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Without a authentication certificate delivered by an established art expert any work of art would have strictly no value but following a series of disputes regarding how works are judged as genuine or not, several specialists endowed with the monopoly of exerting a godly power during many years have met resistance from many collectors.

During over a century the opinions delivered by art experts were unchallenged mainly because the art market was somewhat regarded as a closed circuit until the early 1980s. From then on, things started to change significantly when record auction prices piled up in London, New York or Paris. As a result, the booming market attracted new investors ready to pay huge sums of money for Impressionist, modern and contemporary works of art.

The stunning development of the art market after 1985 enhanced the role of art experts, especially as many important paintings were then being rediscovered. Still, determined to preserve their omnipotent privileges, these specialists considered they would always have the last word when it came to deliver an opinion.

It was thus fully admitted that for instance the Wildenstein Institute had full authority on many painters like Fragonard, Manet, Gauguin, Monet, Vlaminck, Marquet, Van Dongen and others, that the heirs of Pablo Picasso were the sole experts of that artist, that André Paciti and Dominique Fabiani were the guardians of Guillaumin's works, François Daulte, the expert for Renoir and Sisley, Michel Kellermann, the specialist of Derain or that John Rewald was fully in charge of the works of Seurat and Cézanne while Brame & Lorenceau had full control over the works of De Dreux, Degas and lately Toulouse-Lautrec.

In fact, each important artist have had one single expert to oversee his oeuvre, either a well-established specialist,  a member of his family exerting his moral rights or a committee set up to authenticate his works.

When the art market started to reach an unprecedented momentum at the end of the 1980s, the leading experts then had suddenly much work to do with scores of rediscovered works which were brought to them for examination. At that time, they willingly received people who contacted them without asking fees for a submission.

It was therefore not too difficult to ask for an appointment with the famous Daniel Wildenstein to show him for instance a so far unknown work by Gauguin, Manet or Monet. But in hoping for an authentication certificate his visitors would somewhat be put under the obligation to sell him what they were submitting meaning that if they refused to compel to his wish, they faced the risk not to a obtain such certificate.

Still, amateurs and small dealers were usually happy to reach a selling agreement with Daniel Wildenstein whose position was rather undisputed. In fact, the other main experts had also a kind of power of life or death over what they were being submitted.

Such situation went on to change at the start of the 21^st Century when the market became much more active in the fields of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary arts. Firstly, the aging Daniel Wildenstein had been much affected by the revelations made in a book published in 1995 by art historian Hector Feliciano suggesting that Georges, his father, had saved much of his huge collection in collaborating from New York with the Nazis during World War Two. Daniel Wildenstein tried in vain to sue Feliciano who had disclosed that his father's collection had largely been preserved during the occupation of France while his Paris gallery continued its activities with the help of his director Roger Dequoy, a fact made possible  following a secret meeting held in 1940 in Aix-en-Provence with Karl Haberstok, a nazi art dealer and private advisor of Adolf Hitler.

Secondly, many leading experts who had kept a tight control over the art market passed away after the year 2000, notably Daniel Wildenstein, John Rewald, Jean-Alain Méric, the specialist of Toulouse-Lautrec, André Paciti, François Daulte or Michel Kellermann among others. While the Wildenstein Institute continued its activities under the supervision of Guy Wildenstein, the only surviving son of Daniel, the experts who had died were replaced by other specialists while new conditions were imposed on owners of works who were trying to have them authenticated.

All of a sudden and mainly because of the multiplication of authentication requests, they were asked fees, sometime amounting to over 1500 USD to submit a work, whether it was genuine or not. No need to say that such demand was rather dissuasive in the eyes of many of those concerned.

Thirdly, the world of experts became the theatre of unprecedented battles which sometime led to court actions. This was the case between the specialists of Amedeo Modigliani  Marc Resttellini and Christian Parisot, both being engaged in a ferocious quarrel, each claiming to be the real expert for that painter.

