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Time Out
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
‘Fountain of Youth' locations: behind the scenes on Guy Ritchie's globe-trotting heist adventure
Guy Ritchie's new adventure movie, Fountain of Youth, is a globe-trotting caper in the spirit of National Treasure and that all-time classic, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There's clues, a treasure map, stolen portraits, subsea wrecks and a powerful McGuffin that people will die to keep safe – and that John Krasinski's artefact hunter will risk it all to pinch. A Quiet Place 's Krasinski plays Luke Purdue, an adventurer who teams up with his reluctant sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) on a quest to find the mythical Fountain of Youth. Domhnall Gleeson's terminally ill tycoon provides financial backing, hopeful that water from the mythical spring will cure him. Queuing up to stop them are ruthless agent Esme (Mexican star Eiza González), a detective played by Succession 's Arian Moayed, and more than is a few twists and turns. Fountain of Youth Filmed filming locations The Apple TV+ movie has Apple money behind it, which means big action set pieces and iconic international backdrops for them to play out against. We asked Guy Ritchie's long-time production designer Martyn John (The Gentleman) to talk us through the film's globe-spanning filming spots. The scooter chase – Bangkok, Thailand Fountain of Youth opens with Purdue in possession of an item that his adversaries want very badly. Cue a madcap chase through Thailand's bustling capital city as the treasure hunter tries to outrun his foes on a flaming scooter. 'Bangkok was amazing,' says John of the location. 'We shot in Chinatown and used this derelict building in another part of the city for the chase sequence with the bike. We dressed it as if people lived there – with a laundrette and a food market.' The train journey – Hua Lamphong Train Station, Bangkok The sequence ends on a train at Bangkok's main train station, where Purdue encounters the mysterious Esme for the first time. Via the magic of editing, the scene transitions from a real train to an on-set recreation. 'Because John [Krasinski] is very tall, we had to expand a train carriage on set to make it easier for us to film,' explains the production designer. 'Sections of it came off for the fight sequence.' The National Gallery painting theft – Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool For a film full of sleight of hand, it's fitting that Guy Ritchie manages to pull off one of his own: the scenes set in London aren't London at all but Liverpool. When Luke Purdue reunites with his sister and steals a painting from The National Gallery, it's actually Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. 'Filming around Trafalgar Square is a nightmare because it's so busy,' explains John. 'We looked at other galleries around London, but the Walker Art Gallery was [perfect]: it's Georgian, it's stone, it's very similar architecturally to The National Gallery.' The London getaway chase – Dale Street, Liverpool The heist spills into another breakneck chase across London. This was filmed on Liverpool's Dale Street. 'Doing a car chase in London is nigh-on impossible,' says John. '[But] Dale Street could be anywhere in London.' The piano recital – Harrow School, London In a scene filmed at Harrow School, Purdue stops in at his nephew's piano recital. 'We wanted to go to the Royal Albert Hall, but the dates didn't work.' says John. 'The boys' school in Harrow has this amazing, semi-circular auditorium.' The Lusitania sequence – Leavesden Studios, Hertfordshire Purdue and his sister's treasure hunt leads them below the waves – or very close to them – when they board the sunken passenger liner RMS Lusitania. Rather than the southern coast of Ireland, the vessel's resting place, a section of the ship was reconstructed at Leavesden and in Pinewood's underwater tanks using hydraulics systems. 'The design is an amalgamation of the Titanic and the Lusitania,' says John, 'because we [needed a specific layout] for the stunts.' The Old Queen's Head, Islington A later encounter between Purdue and his nemesis Esme takes place in a chic London bar. Eagle-eyed Bridget Jones fans might recognise it: Islington's The Old Queen's Head also featured in Mad About the Boy earlier this year. 'You need so much space [to film] and The Old Queen's has lots of it,' says John. 