The Largest Collection of Fake Paintings
Christophe Petyt's Collection
It is impossible to imagine the fortune an art connoisseur needs to spend being obsessed by the idea of having an exact copy of a Picasso or a Van Gogh.
Christophe Petyt has entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the owner of the Largest Private Art Collection in the world. At his disposal there are over 3500 paintings of the most renowned works by Renoir, DaVinci, Monet, Dali and others. Anybody would think that Petyt's collection must be evaluated to be worth billions of dollars. The secret of the collection is revealed through the fact that its masterpieces are replicas.
Petyt has employed a wide variety of master copy artists around the world specializing in re-creating the paintings of the famous masters and deals with selling the fakes for prices ranging from $1,000 to over $25,000. Mr. Petyt's private art collection features excellent Van Goghs, a perfect Rembrandt, a pair of worshiped Canalettos, a Modigliani, a Miro abstraction and a thorough selection of the best Impressionists.
The Business of Fake Paintings
Although, you may consider the fake business to be dangerous one, Mr. Petyt, the head of L'Art du Faux foundation in Paris, has managed to turn selling exact copies of works by genius artists into big and successful business exceptionally in a legal way. According to the law, the works and signatures of any artist dead for 70 years can be freely copied, but the copy cannot be presented as the real thing. To be on the safe side, every painting is permanently marked on the back of the canvas, and in addition, a tiny hidden piece of gold leaf is worked into the paint. The honor of owning the largest authentic art collection, comprising 3000 original paintings, most likely is belongs to the Prince of Liechtenstein.
The collector has been in the business for more than 10 years. Having graduated from a business school, he had never studied art and had no particular interest in the field, except being able to appreciate certain paintings he liked.
The Successful Start
Van Gogh's 1890 portrait of Adeline Ravoux, created at the sunset of the Dutch artist's life presented Retyt's favorite piece of art. He learnt that the masterpiece was beyond his reach as it had been sold for $10 million to a collector in Switzerland. Then Christophe was hit by an idea to ask a friend from the Ecole des Beaux Arts to paint for him a copy of the portrait. In an old frame it looked really great. Wondering if there was any demand for this kind of thing in the market, the young businessman bought a book of popular paintings and blindly selected some works by Monet, Manet, Renoir and Van Gogh. His art student friend agreed to make about 20 good copies.
Having no idea where to show them, Petyt organized an exhibition at the Royal Mansour Hotel in Casablanca, visited by the King of Morocco's daughter. In two weeks all the paintings were sold, and Christophe received orders for 60 more. This success proved to Petyt his intuitive notion that there existed a huge and profitable market for faux art. In Paris, he found more than 3,500 painters ready to involve themselves in producing copies.
Petyt's believes there is nothing you are not able to have if you really want it. Being the world's leading dealer in fake pieces of art, he provokes such opposite feelings as admiration and exasperation in the higher levels of the art world. His copies are really special for their perfect quality that even the original artist would hesitate to tell the difference. The staff of 80 artists creates copies precise in every detail, specializing in the style of a particular artist or school. Every work is performed using new canvases and oil paints.
Special Techniques of Fake Painters
The painters have acquired simple but ingenious techniques for making their works artificially aged or forging artists' signatures. To add years to a canvas, the paint is suitably fissured being placed in an oven, then a staining liquid, black tea, for example. A jar of household dust sprinkled over the back of the canvas and brushed off later, is really helpful in producing the impression that the canvas has spent years in an attic. New frames are buried underground and dug up to be sprayed with acid and slightly drilled as though they have been by attacked by a woodworm.
The artists have been chosen very carefully, paying the greatest attention to perfect technique with not much creativity. First of all they require a real understanding of what has gone into the paintings they are going to copy, to do some study about the technique used by the original master. Sometimes the artists even prefer to follow that special everyday style of their predecessors. For example, Dali painter completely lives the part. He's got a waxed moustache and long hair and is dressed in a crazy way.
Petyt's Clientele
Petyt prefers not to name his clients but among them there are rock stars, fashion designers and oil oligarchs, people owning impressive houses that need equally impressive pieces of art. Sometimes, the owners of the original happen to order a copy on the ground of security. They do not want to risk their best paintings, so the original is kept in a bank and the copy is hung out.
L'Art du Faux foundation once got a commission from a Swiss client, a very wealthy person, who desperately wanted to own Quand te maries-tu? by Gauguin, offering $25 million to the owner who wouldn't sell it at any price. When the client saw the copy, he was so touched and grateful that he just kept silence for 15 minutes. The price for the copy depends on the amount of work it involves. A Saudi Arabian prince purchased the copy of an oversized copy of Renoir's Le Dejeuner des Canotiers (1881) for the record price of $100,000.
For those who hesitate whether producing copies represents an art form, Christophe takes music as a comparison. Classical musicians try to do their best to produce a sound as close as possible to the original to what they think the composer intended. Nonetheless, they are still considered to be artists.
By their work Mr. Petyt's artists bring something new and fresh to the art of the past, filling with enjoyment the lives of many art connoisseurs.
Besides collecting fake paintings, many educated and intelligent people become interested in exclusive collections of replica watches. The same as in case of fake paintings that are almost impossible to be told apart from the originals, replica watches are exact copies of original timepieces produced from cheaper materials but offering a variety of useful functions, attractive designs and well-known brand names.