At first Restellini worked with Parisot before challenging his authority when he claimed that the latter had mainly based his researches on the archives of Joseph Lenthemann which contained several fakes

In 1997, Restellini benefited from the support of Daniel Wildenstein who hired him in order to publish new Catalogues Raisonnés of Modigliani's drawings and paintings but the young art historian soon faced problems with some despondent collectors whose works he had refused to authenticate, notably "Jeune Femme Brune" which was to be offered for sale at Phillips. The same year, he refused to include in his catalogue " Beatrice Hastings seated" included in a sale at Christie's because the painting had been compromised by extensive over-painting which in his eyes was equivalent to a fake (the work was anyway auctioned for 2,6 million USD)

In 2000, apparently fed up with the difficulties he met, Restellini gave up his job at the Wildenstein Institute and became artistic director of the Musée du Luxembourg though he had not taken the French official examination for museum curators. Two years later his reputation was somewhat damaged when he curated "Modigliani: the Melancholy Angel", a retrospective exhibition for which he was much criticised because 30 works (out of 120 ) were being shown without detailed provenance or any argument for their authenticity as they were not listed in the Ceroni Catalogue Raisonné. After that, in 2007 Restellini decided to close his Modigliani chapter preferring instead to set up the new Pinacothèque of Paris.

As a result of his longstanding battle against Restellini, Christian Parisot fell into disgrace in 2008 when he received a two-year prison sentence for having exhibited 77 drawings falsely attributed to Jeanne Hébuterne, the last partner of Modigliani who had committed suicide two days after his death in 1920. Following his trial, Parisot was again charged in Paris under the suspicion of having forged a Modigliani drawing which he had authenticated and sold for about 100 000 USD.

Regarding Modigliani there was a plethora of experts and monographs with no less than five different Catalogues Raisonnés on the artist. In the view of leading dealers and auction houses the most respected catalogue has been that of Ambrogio Ceroni, whose 1958, 1970 and 1972 tomes contain the only reliable works by the artist, while Arthur Pfannstiel (1929 and 1956) and Joseph Lanthemann's (1970) books have now been discarded. The Milanese scholar Osvaldo Patani  produced three volumes: paintings (1991), drawings (1992) and one on the Paul Alexandre period (1994), while Christian Parisot published Vols I, II and IV (in 1970, 1971 and 1996) of his Catalogue Raisonné. 

Restellini once said the historical and documentary void was an open invitation to forgers, particularly as the drawings of Modigliani were quite easy to copy. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s the notorious faker Elmyr de Hory infested the U.S with scores of forgeries. In this respect, Restellini rejected many works, well over 100, from pastiches to excellent fakes.

Nevertheless, in rejecting works previously accepted by Ceroni, Restellini found himself at odds with a number of people who were unhappy with his decisions endorsed by the Wildenstein Institute which was considered as having too much power. As a result, Osvaldo Patani decided not to continue the fourth volume of Modigliani's works after the Wildenstein Institute had put pressure on him when he announced he was about to disagree with some of Restellini's attributions.

Fourthly, as they were mainly based in France, experts went on to act prudently when they had to deliver certificates, especially because their opinion was being guaranteed during 30 years meaning they were liable to face court actions in case of a controversy. This happened several times during the past 15 years when those specialists who were the object of disputes were jointly sentenced with owners to repay the price of a controversial painting they had authenticated.

Another problem much annoying for experts and auction houses has been the fast-growing number of fakes which appeared on the market after 1985. No need to say that ingenuous forgers took advantage of its spectacular development to induce a climate of paranoia among specialists. As a result, authentication certificates have been harder to obtain while the proof of a strong provenance has become a must for all specialists.

In this context, new discoveries have been wrongly let down though many works produced by artists neglected at the start of their careers are likely to come to light, notwithstanding the fact that a provenance could easily be invented as this occurred, notably regarding the Beltracci scandal in Germany.

Wolfgang Beltracci's career as a forger spanned during almost 25 years during which he produced scores of false modern paintings, notably by Heinrich Campendonck, Max Ernst, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Fernand Léger and other German Expressionist artists sold at auction and to important art galleries by his wife and his sister-in-law with an invented provenance that enabled the cunning forger to amass over 30 million USD which he spent lavishly before his arrest. Sentenced to a six-year prison term, Beltracci thus ridiculed many experts and important gallery owners, notably Werner Spiess, the specialist of Max Ernst who once boasted it was almost impossible to trick him.