'Guy [Ritchie] likes big sets with lots of depth and visual interest, so we always find those spaces for him.' The Viennese library – Austrian National Library, Vienna The trail of clues leads Purdue and co to Vienna's grand library in pursuit of an artefact called the Wicked Bible – a (real) antiquarian version of the bible with one or two scurrilous misprints. The production team looked at libraries in Paris, as well as Dublin's Trinity College library, before settling on the Austrian capital. 'We convinced them to let us film in there,' says John, 'but then I had to match it in a studio so we could do a fight sequence with our books in case they damaged them.' The Viennese hotel – Hotel Imperial, Vienna Look out for exterior shots of this five-star Viennese hotel, although the scene in its suite was filmed in the UK. 'We found an old Elizabethan house near the studio in Leavesden,' remembers John, 'and I went to town decorating it to make the suite.' The team's safe house – Hoxton Docks, east London The London safe house where Purdue and his team hole up was filmed at Hoxton Dock. 'It's a big warehouse in the East End,' says John, 'and that was a brilliant dress. We had all this technology and antiquity melded together in this one [space]'. The pyramids – Giza, Egypt Without giving anything away, the movie's climax takes its characters to the ancient pyramids at Giza. 'To be able to film with the pyramids as a backdrop was incredible, and they let us get as close as we possibly could,' remembers John. Of course, filming inside a pyramid isn't an option so he had creative license to tzujz up the ancient Egyptians' design work. Look out for a pop star Easter egg. 'I was once in a birthday cake with Grace Jones at Naomi Campbell's 40th birthday party – she was popping out of it to sing and I was working the mechanism – and I made one of the statues in the pyramid look like a Nefertiti version of Grace Jones. The actors loved that.'And the chess? 'Guy loves to play chess – they spent ages playing on set.' When can I watch Fountain of Youth? The Guy Ritchie adventure movie will be landing on Apple TV+ on May 23. Is there a trailer? There is – you can watch it below. The 101 best action movies of all time to get your blood pumping. .
Time Out
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning': a travel guide to the globe-spanning blockbuster
Ethan Hunt is back to save the world again – and this time it really needs saving. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth and biggest Mission movie yet, sees Tom Cruise's agent pushing at the boundaries of gravity and physics once again in an attempt to foil the megalomaniac plans of evil AI The Entity and its human handmaiden Gabriel (Esai Morales). Luckily, Ethan has back-up in the equally mad/daring form of Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), Grace (Hayley Atwell), Paris (Pom Klementieff) and new guy Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis). The action, as our review will testify, is on another scale and the stakes are even higher. Fans of the franchise will not be shortchanged. Behind the scenes, the film's production story was not a lot less bananas, with the film's shoot overlapping with that of previous instalment Dead Reckoning, Hollywood strikes and about a bajillion moving parts for director Christopher McQuarrie and his stuntman star Cruise to corral into place. Here's how – and where – they did it, and how to visit the movie's incredible locations. Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning filming locations Trafalgar Square, London If there's one thing the Mission: Impossible franchise loves even more than self-destructing messages and fast-burning fuses, it's the city of London. From Brian De Palma's opening entry back in 1996, which had a key scene inside Liverpool Street Station, to Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which featured a nutso foot chase across the city's rooftops, Ethan Hunt has been parking his tanks on 007's lawn for years. Liberties, however, have been taken. Hunt's sprint across Westminster Bridge under the shadow of Big Ben is strictly by the A-to-Z, but Final Reckoning also cheekily invents an entirely new Tube station. The film opens with Hunt and his team emerging from 'Trafalgar Square Station' and into the eye of a storm. Good luck with that IRL. Nearby Charing Cross Station's agent will be having words. Travel tip: London needs little introduction but visitors looking