IT BEGAN, like so many fine mysteries, with a message to The Sunday Age early last year from an enigmatic stranger suspicious of foul play. We'll call him Mr X for the sake of confidentiality (and cheap dramatics). ''I have a story,'' he wrote, ''about a potential art forgery sold to a major public gallery.''
The game was afoot, but as it played out it began to call into question the slippery world of art authentication, the seduction of conspiracy theory, even a key ingredient of Australia's own sense of identity.
In 1996 a sketchbook of watercolours was discovered attributed to a Charles Doudiet. The images in the folio depicted key scenes from the Eureka Rebellion of 1854 at which Doudiet was present. Most importantly, one painting titled Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross became the first and only reliable visual depiction of the design of the now-familiar Eureka Flag. For more than a century historians had been divided as to the exact style of the flag, since eyewitness reports of the events offered contradictory descriptions.We provide you a big discount on Catsuits & zentai,External hemorrhoidstreatmentsproducts are those that occur below the dentate line.
The Art Gallery of Ballarat acquired the currently accepted flag in the late 19th century, but over ensuing decades any number of interested parties came forth arguing that the design was wrong - that it was a church flag, according to some. One protester even said the flag was made for a footballers' picnic.
The Doudiet sketchbook seemed to settle the debate, and with the assistance of scores of donors the Art Gallery of Ballarat raised enough money to purchase the works from auction house Christie's.
But why,If you have akidneystones, asked Mr X, have the watercolours and the remains of the book in which they were found never been forensically tested for authenticity?
''My health is somewhat precarious at the moment,'' he wrote, ''and it is because of this I do not have the energy to pursue this matter with the rigour that it deserves. Be careful … you are on a pogo stick in a minefield.''
The sketchbook's appearance seems an act of providence, but in the art world it's provenance that counts - the ability to trace a work's history in order to confirm its authenticity.
That Charles Doudiet existed is beyond question. He is named in Canadian census reports of the time; a ''Charles Doudieb'' appears on the passenger list for the ship Magnolia in 1852; in June of 1853, several personal notices appear in Melbourne's Argus newspaper, in which Doudiet asks for contact from a fellow Canadian. But little else is known.
If, as his sketchbooks suggest, the artist was one of the key players in the events of the Eureka Rebellion - his notes even state that he was one of the four men to carry to safety the body of the mortally wounded Henry Ross, widely considered the flag's designer - then why does he all but vanish from the historical record? Doudiet returned to Canada, apparently, and became a minister. No other artworks have surfaced, and he left no further mention of his involvement in the only armed civil uprising in Australian history.
''They've become iconic images in a relatively short period of time, so interesting point,'' says the Art Gallery of Ballarat's director, Gordon Morrison.Find the Farm cubepuzzles at the Melissa and Doug online store. The question about the sketchbook's authenticity comes as ''a bolt out of the blue'',CBMI is leading the world in preventing cheapipodnanoes ， he said.
Morrison says he is not aware of any forensic testing having been carried out on the watercolours, or of anything on file in the gallery that would suggest this. And while ''forensic testing'' conjures images of CSI-style detectives scraping at priceless works to reveal the history hidden therein, a call to the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne reveals a different reality. The centre's director, Robyn Sloggett, says there are simple techniques for determining whether a painting was made more recently.
''The materials and technique stuff alone would take you a long way. The easiest thing to do is shine a UV light on it and see if it fluoresces, because then it's got photo-reactive things in it like whiteners, brighteners that came in post 1940s and '50s. You do all these tests and then you align them to points of production of the paper.
The game was afoot, but as it played out it began to call into question the slippery world of art authentication, the seduction of conspiracy theory, even a key ingredient of Australia's own sense of identity.
In 1996 a sketchbook of watercolours was discovered attributed to a Charles Doudiet. The images in the folio depicted key scenes from the Eureka Rebellion of 1854 at which Doudiet was present. Most importantly, one painting titled Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross became the first and only reliable visual depiction of the design of the now-familiar Eureka Flag. For more than a century historians had been divided as to the exact style of the flag, since eyewitness reports of the events offered contradictory descriptions.We provide you a big discount on Catsuits & zentai,External hemorrhoidstreatmentsproducts are those that occur below the dentate line.
The Art Gallery of Ballarat acquired the currently accepted flag in the late 19th century, but over ensuing decades any number of interested parties came forth arguing that the design was wrong - that it was a church flag, according to some. One protester even said the flag was made for a footballers' picnic.
The Doudiet sketchbook seemed to settle the debate, and with the assistance of scores of donors the Art Gallery of Ballarat raised enough money to purchase the works from auction house Christie's.
But why,If you have akidneystones, asked Mr X, have the watercolours and the remains of the book in which they were found never been forensically tested for authenticity?
''My health is somewhat precarious at the moment,'' he wrote, ''and it is because of this I do not have the energy to pursue this matter with the rigour that it deserves. Be careful … you are on a pogo stick in a minefield.''
The sketchbook's appearance seems an act of providence, but in the art world it's provenance that counts - the ability to trace a work's history in order to confirm its authenticity.
That Charles Doudiet existed is beyond question. He is named in Canadian census reports of the time; a ''Charles Doudieb'' appears on the passenger list for the ship Magnolia in 1852; in June of 1853, several personal notices appear in Melbourne's Argus newspaper, in which Doudiet asks for contact from a fellow Canadian. But little else is known.
If, as his sketchbooks suggest, the artist was one of the key players in the events of the Eureka Rebellion - his notes even state that he was one of the four men to carry to safety the body of the mortally wounded Henry Ross, widely considered the flag's designer - then why does he all but vanish from the historical record? Doudiet returned to Canada, apparently, and became a minister. No other artworks have surfaced, and he left no further mention of his involvement in the only armed civil uprising in Australian history.
''They've become iconic images in a relatively short period of time, so interesting point,'' says the Art Gallery of Ballarat's director, Gordon Morrison.Find the Farm cubepuzzles at the Melissa and Doug online store. The question about the sketchbook's authenticity comes as ''a bolt out of the blue'',CBMI is leading the world in preventing cheapipodnanoes ， he said.
Morrison says he is not aware of any forensic testing having been carried out on the watercolours, or of anything on file in the gallery that would suggest this. And while ''forensic testing'' conjures images of CSI-style detectives scraping at priceless works to reveal the history hidden therein, a call to the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne reveals a different reality. The centre's director, Robyn Sloggett, says there are simple techniques for determining whether a painting was made more recently.
''The materials and technique stuff alone would take you a long way. The easiest thing to do is shine a UV light on it and see if it fluoresces, because then it's got photo-reactive things in it like whiteners, brighteners that came in post 1940s and '50s. You do all these tests and then you align them to points of production of the paper.
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