Fakes have become a minefield for the art market to such an extent that experts have had a tendency to reject works simply in raising doubts about their provenance even if they look genuine. The snag is that they have so far held new technologies in contempt in order to examine them and preferred to rely instead on their flair and knowledge. But as we all know, human judgements are not always 100% sure not to say that some experts are unbearably conceited.

It thus seems extraordinary that most experts are reluctant to get tuned to modern times to call upon laboratory techniques when they feel at a loss regarding a piece of art for which their opinion is needed. If that happens, they will prefer to discard it to avoid any possible problem in the future. However such stand will inevitably have some wicked effects on the market with a growing legion of collectors dismayed by their decisions.

The position of an expert is nevertheless by no way easy since he has full authority regarding the works of the artist he has to authenticate. It will thus not be surprising to learn that many specialists in the West have received death threats whereas a handful of their counterparts in Russia have already been put to death after being confronted to Mafia circles.

It is already quite hard to list works for the Catalogue Raisonné of an artist without the fear of making a mistake especially when it comes to examine a newly discovered piece deprived of any solid provenance.

In addition, experts are not made out of the same mould. Usually they should be independent-minded and surely not biased regarding the works they have to examine. Alas, several specialists were- and have been- used  to basing at first their opinion on the personality of the owner of a painting or sculpture wishing for an authentication. No need to say that their decision would often be negative if their visitor looked dubious. If on the contrary, they had to deal with important collectors, they would be inevitably induced to judge a work in a different way.

Some experts thinking highly of themselves have also found it hard to deliver authentication certificates for works that could then reach high prices especially as they would get ridiculous fees in exchange of their opinion. Making someone a millionaire thanks to his certificate can sometime make a specialist jealous. In that instance, many stories have been running about art works which had been rejected as false forcing their disappointed owners to get rid of them for nothing before they reappeared as genuine on the market after experts had changed their mind.

There have also been experts who refused to authenticate works for various reasons like the specialist of Derain, who was notably approached in 2000 by an amateur to authenticate an atypical fauve painting representing a barge on the river Seine off the Eiffel tower, which he eventually threatened to seize on the ground that it had been stolen. The auctioneer who submitted the Derain painting on behalf of its owner told the latter that according to the expert the theft had occurred around 1939-1940, a fact sufficient for him to refuse his endorsement though the legal 30-year limitation for a theft had passed, meaning the painting could not be seized unless it had been stolen by the Nazis but the specialist, who indicated that this work was listed in his archives, refused to bulge in adding that as long as he lived he would never deliver an authentication certificate for it.

Three years after the expert's death, the owner of that painting, which was finally not listed as a Nazi spoliation by the Art Loss Register, decided to submit it to the newly created Derain Committee but was surprisingly informed that it was fake, a strange opinion since a forger would have painted a scene of London, Chatou or Collioure instead of choosing to represent Paris. In that matter, either the expert had left a note ordering the rejection of that painting in case it would be again submitted for authentication or the auctioneer made up this odd story for some obscure reason.

Numerous strange decisions have also been delivered by experts all over these years. In 1998, the successor of John Rewald, was asked by an important art dealer to give his opinion regarding a preparatory drawing of "La Grande Jatte" by Seurat stuck to a cardboard with the 1909 and 1921 labels of the retrospectives held by Bernheim Jeune in Paris glued on its back. Both labels were apparently good signs about the provenance of such drawing but while considering the labels as genuine, Rewald's successor stipulated that the drawing, of which he was only shown a photo, was a fake though it seemed ludicrous to have these labels taken off from the back of the original work to stick them on a forgery.

Recently, a small antique dealer appeared on TV in France to recall how in the mid 1990s he bought at auction in Paris for almost nothing a painting representing hay stacks which he was sure was by Claude Monet but after entrusting a friend to have the canvas examined by Daniel Wildenstein he learned that the expert had authenticated this work as by Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, the artist's daughter-in-law.

