- This is the great Van Gogh.
- Which is great, of course. But is it Van Gogh?
Dialogue from the movie "How to Steal a Million"
Military museums in Europe. Finally, the time was given to talk about the long-promised, namely, the determination of the authenticity of ancient weapons and armor. Indeed, for some reason, many people believe that … the armor in museums in Europe is completely new, but should be rusty. And since, they say, there are no traces of rust on them, then they were made recently. Well, let's say last year. For some reason, such people completely ignore the simple fact that the armor of the knights did not fall from the sky, that they ordered it to the masters, and they entered into commodity-money relations with them. The fulfillment of the requirements of the parties was ensured as follows: in the presence of notaries, detailed contracts were drawn up, money was released from the treasury, and the manufactured armor, in turn, was accepted by the knight according to the inventory. Sketches of armor and patterns on them were drawn by famous artists, who created entire albums of samples, which were then embodied in metal. All this has survived to this day, although not all, of course, and not for every armor. But for many, that's for sure. In addition, many of the armor bear the brands of famous masters in the past, and although the brand itself seems to cost nothing, forging the style, the “handwriting of the master”, the manufacturing technology, and finally, the metal itself, is very expensive and such work will not pay off absolutely.
Today, as illustrations for this article, we use frames from three films, which, perhaps, best describe forgeries in the field of art. And this will be our first topic. The second topic is, as always, photos of real artifacts and, for the sake of interest, we will alternate them.
However, there was a time when armor was indeed forged. It's like fashion - in one era, paintings are forged, in another - knightly armor and items made of gold and silver.
Again, in the same Egypt, there were entire clans of people who were engaged in the manufacture of "the warmest antiques", but today this craft has acquired a completely different sound. But again there was a time, immediately after the opening of Champollion, when everything Egyptian in Europe was in vogue and the European public itself pushed the Egyptians to the immoral path. It was fashionable to collect "antiques" and "antiques" were forged. It was a fashion to have our own art galleries at home (it still hasn't gone away!), And paintings are both stolen and faked. It's the same with armor. However, discoveries in the field of science and technology made the profession of forgers too dangerous and unprofitable.
In the past, this is an armor specialist, appraiser and seller of antiquities, as well as the buyer (and primarily the buyer!) Should have known that the armor of certain years had to correspond to its era, especially if the item was associated with a specific historical person. Decor, inscriptions and coats of arms should not arouse the slightest suspicion, and again, any era had its own style in font and drawing, and its own technique for applying them. If there were inscriptions on the armor, then it is obvious that each time corresponds to its own form of expression of thoughts, and in poetry - a certain direction. The forger cannot know everything. He is a master technologist, blacksmith and metalworker, and in order not to be mistaken, he needs knowledge in the field of philology or cultural history. But … when and where to acquire them, when it is desirable to forge and as soon as possible. Hiring a specialist is dangerous or expensive. And no one wants to divide equally!
For example, you decided to forge an old plate armor, say, 1500. It should be remembered here that, although they made it and were made of iron sheet, this sheet itself was not obtained by rolling, but by flattening pieces of blast iron with a blacksmith's hammer. They were forged many times, and then they gave it the required shape with flat hammers. In this case, the sheet always warmed up unevenly. In some places it was hot, but in others it was only hot. Because of this, hammer marks should always remain on the back of the armor parts. Today, it is enough to look at such a sheet through a microscope to determine whether the metal sheet was "knocked" with a hammer before or after rolling. And you can do even easier: burn a piece of metal in a flame and look at its spectrum lines through a special lens. This method is called spectral analysis, and it will accurately show the composition of the metal. Since there is data on the metal of armor, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt, it is enough to compare their spectra to see … where is the old metal, and where is the new one. Well, the presence of radiating metals also speaks for itself. By the way, forging an iron sheet with a thickness of 1, 5 or 2-3 mm is a very laborious task, and you need a lot of such sheets.
It is very difficult to make a breastplate of armor, that is, a cuirass, this is, firstly, and secondly, it is also very difficult to make a helmet, especially a 16th century helmet. The same Morion craftsmen of that time forged from one single sheet. Precise manufacturing of such a helmet using ancient technology will minimize all profits from the sale. Therefore, morions are made of two halves, carefully welded along the ridge, and the seam is cleaned. But it is impossible to clean it from a microscope.
They give out a fake, or rather, they gave it out to the specialists of the 19th century with ordinary rivets. The fact is that medieval craftsmen made them by hand, and already at that time they were made on machines. And as soon as the two armors were compared, the difference became visible even with the naked eye.
