Palmer forged

This illustration shows a gross forgery of a Shoreham period work by Samuel Palmer. It was made by Keating and appeared with two others in the catalogue of an exhibition presented by a prestigious London gallery in 1970. The forgeries were accompanied by quality works by English watercolourists. The gallery had no intention to deceive but was itself deceived. Once again the forger of the painting had provided a  forged provenance for the works.A provenance is nothing more than a history of where and with whom the work has spent its time since its creation.   This helps to give persuade the buyer that reputable, perhaps very reputable people, have been custodians of the work. Where the provenance is genuine one can learn something about the history of collecting.

This forgery was the work of prolific but incompetent British forger, now dead.His action was despicable. No, I dont have much sympathy for dealers and art historians, and anyone can make a mistake. In this case some doubts were raised early on. 

What concerns me is that  the forger is a traitor to any sense of solidarity which might exist among artists. He-and it is usually a he, knows that his forgery is not in the same league as  the work on which he parasitises. The forger is usually found out eventually but  meanwhile he smears the reputation of a fellow artist. Compare the fake Palmer with the real thing and you can see how crude the forgery is. It may be argued that this Palmer forgery is in the style of the artist, but it is only a crude approximation. It is a garish travesty of an artistic moment when a burgeoning sensibility (Palmer's) made a creative leap such as our forger could never have manifested.