Rather disappointed by the expert's decision, the owner of that painting sold it for about 6000 USD to a German collector who, after the death of Daniel Wildenstein, went on to contact his son Guy for another examination which then proved successful. On learning that his Blanche Hoschedé-Monet had become a genuine Claude Monet, the previous owner got in touch with his buyer who finally  consented to offer him 1 million dollars as a compensation but he eventually felt he had been taken in since the painting was worth over 20 millions.

The reputation of the Wildenstein family had already been tarnished by Hector Feliciano's innuendoes about Georges Wildenstein's behaviour during World War Two. It suffered more damages after Sylvia Roth, the second wife and widow of Daniel, sued her sons-in-laws Guy and Alec, when she accused them of having dissimulated of a large portion of her husband's fortune estimated at some 10 billion USD.

After Daniel's death, Guy and Alec announced to their mother-in-law that their father's fortune only amounted to 50 million USD and that it was much in her interest to renounce the percentage granted in his will since he was heavily indebted.

After accepting a yearly allowance of 500,000 USD and the possession during her life of a luxurious apartment in Paris, Sylvia Roth changed her mind and decided to lodge a complaint against her sons-in-law claiming that her husband's fortune composed of several properties and some 10,000 paintings had escaped the scrutiny of the French fiscal authorities in being placed in trusts established in safe tax heavens.

Following a series of trials, Guy Wildenstein went on to face some nasty problems resulting from Sylvia Roth's judicial actions, notably when French police conducted a search in the premises of the Wildenstein Institute where they found 30 works of art allegedly missing from the successions of the Rouart and Reinach families for which Daniel and Guy had acted as executors.

Works originating from the Rouart collection had already been discovered some years earlier in the safe of François Daulte in Switzerland where they had been sent by the Wildensteins without the knowledge or consent of the heirs of the deceased Mrs Rouart. Together with some art pieces from the Reinach collection considered as lost during the war other works from her collection were discovered during the search conducted at the Wildenstein Institute which led Guy Wildenstein to be questioned by police.

In addition, despite Sylvia Roth's death at the end of 2010, the legal actions she triggered off continued up to the point that Guy (Alec had died in the meantime) and the other heirs of Daniel Wildenstein, were the object of a tax rectification by the French fiscal authorities amounting to some 600 billion USD.

Inevitably the series of scandal affecting the Wildenstein family has had some adverse impact on the Wildenstein Institute  which consequently slackened its activities regarding the authentication of art works.

In fact, owners of art piece in need of authentication have met all sorts of problems when experts, especially when they have come across experts who have gone as far as taking the place of police regarding fakes. It has thus become a kind of habit for them to seize forgeries and lodge complaints against their owners who usually acted in good faith.

Experts, rightful claimants or artists still alive are by law allowed to seize forgeries though a fraud must be proved in court. In addition, the moral rights of the heirs of an artist do not necessarily invest them with the power to decide of the authenticity of an art piece. In this respect, French courts have experienced difficulties regarding their verdicts on fakes. For instance, a painting authenticated by Claude Renoir, the heir of the artist, which was sold at auction in June 1973 in Versailles was eventually rejected as the latter was not considered as an expert. In June 1979, a painting by Emile Othon Friesz authenticated by his daughter came also to be considered as not authentic. As in the case of the Renoir painting, the buyer was granted damages by the court. A similar problem occurred with the cancellation of the sale of a fake Modigliani painting, which his daughter first considered as genuine. Therefore the moral rights of the heir an artist is not a sufficient to guarantee the authentication of an art piece meaning that its owner must request the intervention of a well-established expert to do so.

