Is the Art in an Estate Authentic?

The past few years have seen a proliferation of wealthy patrons seeking out investment art, and parallel with that demand is the increase in litigation over authenticity of the art. The internet has been both a burden and a boon for the high-end art market with allowing more buyers to find marketers but also exposing those buyers to sophisticated counterfeiters.

For Fine Art paintings, determining authenticity begins with scientific testing of the materials to determine the correct time period, including fasteners, pigments, canvas, etc. Forensic testing can be done prove that a piece is counterfeit, it may be able to be used to prove that a piece is authentic.

New pieces of works of art can be more complicated to authenticate, but technology is rendering more refined and advanced encrypting methods for artists and investors. These include electronically tagging the artwork, anti-forgery algorithms that codify the characteristics of the artist, synthetic DNA being placed on the work, and even the use of blockchain to track the movement of digital art.

See Alan Breus, Is the Art in an Estate Authentic?, Wealth Management, August 10, 2018.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.