Ceci n'est pas une pierre

An Orazio Gentileschi, painted on a ground of lapis lazuli, last shown at the National Gallery, London—



A portrait of an unknown man by Franz Hals—



A Venus by Lucas Cranach, owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein—



—all of doubtful provenance, all discovered by one Giulano Ruffini, all suspected fakes.

I love it.

Whoever this ring of forgers are, they’re damned brilliant. The "Gentileschi," in particular, is stunning. Look at how s/he’s created air and water out of stone, has painted by not painting.

I haven’t seen anything this good since Stephen Greenhalgh stopped knocking out antiquities in his garden-shed. He was only caught when he tried to flog three “Assyrian” reliefs to the British Museum, and they found a spelling error in his cuneiform.  Damned by a diacritic...

Nine