According to French law, the heirs of an artist are responsible for the authenticity certificates they have delivered. This happened with the son of the painter Latapie who issued certificates for fakes which enabled their owner to obtain a loan from a bank which then tried to be reimbursed in putting them at auction but the sale was cancelled when the authenticity of the works were questioned. As a result, the heir of the artist was sentenced for his lack of cautiousness. All the more heirs can be sued for refusing to give a certificate even if they consider that the work they have examined is dubious. They can also be held responsible for having refused to issue a certificate for a genuine work as in the case of the widow and sister of the artist Jean-Michel Atlan who were sentenced to pay damages amounting to over 60000 USD to the owner of a painting they considered as a forgery. Still, according to another judgement, it was admitted that the widow of Atlan could not be forced to deliver a certificate of authenticity for a work that had been recognised as genuine by other experts. One can therefore imagine the kind of Chinese puzzle such decisions create especially as experts appointed by the courts can sometime be wrong.

Many experts and heirs of artists have however disregarded court decisions when it comes to seize works considered as forgeries as they often believe they have discretionary powers in that matters. Furthermore they have felt inclined to becomingstrict due to the growing number of fakes on the market.

Recently a Parisian gallery owner was summoned by the Alberto Giacometti committee after submitting a pair of bronze candelabras purportedly made by the artist. Accompanied by his son and a friend, he went to the headquarters of the Committee and was then shown a genuine piece placed alongside the pair for due comparison before being told that his candelabras, considered as forgeries, would be seized and police contacted for an investigation.

Suddenly becoming furious, the dealer grabbed the three pieces and caused a brawl when he tried to reach the exit. During this  unbelievable pandemonium members of the committee however managed to call police and the three men were arrested.

In recent years, disputes involving owners of art pieces, experts or committees have thus been dramatically increasing as a result of the fast development of the market.

The problem is that experts and members of authentication committees are not all of the same calibre notwithstanding the fact that is not always an easy task for them to deliver irrefutable opinions. All the more, history has shown that some experts have been sometime dishonest. This was notably the case of Cyprus-born Paul Petrides, a former tailor who became the exclusive agent of Maurice Utrillo, the son of Suzanne Valadon whom he had met by accident while delivering a suit to André Utter, her companion.

Petrides then became a much respected dealer after making a fortune with Utrillo, an inveterate drunkard who specialised in painting hundreds of Montmartre scenes. During the occupation of France between 1940 and 1944, the dealer's gallery remained much active and met much prosperity until the early 1970s.

Petrides' downfall occurred when he was accused of receiving several paintings stolen in April 1972 from the apartment of Mr Lespinasse, the wealthy owner of the Banania chocolate company.

After breaking in that apartment thieves spent over 90 minutes to choose 31 paintings worth at that time over 4 million USD, notably works by Utrillo, Modigliani, Léger, Vlaminck, Van Dongen, Raoul Dufy, François Boucher, Sisley, Rouault and Renoir, which they took off their frames before they disappeared. However, the works stolen proved difficult to sell as they were much known on the market.

In 1973 police arrested Petrides for receiving ten of these works after seizing them in his plush gallery situated near the Elysée Palace. While eleven paintings had already found their way to Switzerland or Japan, the dealer swore he had no idea that the paintings in his possession had been stolen and lodged a complaint against Marc Francelet, a photographer who had sold these works. Appearing before a Paris court, the dealer, then aged 77, failed to convince the judges of his innocence and was sentenced on April 24, 1979 to a three-year prison sentence.

Petrides was not the only expert to be caught red-handed while other specialists officiating in auction sales received the attentions of justice for having given wrong attributions for works which were eventually authenticated as genuine. There were also some French auctioneers who were prosecuted for having bought works at low prices in their own sales whereas they were barred to do so according to the law.

Whatever their degree of competence, experts are in fact not totally efficient, meaning they are prone to making mistakes while they can sometime show some resilience to do their job properly.

In 2009 a 1915 painting by German artist Lyonel Feininger titled "The Port of Swinemünd", which came from the succession a group of Roger Spiri-Mercanton, a French film-maker, was donated to the Pompidou Museum in Paris. To ensure that it was authentic before accepting that donation the museum contacted Achim Moeller, the New York based specialist in charge of the Catalogue Raisonné of the artist, but did not bother to pay him any fee for his opinion because the painting was a gift and not intended to be sold.