to push the boat out and get close to the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning action should check into the opulent Corinthia Hotel a short spring away from Trafalgar Square. It even has an espionage past of its own. A wander through Trafalgar Square will take you to The National Gallery and the historic St Martin-in-the-Field church. For extra Cruise heritage, it's here that the star hopped off that chopper in Edge of Tomorrow. Middleton Mine, Derbyshire Derbyshire hasn't had too much airtime on the big screen but this Mission: Impossible two-parter has been busy putting that right. Dead Reckoning 's climactic train crash was filmed in Darlton Quarry in the Peak District and Final Reckoning returned to the area in March 2024 to film a series of key tunnel sequences 15 miles away in Middleton Mine. Travel tip: To visit Middleton Mine you probably need to be making a blockbuster of your own – the 26 miles of limestone tunnels are not open to the public – but the mines are situated in an area of outstanding beauty that's still well worth a visit. The nearby town of Matlock, a Peak District oasis full of independent shops and restaurants, is a perfect base for walking the local limestone valleys. Longcross Studios, Surrey It's not open to the public but England's busy Longcross Studios plays a crucial role in the movie's production. The underwater scenes involving Hunt boarding sunken Russian sub The Sevastopol were all filmed in the studio's water tanks, with director Christopher McQuarrie donning scuba gear and diving in to join his star underwater. Svalbard, Norway The new Mission: Impossible also heads to the roof of the Earth for a key sequence involving a CIA listening station and that missing submarine. The scenes were filmed on the startlingly beautiful Norwegian island of Svalbard, a previously unfilmed location that brings a frostbitten isolation to the movie's middle stretch. Temperature reached -40 and hairdryers were employed on set to keep hands from freezing. 'It's a very difficult landscape to shoot in,' remembers Hayley Atwell. 'That kind of adds to the suspense and the drama of it. The sense of risk and stakes just to be able to be there filming – I think it translates beautifully on camera.' Travel tip: Far more hospitable in real life, Svalbard boasts the world's most northerly food festival and an annual jazz fest. There are flights to the island from Oslo (three hours) and Tromsø (90 minutes), and it'll take about seven hours from London. There are six hotels to pick from in the island's main town of Longyearbyen. Head to the official Visit Svalbard website for the full low-down Blyde River Canyon, South Africa The spectacular 26km-long river canyon, the third largest green canyon in the world, is the backdrop for Final Reckoning 's extraordinary aerial sequence in which Hunt and Gabriel grapple for control of a biplane – the only mode of transport that can't be hacked by the busybody AI. 'That sequence is almost like Top Gun meets Mission: Impossible – the best of both worlds,' notes stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood stunt coordinator who first suggested the location. Travel tip: The area is home turf for Eastwood – the movie's legendary stunt coordinator hails from Durban – and he recommends Kapama River Lodge as a luxe base to strike out for the area. The lodge even has its own private aircraft and airstrip for high-altitude sightseeing, although wing-walking is not encouraged. The Wild Coast, South Africa The plane sequence actually uses a patchwork quilt of South African landscapes. Alongside Blyde River Canyon, where the scene opens, the Drakensberg mountains in KwaZulu-Natal Province form the backdrop for the middle stretch, before the two adversaries soar out over the Indian Ocean above the Wild Coast. Including prep time and hundreds of hours of rehearsals at England's Duxford Airfield, the sequence took four and half months to film. Travel tip: A 155-mile stretch of dunes, rocky cliffs and plunging waterfalls, the Wild Coast is a lesser-known gem on South Africa's tourist map. Book into Mbotyi Lodge, an affordable, beachside family hotel right that's a great base for visiting Waterfall Bluff, a stunning set of falls which appear in the movie. A more opulent alternative base is Umngazi hotel and spa. When is Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in cinemas? You can catch it in worldwide cinemas – and in IMAX – now. Watch the trailer below.
