Famous Forgers (Article Project 2)

Famous Forgers

There are thousands of people trying to make forgeries to this day, sometimes illegally, but most of the time not. This article will go over three of the most famous art forgers in the world. Mark Landis (b. 1955) is thought to have forged over 100 works of art and presented them to museums in about twenty different U.S states. He donated them but in order to make them look like the real works he used false names and even dressed up as a Jesuit priest. It is said that his first motive for doing all this was to please his mother and bring honor to his father, but he later became too addicted to the VIP treatment from the museum staff. Though he never got any money or tax benefits, he still did it.

Believe it or not, Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564) the Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel, He made a lot of money by passing off one of his earlier marble sculptures, called “Sleeping Eros”, as an ancient Roman statue. He even damaged and buried the sculpture in a dealer’s yard in order to “discover” it. This is one of his most famous forgeries.

Icilio Federico Joni (1866- 1946) had been a very successful art forger and he would constantly fool Bernard Berenson an art historian. When Bernard realized that the paintings he had purchased from Joni were all fakes, he was not angry; in fact he even traveled all the way to Italy to express his admiration. Joni later published a memoir titled “Affairs of a Painter”, though it is rumored that dealers attempted to bribe him into not publishing it.


Work Citied:

http://www.livescience.com/19518-famous-art-forgers.html?vm=r