Has the Alexander Turnbull Library bought another forged painting?
Monday, 1 August 2022
A top Auckland 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 (AUT) 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 between 1827 and 1828 and painted scenes of Māori life.
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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 with James Cook aboard the ship HMS Eagle.
“Every angle we look at it, it makes no sense he would paint it,” Moon said.
Moon 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 the 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 isn’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.
“When you start adding all these together, and to produce this probably would have destroyed him,” Moon said.
Chief librarian Chris Szekely said Moon’s report did not state that there was clear evidence the artwork as a forgery and there was not enough in Moon’s report for them to believe so either.
“While we are open to adjusting the attribution of the work in our catalogue record, as it stands, we believe there is not enough to conclusively say the painting is not by Earle.”
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 for comment, the library has now invited Moon to view Against Truth and is considering how to make use of Moon’s research.
“The Alexander Turnbull Library has received Professor Moon’s report with great interest and is considering how best to acknowledge his research and address it within the information currently held,” Szekely said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that James Cook sailed aboard a ship named Beagle. The ship was HMS Eagle. (Amended at 12.32pm on August 2, 2022)