Epoch Times
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Mystery Surrounds This Rare Altarpiece
Art experts remain baffled by a 16th-century altarpiece titled 'The Virgin and Child With Saints Louis and Margaret.' The National Gallery, London recently acquired the devotional work for 16.4 million pounds (around $21.7 million). The American Friends of the National Gallery, London helped fund the acquisition. Members of the public will be able to view the altarpiece for the first time in over 60 years, when the gallery displays it starting May 10. They'll also learn some of the surprising elements in the work that explain why its artist remains a mystery. 'The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret,' circa 1510, by an unknown Netherlandish or French painter. Oil on oak wood; 48 1/8 inches by 41 5/8 inches. Bought with the support of the American Friends of the National Gallery, London, 2025. National Gallery, London. Copyright The National Gallery, London The Altarpiece The artist rendered an open-air chapel, with the king of France St. Louis, St. Margaret, and two angel musicians flanking the enthroned Virgin and Christ. The Virgin is full of grace. She's dressed in red, symbolic of her humility and earthly presence. She gently holds a flower between her thumb and forefinger. Christ sits on her lap, toying with a goldfinch, a common pet in medieval times and an art motif symbolizing the goldfinch that plucked a thorn from Christ's crown of thorns at Calvary. St. Louis appears lifelike; it could almost be his portrait. He wears blue robes embroidered with gold fleur-de-lis emblems and the collar of the Order of St. Michael, a French dynastic order of chivalry. The pious St. Margaret ascends from the stomach of the dragon, which swallowed her. Both her poise and opulent gown belies her terrifying ordeal. She holds a jewel-encrusted cross, perhaps symbolizing her faith and the sign of the cross she made that allowed her miraculous escape. Related Stories 4/2/2020 5/25/2023 The angel beside plays the mouth harp, the other holds a hymn book open at 'Ave regina caelorum, Mater regis angelorum' ('Hail, queen of heaven, Mother of the king of angels.') The painter rendered artistic rather than accurate musical notations for the score. Delightful and Peculiar Details The artist deftly rendered exquisite details: the double knots in St. Louis's chain, the gems on St. Margaret's cross, and the sunlight sweeping across her cheek. He also included unusual elements. The figures on St. Louis's spectre may symbolize the Last Judgment, an odd theme for metalwork at the time. St. Margaret's sequined hairnet, her daisy crown, and the bird are all unusual. The bird could refer to the bird that descended from heaven to crown Margaret in 'The Golden Legend,' a collection of 153 hagiographies (biographies of saints) written by Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa Jacobus de Voragine between 1250 and 1280. Of course, the altarpiece abounds with biblical references. Carved into the capitals of the open-air chapel are episodes from the Old Testament: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, The Grapes of Canaan, and The Drunkenness of Noah. Of particular interest are the stark wooden steps and nailheads that lead to the enthroned Virgin and Child; they may symbolize Christ's crucifixion. According to the gallery, 'No other example of such imagery is known to survive.' Understanding the Altarpiece The altarpiece was first documented in 1602, in Drongen Abbey in Ghent, modern-day Belgium. It's uncertain whether the altarpiece was commissioned for the abbey, but there are several striking connections: The monastery's coat-of-arms include the fleur-de-lis and a swan (which is painted on the right pilaster). In addition, in 1608, the monks consecrated the abbey's altar dedicated to the Virgin and St. Margaret. Experts believe a French or Netherlandish artist painted the work around 1510. They favor the Netherlandish artist attribution because the oak wood for the panel was sourced from the Baltic area; French artists preferred painting on local wood panels. According to the gallery, 'The panel's overall eccentricity and the dramatically foreshortened faces of the saints and angels are reminiscent of the early work of Jan Gossaert (active 1508; died 1532). … The composition and versatile execution—alternating smoothly painted areas and minute details with more dynamic passages—also pay homage to the Netherlandish tradition of Jan van Eyck (active 1422; died 1441) and Hugo van der Goes (active 1467; died 1482). The overall sense of plasticity, monumentality, and the strong shadows recall the work of French painters like Jean Hey (Master of Moulins) (active 1482; died after 1504.)' Whoever painted the altarpiece remains a mystery for now. For the art lovers and the faithful, it is, in all certainty, a glorious work of devotion. 'The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret' will be displayed at the National Gallery, London starting May 10. To find out more, visit What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
