Art: 16th Century Fraud

Most strollers in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art passed by Carpaccio’s murky, golden Meditation on the Passion without noticing anything wrong. Those who looked twice saw that the label said Carpaccio but the picture was signed “Andreas Mantinea” (Mantegna).

Last week Meditation’s tobacco tones had disappeared, and so had Mantegna’s signature. In its place was a faint scrawl. The Museum explained:

Scholars had long felt sure that the Meditation was Carpaccio’s, but it took microchemical tests to prove it. Beneath three layers of varnish, the Met’s experts came across some 16th Century skullduggery. A forged Mantegna signature had been added with the innermost layer.

Infra-red photography, which will pierce a layer of pigment, showed a different inscription underneath: “vjtorjs carpattjj venettj opus (Work of Vittore Carpaccio of Venice).” Using solvents which would not harm the original painting surface, a technician removed the varnishes. The forged signature came off too, but Carpaccio’s remained almost illegible. The reason: Carpaccio had apparently painted it out himself.

Just why Carpaccio had gone anonymous, after finishing so masterly a painting of Job and Jerome seated with Jesus, no one seemed to know. But most experts could guess why Mantegna’s name was forged to it: in the 16th Century (though not today) Mantegna was considered a greater painter than Carpaccio.