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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

It's not that easy to sell counterfeit artwork. Anyone who's paying millions for an artwork will have the painting examined by a specialized consultant. The easiest way to spot a fake is to examine the pigments and whether a particular one was available by the time the artist lived. This is how the Rosales scandal was exposed in 2013.

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Where are you going to find a specialized consultant expert enough to judge if its fake who also doesn't know that the painting he is looking at was recently stolen from a museum?

These are oil paintings. I don't have much expertise in that but I think it'll be impossible to counterfeit the smallest details.

With High res imaging of much major art a la google art project now, it's going to be literally impossible for many of them.

Can't fake the inorganic chemist that the museum hires to date paint compositions.

Why do they need to not know that it was recently stolen from a museum?

Their ignorance is not required, they certainly should be aware it was stolen if they're any good at their job. All you need is someone who's willing to accept cash.

I don't think it's that hard to buy discretion if you're willing to pay a hefty fee. Besides how could anyone prove that you actually own the painting? I hire you, I fly you half the way around the world to a remote place where you're to examine the painting for a couple of weeks, you're paid and bye-bye.

I'm not saying that I know for a fact that this is how it's happening, but it doesn't seem far-fetched. What I do know is that a lot of what's happening in the art world is shrouded by a veil of secrecy.

Unusually tricky right now. Plus the number of people who can validate authenticity is quite limited and easily identifiable. A Van Gogh would be hard to forge but not that hard. There's recipes for paint/pigment manufacture going back centuries.

The consultant doesn't need to prove it. The prosecutor does, if it gets to that point – but first there would be a police investigation, and the police have a variety of investigative techniques at their disposal.

Are you implying that if they do recognize the original, they would report it as stolen?

It's an interesting question, and there are rewards for recovery so it's probably under the same trust calculus of any other criminal venture: pay enough that they don't.

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