Guide to Art Authentication and Discovery

What Art Authentication Is and Why It Matters

The recent attribution of Portrait of an Old Man to Gian Lorenzo Bernini by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna is a reminder that the authentication of art is not a settled science but an ongoing process of discovery, debate, and revision. Art authentication is the process by which scholars, conservators, and institutions determine whether a given work of art was created by a particular artist. It is one of the most consequential and controversial activities in the art world, with attributions affecting the financial value, cultural significance, and historical understanding of works of art. A successful attribution can transform a painting worth a few thousand dollars into a masterpiece worth millions, while a rejected attribution can consign a work to the storeroom, as Portrait of an Old Man was consigned in 1989.

The authentication process is particularly challenging for artists who did not sign their work, as was the case with Bernini, whose paintings are rare and have never been definitively catalogued. The Vienna portrait was variously attributed to Philippe de Champaigne, Jean Jouvenet, Jakob Ferdinand Voet, Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, and Baciccio before being identified as a Bernini. The history of attribution is full of similar cases, from the reattribution of works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Caravaggio to the discovery of previously unknown works by Leonardo da Vinci. As The Art Newspaper reports, the Bernini attribution is based on stylistic comparisons, scientific analysis, and the expertise of a curator who spent years studying the painting.

The Methods of Authentication

Art authentication relies on a combination of methods, including provenance research, connoisseurship, scientific analysis, and documentary evidence. Provenance research involves tracing the ownership history of a work of art back as far as possible, using archival records, sale catalogues, and other historical documents. The provenance of Portrait of an Old Man is incomplete: it entered the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1920 as a work by Philippe de Champaigne, bequeathed by the Viennese collector Richard Lieben, who had bought it in 1900, and before that it was with Baron Engelshofen. Nothing is known of its early provenance, which is not unusual for works that have been in collections for centuries.

Connoisseurship, the practice of attributing works based on the expert evaluation of style, technique, and artistic quality, remains a central method of authentication, despite its subjective nature. Gudrun Swoboda, the curator who attributed the Vienna portrait to Bernini, based her attribution on comparisons with accepted paintings, drawings, and sculptures, noting that the artist of the portrait paid special attention to creating a sense of space, with an observant eye for anatomy, especially the skull and facial muscles. She observed that the layers of paint in the face were applied in the manner of a sculptor building up and modelling a face in clay, using a multitude of short bristle-brush strokes of paint, and that the moustache showed the artist sculpting with the brush. These observations, which draw on decades of scholarly expertise, are the kind of qualitative judgments that underpin most attributions, even in an age of scientific analysis.

Scientific Analysis and Technical Examination

Scientific analysis has become an increasingly important tool in art authentication, providing objective data that can support or challenge attributions based on connoisseurship. Techniques such as X-radiography, infrared reflectography, pigment analysis, and dendrochronology can reveal information about the materials and techniques used in a painting, which can be compared with what is known about an artist's working methods. A recent scientific examination of Portrait of an Old Man confirmed that it was executed by two different hands, with the face likely done by Bernini and the lower part by another artist, possibly one of his sons. This finding is consistent with what is known about Bernini's workshop practices, in which assistants often completed the less critical portions of a work.

The use of scientific analysis in authentication has limitations, however. Scientific techniques can determine the age, materials, and technique of a work, but they cannot definitively attribute it to a particular artist. A painting may be executed with materials and techniques consistent with a given period and region, but that does not prove that it was painted by a specific artist. The interpretation of scientific data requires expertise and judgment, and different experts can reach different conclusions based on the same data. The Getty Conservation Institute has been a leader in developing scientific methods for the analysis of works of art, and its research has contributed to the authentication of numerous works, but even the Getty's experts acknowledge that science alone cannot resolve every attribution question.

The Role of Exhibitions and Scholarly Debate

Exhibitions play a crucial role in the authentication process, providing an opportunity for scholars to examine works side by side and to debate attributions in a public forum. Portrait of an Old Man will be the centrepiece of a Kunsthistorisches Museum exhibition at Vienna's Palais Lobkowitz, Bernini: Painter and Sculptor, running from 2 December to 4 April 2027. Outside loans will include the Galleria degli Uffizi's Bernini self-portrait painting and the Royal Collection's self-portrait drawing. The exhibition will bring together comparable works for the first time, allowing specialists to assess the Vienna portrait alongside accepted Bernini paintings and drawings. Although other specialists have been privately invited to comment on the Vienna portrait, the show, with other comparable works, will hopefully provide an opportunity to reach a definitive judgement on the attribution.

The exhibition is also likely to generate scholarly publications, including a catalogue that will present the evidence for the attribution in detail. Scholarly publications are an essential part of the authentication process, as they allow the broader community of experts to evaluate the evidence and the arguments. The publication of the scientific examination of the painting, along with Swoboda's connoisseurship analysis, will allow other Bernini scholars to assess the attribution and to publish their own opinions. The Kunsthistorisches Museum has indicated that the exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, and that the results of the scientific examination will be published in full. The process of authentication is further complicated by the fact that many artists worked with assistants and collaborators, producing works that are partly by the master and partly by the workshop. The scientific examination of the Vienna Bernini portrait confirmed that it was executed by two different hands, with the face likely done by Bernini and the lower part by another artist. This practice, which was common in the workshops of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, raises difficult questions about how to attribute works that are partly autograph and partly by assistants. The Royal Collection Trust, which holds the self-portrait drawing that Swoboda used as a comparison, has grappled with similar questions in its own attributions, and its approach to the problem has been influential in the field. The attribution of Portrait of an Old Man to Bernini is likely to be the subject of scholarly debate for years to come, and the exhibition and its catalogue will be the starting point for that debate.

The Limits of Attribution

The authentication of art is not an exact science, and attributions are rarely settled with finality. Works that are accepted as authentic by one generation of scholars may be rejected by the next, and vice versa. The history of art is full of attributions that have been made, revised, and reversed, as new evidence emerges, new methods of analysis are developed, and scholarly tastes and preferences change. The attribution of Portrait of an Old Man to Bernini is based on strong evidence, including stylistic comparisons, scientific analysis, and the expertise of a respected curator, but it is not conclusive. The painting's late date of around 1670, which is later than Bernini's generally accepted paintings, makes the attribution controversial, and it may take years of scholarly debate before a consensus is reached.

The controversy over the Bernini attribution is a reminder that the authentication of art is a human activity, subject to the same limitations and biases as any other form of expert judgment. The Association of Art Museum Directors has published guidelines for the authentication of works of art, emphasizing the importance of transparency, scholarly rigor, and the willingness to revise attributions in light of new evidence. For collectors, dealers, and museums, the authentication of art is not only a matter of financial value but of cultural responsibility. The works that are attributed to an artist become part of that artist's legacy, shaping our understanding of their contribution to the history of art. The authentication process is also influenced by institutional and commercial interests, which can create conflicts of interest and bias the outcome. Museums have an interest in attributing works in their collections to major artists, as this enhances the prestige and value of their holdings. Dealers and auction houses have a financial interest in attributing works to the most valuable artist possible. Collectors have an interest in maintaining the value of their collections. These interests can sometimes lead to attributions that are not fully supported by the evidence, and the history of art authentication is full of cases where financial considerations have influenced scholarly judgments. The International Foundation for Art Research has been a leading advocate for independent and rigorous authentication, and its authentication services have been used by collectors, museums, and dealers around the world. The stakes of authentication are high, and the process is never complete, as the Vienna Bernini discovery demonstrates.