Moeller refrained from giving his verdict and thus induced the museum to believe the painting was not genuine. Consequently it was returned to a grouping of charitable organisations which were the beneficiaries of the succession of Spiri-Mercanton who had no direct heir. Two years later the work was submitted to the Artcurial auction group in Paris which contacted Moller again and this time, in exchange of the fees he requested, the expert finally gave a positive opinion after conducting a thorough search about its provenance. As a result, the painting was sold at auction for over 7 million USD.

No need to say that the Pompidou Museum was more than furious against Moeller who was accused of perjury.

Another disturbing aspect regarding authentications has come to light a few years ago when experts who passed away have been replaced by specialists who have gone against their opinions, going as far as to rehash their Catalogues Raisonnés completely. This has occurred with the French artist André Lhote after the death of Jean Gouin, his heir who was acting as the main expert due to the fact that he was the beneficiary of the latter's moral rights. His children being reluctant to take his role over, Jean Gouin was then succeeded by Dominique Berman-Martin, a cousin of Lhote who then caused the anger of several collectors in rejecting many paintings authenticated by her predecessor after she claimed that he had made too many blunders.

Many owners of art works have therefore been not assured of the authenticity of their pieces when confronted to experts who have revised the opinions delivered by their predecessors while others have been experiencing difficulties with some influential people exerting their powers on the market.

Recently a collector who bought a rediscovered bronze sculpture believed to have been made by Constantin Brancusi, the famous 20^th Century Romanian artist, met problems with the art company capping the experts of the artist. When asked to lend his piece for examination he however declined to sign a contract as it contained a clause stipulating that this company would not be held responsible if the sculpture happened to be lost or stolen. As a result of his refusal, this collector found himself at a loss about how to have his sculpture examined and eventually authenticated.

Some experts are also well-established dealers whose authority gives them formidable powers meaning that the monoply they enjoy over the production of an artist can sometime lead them to deliver biased opinions likely to anger collectors.

Finally, experts –and also auction houses- have had a growing tendency to rely more and more on the provenance of a piece they are requested to examine rather than on its true quality. However, it is hard to understand why they still hold modern technologies in contempt when it comes to decide whether or not a work is genuine.

A few years ago, a Paris-based American collector showed his interest in a much elaborate work on vellum  representing Maria-Bianca Sforza, which was to be auctioned by Christie's as an anonymous German 19^th Century portrait but he was outbid at 18000 USD by an American dealer who eventually failed to obtain a firm opinion about it. Years later, the collector luckily managed to buy the work back from the New York dealer and went on to call upon a Paris laboratory in order to carry on an extensive examination via X rays and other  elaborate analyses which eventually proved that the work had been executed by Leonardo da Vinci himself especially as his fingerprints had been discovered on it. Now this stupendous rediscovery has been estimated at over 100 million USD.

Such incredible finding proved that experts and auction houses were from time to time exposed to making serious mistakes as that was the case of Charles Avery, the famous Renaissance expert working for Christie's, who in the early 1990s estimated for a mere 5000 USD a marble sculpture found in the garden of a Scottish property. In fact the sculpture fetched over 5 million USD as it happened to be a work by Giambologna, a reknown sculptor working in Italy during the second part of the 16^th Century.

Two years ago, an important Paris-dealer who at an antique fair had bought for some 200 000 USD a terracotta sculpture representing Saint Sebastian also managed to have it authenticated as a true Da Vinci work after submitting it to the same laboratory which had examined the above mentioned work on vellum. This time, dozens of the artist's fingerprints were found on that sculpture after comparisons were made with those found in the Vatican's archives.

Resorting to analyses made by well equipped laboratories would be the best solution for experts when they have difficulties to forge a firm opinion regarding a work of art with unknown provenance or which might look at first dubious. However, specialists have rather been rather reluctant to rely on new technologies so far. One must say that such attitude seems to be way behind modern times as if they would prefer to travel in a carriage drawn by horses instead of boarding a high speed railway train like any human being of the 21st Century.

Adrian Darmon