phishing
• Questioned document examination
• Replica
• United States Secret Service
• White Collar Crime

References

Sources

• Cohon, Robert. Discovery & Deceit: archaeology & the forger's craft Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum, 1996
• Muscarella, Oscar. The Lie Became Great: the forgery of Ancient Near Eastern cultures, 2000
• "Imaginary Images" in Detecting the Truth: Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery at Library and Archives Canada

External links

• Bibliographies of archaeological forgeries, art forgeries etc
• Museum security mnetwork: sources of information on art forgery; with encyclopedic links