However, since the 1580s, you can actually find helmets of this type, which were made of two halves; for example, the famous morion with lilies, which always consist of two parts. And then blacksmith welding is always very different from arc welding! But even if you've made your armor out of metal, you need someone to take care of the leather and the antique velvet that was used to trim the armor from the inside. Yes, and silk would also be useful, but where can we get silk of the same 1580 today? When our Russian historian V. Gorelik, for example, needed a harness to reconstruct the equipment of an Eastern warrior, he went to Istanbul and bought there the leather parts he needed, including a saddle. But both he and the museum, for which he did all this, knew that this was a reconstruction, and no one passed it off as genuine antiquity. And the new equipment smelled like leather for months … And there were no cracks or traces of use on the skin. So reconstruction, including a museum one, is one thing, but a fake of an ancient artifact is something completely different.
From time to time patina appears on bronze and modern chemistry allows it to be imitated. So rust on iron also seems to some a sign of antiquity, but this is not so. This is the opinion of green amateurs who do not really know that this is not at all a proof of antiquity, that there are iron products that do not have a single speck of rust, which are four hundred years old or more. But rust can be created artificially by treating the metal with sulfuric and hydrochloric acids. Previously, someone hung products in a chimney, someone buried them in the ground; here rust appeared on them. But at the same time, rust appears, which has a bright red color, and it is easily erased with a finger, and it is not found in recesses, but on flat and open surfaces. It is clear that something needs to be done with it. But removing it, you will not be able to change the metallographic and spectral analysis of the metal, that is, all your efforts in the end will go to waste and you will simply not be able to sell your armor dearly. And why fake it then, if it is not very expensive? It's easier to tell the truth that this is a remake, an exact copy of the armor from such and such a museum. In any case, this will give earnings to its manufacturer, just not so big.
There is another amusing way to identify a fake in metal directly by eye. Look for signs of wear, which, in any case, are obtained only in certain places. You can take a genuine piece of antique armor and supplement it with missing pieces and ornaments to add value to the entire piece of armor. But … the question is where to get it and how to get the appraisers to look only at her. Again, many people who have forged armor in the past were ignorant. Not all of them, for example, knew that medieval engravers, when drawing a drawing on an object, scratched it on it either with bone or wood tools. Iron was rarely used. It was … not accepted. But then they forgot about it, so that late work can always be distinguished from old by too thin lines. And then counterfeiters don't like to mess with acids. But even when they used it, the genuine etching always turned out to be deeper than the fake one. Counterfeit gilding is defined in the same way. In the past, gilding with mercury amalgam was used. Therefore, traces of mercury remain in gold. Even after hundreds of years! In modern gilding with the help of an electrolyte, it does not smell like mercury!
Many believe that if the item is inlaid with gold or silver, then it cannot be a fake. Maybe, of course, but there is one subtlety here. Medieval master inlayers inserted pieces of gold into the contours of the drawing, which they hammered with a hammer, because of which they turned out to be polygonal and … short. At a later time, gold wire was coined into the drawing, so its pieces were longer. And under a magnifying glass, you can clearly see that in one case, the wire segments are short, and in the other, they are long. It is also difficult to blacken objects. The easiest way is to heat the metal in hot ash, but … you need a lot of ash, it must be well heated, and this requires a lot … charcoal. And modern charcoal is saturated with … radioactive elements that were absorbed by a living tree during nuclear tests. Today there is even a dendrochronological table of such tests, the time and place of which is determined by the annual rings of wood cuts and the percentage of certain isotopes in them. Blackening transfers some of them to the surface layer, which will be indicated by the same spectral analysis.
Metal chasing requires a lot of work and great skill. Today, hammered armor can be produced on-line, electroplated copies can be easily made and even … printed in 3D technology. The only question is that all this is so expensive that "the game is not worth the candle." What will be manufactured can be sold as a remake, but for … "modern price". Any buyer of "antika" will require supporting documents, and if they are not there - the results of two or three independent examinations. And at this stage, everything will end!
Even jewelry made of enamel is a problem even today to counterfeit, since the old enamel is not very clean and in places rather dull. Today, opaque white enamels are easy to make, but the old ones contain tiny bubbles that are not found in the newest ones. Even antique Japanese porcelain is easier to forge than armor. It is enough to cook the product, cover it with watering and burn it not in a gas stove, but in a wood-burning stove, and at the moment when the watering begins to melt, do not knock on its walls too much. Tiny coals will surely get into the melted irrigation, and the fact that the product was burned in a wood-burning oven will not cause anyone the slightest doubt. And hardly anyone will allow a piece of clay to be removed from his fragile cup in order to carry out its spectral analysis. But with metal, this can be done easily.
By the way, if the details of the armor were painted with oil paints, and this was also practiced, then those who would like to preserve its traces in the recesses should remember that the old oil paint is very different from the modern one: both in shade and in composition it resembles pure linseed oil. And a thick layer of varnish with the addition of resinous substances began to be used only in the 18th century. Of course, this is antiquity, but not so great.
