Emily Chan
On eBay, pieces by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Salvador Dalí can be found for sale at high prices.
For example, a painting by Monet called Forest With a Stream is listed at $599,000. However, these types of artworks were found to have a strong likelihood of being fakes.
The online marketplace describes the piece as an “original antique French Impressionist oil-on-canvas painting by [the] famous Claude Monet.” It appeared to be signed by the artist himself and was dated to the year 1867.
According to Carina Popovici, the CEO and co-founder of Art Recognition, the painting is a phony. Her company employs artificial intelligence technology to detect inauthentic art.
After analyzing images of paintings on eBay using AI, the firm discovered that up to 40 paintings were fake, despite the fact that the website has a “no counterfeit” policy.
In addition to Forest With a Stream, a work by Pierre-Auguste Renoir was identified as inauthentic. It was listed at $165,000. Currently, 40 phony pieces have been exposed, but there’s a good chance more are out there.
“We looked today, and we downloaded some images, and there were fakes all over the place,” Popovici said. “I’m sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
To detect the difference between genuine and forged artistic works, Art Recognition utilizes trained algorithms to spot details that are specific to an artist’s style, including brush strokes, edges, shapes, color variations, motif repetition, and more.
The art historians at the company also cross-reference data images with reliable sources for each artist to confirm the legitimacy of paintings. Additionally, the company’s technology can identify digital goods created by generative AI.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
