National library fooled into buying forgery, historian says
A top historian believes a painting held in the Alexander Turnbull Library collection is a forgery.
It wouldn’t the first time the library has been left red-faced after it emerged that the library had spent $75,000 of taxpayers’ money on a forged Gottfried Lindauer portrait in 2013.
Professor Paul Moon at the Auckland University of Technology thinks a work titled Against Truth, said to be painted by Augustus Earle around 1830, was created by someone else near or after the artist’s death to sully his name. Earle spent several months in colonial Aotearoa in 1827 and 1828 and painted scenes of Ma¯ ori life.
The painting was bought by the library for £1300 (NZ$5887 in equivalent 2021 money) in 1987 at auction from the prestigious London auction house Christie’s.
Alexander Turnbull Library is part of the National Library and is charged by law with protecting a nationally significant collection of treasures.
Moon said he’s researched the painting as part of his wider research on Earle (1793-1838), the first British painter to set up residence in New Zealand in 1827 and who spent time on James Cook’s ship the Beagle. ‘‘Every angle we look at it, it makes no sense he would paint it,’’ said Moon, who thinks the painting was too political for Earle and doesn’t represent what his views actually were.
Against Truth is a watercolour painting of nine figures attacking a 10th central figure representing truth, who stands on barrels labelled ‘‘powder’’.
The nine figures are labelled with beliefs the author thinks are enemies of truth, including Islam, religion, ignorance, Methodism, fanaticism and discord.
Moon said that even by early 19th-century standards, the painting would have been too reactionary and bigoted to have been acceptable for Earle to paint.
‘‘Picking on people who are part of society and saying they’re against truth, it would be professional suicide.’’
Moon said there wasn’t clear evidence pointing to a forgery but the painting’s signature, inconsistencies in handwriting, the use of speech captions or political themes which no other Earle work had and the painting’s lack of provenance point towards it being a forgery.
Chief librarian Chris Szekely said Moon’s report did not state that there was clear evidence the artwork was a forgery and there was not enough in Moon’s report for them to believe so either.
Szekely said the library relied on internal expertise, authentication from auction houses and other experts when it determined whether to buy an artwork.
After being contacted by Stuff, the library has now invited Moon to view Against Truth and is considering how to make use of Moon’s research.