In general, with the accumulation of our knowledge about the past and ensuring the widespread availability of the Internet, it becomes unprofitable to engage in counterfeiting in all respects. Without even contacting experts, you can, for example, learn from information on the Web that the art, for example, of cutting precious stones, is not so ancient. Although it is also known that diamond polishers in Nuremberg were mentioned in documents as early as 1385, and in 1456 Ludwig von Berkan learned how to grind diamonds with diamond powder. Nevertheless, it was not until the 1650s, by order of Cardinal Mazarin, that the first diamonds were cut in the form of diamonds, and widespread distribution began only at the end of the 17th century. So even if someone finds a document, well, let's say that in 1410 knightly armor decorated with pearls and diamonds was ordered - and this is a true fact that a certain knight John de Fiarles gave it to the Burgundian armourers in 1727 in 1410 pounds sterling for armor, sword and dagger, decorated with pearls, and even diamonds, then in fact we can not talk about diamonds in our understanding of the word. The diamonds were not cut, they were only cut and polished. And if you don't know this, but try to make armor … on the basis of this document and modern cut diamonds, even Wikipedia will help to determine that this is a fake!
A well-known expert in the field of weapons science, in fact, even the person who laid its foundations - Wendelin Beheim, curator of the imperial arms collection in Vienna, at the end of the 19th century in his "Encyclopedia of Weapons / Per. with him. A. A. Devel and others. Ed. A. N. Kirpichnikov. SPb.: Orchestra, 1995 ", wrote, for example, that at this time in Europe fake handles of daggers and sabers, decorated with engraved jade, spread. At the same time, the forgers fell prey to the widespread misconception that unprocessed pieces of jade were not on sale in Europe. Meanwhile, this semi-precious stone, already known in antiquity and often used in the Middle Ages in the East to decorate weapons, came to Europe at the beginning of the 18th century. And the masters of that time were quite capable of making a copy of a popular product out of it. Yes, but that was then, that is, while he was writing his book. Now, various types of stone analysis will not leave any, even the highest quality counterfeit.
When assessing the antiquity and authenticity of any work, the features of the product, due to the tastes of the time, are primarily important. For example, a gold wedding ring of the late 19th century fell into my hands. It was branded: "92CHZ". ChZ is pure gold, and 92 is its standard. But the most amazing thing was that a white metal strip was visible on it, that is, it was … soldered with silver! The owner told me that, in his youth, he handed it over to a pawnshop more than once and … the local appraisers, as soon as they got into this ration, immediately accused him of almost fraud, but … having tried the metal with an acid nearby, they immediately agreed with its high price … But they were very surprised at its "antiquity". And also the fact that it looked more like copper than our modern gold. And hardly anyone today could forge such a ring for real money. And whoever could, would have demanded such a payment for him that it would devalue any sense of his sale.
It is just as difficult to forge an old tree, which sometimes falls into the weapon of the past centuries. The fact is that an old tree is usually damaged by a woodworm. Such a tree is looked for, bought up and resold at high prices to just such fraudulent forgers. But it has been noticed, and for a long time, that the woodworm never gnaws wood along the thread, but makes long transverse passages in it. So it is very difficult to transform one "piece of wood" into another. You can still write a picture on an old walnut board. But how to make a knight's spear shaft or a sword scabbard from an old chest of drawers? And in which shed of which grandmother could such a fake be found?
Even more trouble will have to be taken by those who decide to carry out a fake of old firearms. The fact is that in the 16th century it was possible to decorate the wood of the box and the butt with inlays of bone and mother-of-pearl. In those early years, it was done by hand. But today you can embed a pattern on a CNC machine. But … it will be too smooth and precise. Meanwhile, as with hand cutting, there have always been minor defects. The mother-of-pearl plates had to be adjusted for a long time and difficult to fit in the drawing. Forgers of the 19th century, the resulting gaps were filled with mastic of different composition "like a tree". Today one can do without this, but then labor-intensive work on artificial aging of the product itself will be required. Nevertheless, it is easy to make a mistake here. It is enough to take the “wrong chemistry”, as it will immediately leave its traces and make the object of the counterfeit vulnerable to analysis.
As a result, we have the following conclusion today: modern counterfeiting of ancient armor and weapons at a level that guarantees their sale to museums and very rich collectors is simply unprofitable. It won't pay off. Copying armor from museums - yes, as long as you like and the more inaccurate this copying is carried out, the more expensive, of course, this armor will be. Some kind of forgeries from the 18th - 19th centuries. quite possibly exist to this day, but they decorate the offices and apartments of wealthy citizens. Today it is already its own category of "antiques" and they are valuable already because they were made at the specified time. As for well-known museums, the possibilities for examining the artifacts they have are so great that … this topic can be considered closed forever in relation to their expositions! Of course, it is still possible to steal a famous painting or even knightly armor today. It will be very difficult to sell them. To counterfeit … will be technically very difficult and simply unprofitable!
That's about the same you can make a copy of any knightly armor today. But it won't be easy to replace them. After all, many of them weigh 28-30 kg, and if they also carry horse armor, then all 50 and more!