BBC News
25-04-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
How Turner's masterpieces inspired Tomasz Schafernaker
The legacy of British artist JMW Turner is without question and has been widely celebrated this week which marks the 250th anniversary of his birth. He has inspired generations of other artists over the centuries, including BBC Weather presenter Tomasz Schafernaker. Turner's oil paintings, watercolours and drawings were often very atmospheric, capturing moments of dramatic weather events. Storms, rain and fog feature in many works, along with ephemeral sunlight, striking sunrises and sunsets. Watch as Tomasz Schafernaker explains the enduring influence Turner's catalogue of work has had on his own credits:Self-Portrait c1799, Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775 – 1851, Getty ImagesThe Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 (1839), Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775 – 1851 © The National Gallery, LondonDutch Boats in a Gale, 1801, Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775 – 1851, Alamy
BBC News
12-03-2025
- BBC News
Rembrandt to Picasso: Five ways to spot a fake masterpiece
The recent discovery of an art forger's workshop reminds us of the long history of fraudulent artworks – here are the simple rules to work them out. It's everywhere: fake news, deep fakes, identity fraud. So ensnared are we in a culture of digitised deceptions, a phenomenon increasingly augmented by artificial intelligence, it would be easy to think that deceit itself is a high-tech invention of the cyber age. Recent revelations however – from the discovery of an elaborate, if decidedly low-tech, art forger's workshop in Rome to the sensational allegation that a cherished Baroque masterpiece in London's National Gallery is a crude simulacrum of a lost original – remind us that duplicity in the world of art has a long and storied history, one written not in binary ones and zeroes, but in impossible pigments, clumsy brushstrokes and suspicious signatures. When it comes to falsification and phoniness, there is indeed no new thing under the Sun. On 19 February, Italy's Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage uncovered a covert forgery operation in a northern district of Rome. Authorities confiscated more than 70 fraudulent artworks falsely attributed to notable artists from Pissarro to Picasso, Rembrandt to Dora Maar, along with materials used to mimic vintage canvases, artist signatures, and the stamps of galleries no longer in operation. The suspect, who has yet to be apprehended, is thought to have used online platforms such as Catawiki and eBay to hawk their phoney wares, deceiving potential buyers with convincing certificates of authenticity that they likewise contrived. News of the clandestine lab's discovery was quickly followed by publicity for a new book, due for release this week, alleging that one of The National Gallery's highlights is not at all what it seems. According to artist and historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis, author of NG6461: The Fake National Gallery Rubens, the painting Samson and Delilah – a large oil-on-wood attributed to the 17th Century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens and purchased by the London museum in 1980 for £2.5m (then the second-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction) – is three centuries younger than the date of 1609-10 that sits beside it on the gallery wall and is incalculably less accomplished than the museum believes. Doxiadis's conclusion corroborates one reached in 2021 by the Swiss company, Art Recognition, which determined, through the use of AI, that there was a 91% probability that Samson and Delilah is the work of someone other than Rubens. Her assertion that the brushwork we see in the painting is crass and wholly inconsistent with the fluid flow of the Flemish master's hand is strongly contested by The National Gallery, which stands by its attribution. "Samson and Delilah has long been accepted by leading Rubens scholars as a masterpiece by Peter Paul Rubens", it said in a statement given to the BBC. "Painted on wood panel in oil shortly after his return to Antwerp in 1608 and demonstrating all that the artist had learned in Italy, it is a work of the highest aesthetic quality. A technical examination of the picture was presented in an article in The National Gallery's Technical Bulletin in 1983. The findings remain valid." The