Modern Drawings
Drawings as we know them today emerged in the end of middle ages. As artists turned to direct observation of the natural world as a source for their work, it became necessary for them to prepare their images in drawings, which could be modified, erased, and discarded with relative ease and lack of expense. These drawings were made by human beings with their creative process. They were never intended to be collected or displayed. Drawings are one of the most difficult art objects to authenticate. There is seldom a reference containing all of an artist’s drawings and forgeries are easy to make compared to prints; all you need is old paper and a pencil. Much of the authentication technique is based on studying line quality and paper type. This requires decades of experience.
MODERN DRAWINGS are divided into three categories:
Modern Forgeries — replicas that appear on the market, particularly e-Bay, that have wrong signatures, wrong paper or copies of known drawings.
Stylistic Similar Period Drawings — upon careful research, many of these will turn out to be authentic and of great value. They have been in private collections for years and unknown to art historians. A good appraiser not only states that they believe they are real or a fake, but why and how they compare to known authentic drawings. This is particularly valuable if you wish to sell.
Well Documented Drawings — these are known authentic pieces illustrated in the literature and/or have photo-certificates from the foremost experts. The appraiser has to determine what the drawing is worth and if the photo-certificate is real. Forgers today spend more time faking the credentials than they do the piece.
Today’s collectors want unique art, something multiple prints can’t give them. Paintings by the masters are not affordable but drawings, sometimes even studies for the famous paintings, are inexpensive. Contemporaries, mostly artists themselves, already recognized the extraordinary achievement of these draughtsmen and made efforts to preserve their preparatory drawings, which were often more beautiful than their finished work.