Auction websites boost market in forged art, say BBC presenters

AUCTION websites such as eBay are boosting fake art sales, according to Fiona Bruce, the BBC presenter, and Philip Mould OBE, the art dealer.

As the art programme Fake or Fortune? returns to the BBC this evening the show’s hosts have said that the in- ternet is increasingly allowing people to trade fake art.

On the eve of the seventh series, Bruce said it was increasingly the case that forged artworks from China were being sold online, but that it was impossible to tell the difference between a fake and the real thing while shopping digitally. “The internet has cer- tainly changed things,” she said. “Legitimately you can bid in an auction through the internet. But the commercial sales of art on sites such as eBay has made the selling of fake art greater.

“It can be very difficult to work out who sold or bought the art because you can hide your tracks on the internet. There are places in China that just churn out the art that looks like that of very famous artists, but they’ve never been anywhere near the real artists.

Bruce said she had seen examples of Lowry’s work being advertised online, but sellers would be careful by referring to a piece as “Lowry” rather than “By Lowry” to avoid being called a forger.

Mr Mould said the new techniques designed to trick dealers were a growing concern for legitimate businesses.

“With all the technical brilliance it’s almost like an arms race with the fakers to see who can get the most sophisticated , and that is worrying,” he said, adding that as much as “70 per cent of the art that you see online that is being sold, not necessarily by reputable deal- ers but by individuals, is misrepresented and it’s extremely worrying.”

A spokesman for eBay said that it “has a thriving art category with an owner’s rights protection scheme in place to stop anyone without copyright selling art that isn’t theirs”.

The five-part series will air at 9pm on BBC One.