divergence of opinion between the museum's experts and those who doubt the work's authenticity opens a curious space in which to reflect on intriguing questions of artistic value and merit. Is there ever legitimacy in forgery? Can fakes be masterpieces? As more sophisticated tools of analysis are applied to paintings and drawings whose legitimacy has long been in question (including several works attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, such as the hotly disputed chalk and ink drawing La Bella Principessa), as well as those whose validity has never been in doubt, debates about the integrity of cultural icons are only likely to accelerate. What follows are a handful of handy principles to keep in mind when navigating the impending controversies – five simple rules for spotting a fake masterpiece. Rule 1: Pigments never lie To be a successful art forger requires more than technical proficiency and a misplaced ethical compass. It isn't enough to approximate the dibby-dabby dots of a Georges Seurat, say, or the thick expressive swirls of Vincent van Gogh. You need to know your history as well as your chemistry. Anachronistic pigments will give you away every time and were the downfall of German art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi and his wife Helene, who succeeded in selling makeshift modernist masterpieces for millions before a careless squeeze of prefab paint onto their audacious palettes in 2006 sealed their fate. Beltracchi, whose modus operandi was to create "new" works by everyone from Max Ernst to André Derain, rather than recreate lost ones, was always careful to mix his own paints to ensure they contained only ingredients available to whomever he was attempting to impersonate. He only slipped up once. And that was enough. Fabricating a wonky Der Blaue Reiter-ish red landscape of jigsawed horses that he attributed to the German Expressionist Heinrich Campendonk, Beltracchi reached for a readymade tube of paint, which he hadn't realised contained a pinch of titanium white – a relatively new pigment to which Campendonk would not have had access. It was all investigators would need to prove the work, which had sold for €2.8m, was a fake. Beltracchi was unlucky. The gap between titanium white's availability and its potential use by Campendonk was only a few years. On occasion, the divide is shockingly wide. Analysis of a Portrait of Saint Jerome, once attributed to the Italian master Parmigianino and sold by Sotheby's auction house in 2012 for $842,500, exposed the prevalence throughout the work of phthalocyanine green, a synthetic pigment invented in 1935, four centuries after the 16th-Century Renaissance artist worked. Artists may be visionaries, but they're not time travellers. Rule 2: Keep the past present It is uplifting to believe that one's value, as a person, is not tethered to the past. Not so with art. A painting, sculpture, or drawing without a heavy history is not, alas, more inspiring for its lack of baggage. It is suspicious. Or rather, it should be. All too often, greed can interfere in the clear-sightedness of assessing the authenticity of a painting or sculpture. Things have histories we want them to have. That was certainly the case with a succession of phoney Vermeers that issued from the workshop of a Dutch portraitist, Han van Meegeren – one of the most prolific and successful forgers of the 20th Century. Desperate to believe that the miraculous appearance of canvases, including a depiction of Christ and The Men at Emmaus, might be lost masterpieces from the same hand that made Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid, collectors were blind to the glaring absence of any trace of the paintings' provenance – their prior ownership, exhibition history, and proof of sales. Everyone was fooled. In authenticating the painting in the Burlington Magazine, one expert insisted "in no other picture by the great Master of Delft do we find such sentiment, such a profound understanding of the Bible story – a sentiment so nobly human expressed through the medium of the highest art". But it was all a lie. In a remarkable twist, Van Meegeren eventually chose to expose himself as a fraudster shortly after the end of World War Two, after being charged by Dutch authorities with the crime of selling a Vermeer – therefore a national treasure – to the Nazi official Hermann Göring. To prove his innocence, if innocence it might be called, and demonstrate that he had merely sold a worthless fake of his own forging, not a real Old Master, Van Meegeren performed the extraordinary feat of whisking up a fresh masterpiece from thin air before the experts' astonished eyes. Voilà, Vermeer. More recently, in a 2017 episode of BBC's popular arts programme Fake or Fortune?, presenter Philip Mould's long-held hunch that a painting he once sold for £35,000 was really a priceless original by the English Romantic artist John Constable – an alternative, and previously undocumented, view of the landscape artist's 1821 masterpiece The Hay Wain – was dramatically confirmed after Mould and fellow presenter Fiona Bruce excavated long-buried financial records. Having traced the painting's ownership back to a sale by the artist's son, the team recalculated the canvass true value to be £2m, proving that some pasts are worth hanging onto. Rule 3: Squint Artists' gestures – their simultaneously studied and instinctive brushwork and draughtsmanship – are nothing less than fingerprints writ large across canvases and works on paper. One artist's lightness of touch and another's sturdiness of stroke are exceedingly tricky to falsify, especially if you are conscious that every twitch of your brush and jot of your pen will be scrutinised by suspicious eyes and cutting-edge equipment. Pressure under pressure is hard to maintain, an obstacle that the British forger Eric Hebborn (who died under suspicious circumstances in Rome in 1996 after a career spent counterfeiting more than 1,000 works attributed to everyone from Mantegna to Tiepolo, Poussin to Piranesi) overcame with alcohol. By all accounts, brandy was Hebborn's tipple of choice for calming his rattling nerves. It allowed him to inhabit, without inhibition, the mind and muscle of whichever old master he was channelling. Whereas fakes from the hands of Beltracchi and Van Meegeren have since been found under closer inspection to be riddled with incoherent gestures, the fluidity of drawings falsified by the tipsy Hebborn in his heyday in the 1970s and 80s continues to confound the experts. To this day, institutions that possess works that passed through his hands refuse to accept they are all fakes, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's pen and ink drawing View of the Temples of Venus and of Diana in Baia from the South, a work it still insists is from the circle of Jan Brueghel the Elder. What do you think? Rule 4: Go deeper When the analysis of pigments, provenance, and paintbrush pressure still leaves you stumped, it may be necessary to dive a little deeper. For 20 years since the 1990s, the authenticity of a still life purportedly by Vincent van Gogh was serially confirmed and refuted by experts. To some, the garish reds and submarine blues that echoed eerily from the bouquet of roses, daisies, and wildflowers didn't have the ring of truth and seemed at odds with the painter's palette. The absence of any ownership record for the painting didn't help. But an X-ray undertaken in 2012 put questions to rest when it revealed that the artist, pinching pennies, reused a canvas on which he had created another image entirely – one to which he makes explicit reference in a letter from January 1886. "This week", Van Gogh remarked to his brother Theo, "I painted a large thing with two nude torsos – two wrestlers… and I really like doing that." As if proleptically anticipating the ensuing scholarly wrangle over the work's authenticity that the painting would in time trigger, the static tussle of the two athletes, trapped beneath paint for over a century, not only rescued the work from unfair allegations of illegitimacy, it created a kind of fresh composite painting, a vivid compression – a freeze frame of a restless mind forever scuffling with itself, desperate to survive. Rule 5: It's the little things that give you away As a final safeguard in authenticating a work of art, run the spell check. Doing so would have saved the collector Pierre Lagrange $17m – the price he paid in 2007 for an otherwise compelling forgery of a small 12x18in (30x46cm) painting falsely attributed to the American Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. Famous for his drippy style, Pollock has a surprisingly legible signature, an unmistakable "c" before the final "k". The skipped consonant would do more than expose a single forgery; it would shatter the reputation of an entire gallery. The sloppy signature was just one of many missed red flags in works falsely attributed to Rothko, De Kooning, Motherwell and others that the Knoedler & Co gallery, one of New York's oldest and most esteemed art institutions, succeeded in selling for $80m. The fraudulent works had been supplied by a dubious dealer who claimed they came from an enigmatic collector, "Mr X". Just before the scandal erupted in the press, the gallery closed its doors after 165 years, while the suspected perpetrator of the fakes, a self-taught Chinese septuagenarian by the name of Pei-Shen Qian, who had operated from a forger's workshop in Queens, vanished; he later turned up in China. -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
