Widely considered the greatest art forger of modern times, Hebborn’s forgeries have ended up in esteemed institutions like the National Gallery of Denmark, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Morgan Library & Museum. According to his own estimate, Hebborn created over one thousand forgeries. Hebborn claimed to have successfully forged the work of Brueghel, Anthony van Dyck, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Peter-Paul Rubens. Before becoming a master forger, Hebborn studied at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1963, Hebborn opened Pannini Galleries with his longtime romantic partner Graham Smith. In his gallery, Hebborn exhibited his forgeries next to authentic works. Hebborn sold his forgeries to notable dealers, collectors, and experts. In order to avoid detection, he used paper from the time period of the artists he was emulating mixed and used historically accurate pigments. In the late 1970s, several prominent US museums noticed that a number of the drawings from their collections were done on the same paper. All these works were traced back to Colnaghi, London’s oldest and most respected art gallery. The gallery revealed that Hebborn was the source of all the drawings. Hebborn was not charged with crime. In 1991, the BBC produced a documentary about him called Portrait of a Master Forger. In 1993, Hebborn wrote a memoir. He was murdered in Rome in 1996. His murder remains unsolved.
By Elliot Penn
Sources:
Kuesel, Christy. “The prolific forger whose fake Old Masters fooled the art world.” CNN. 24 October 2019. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/artsy-eric-hebborn-forger/index.html
Kuseul, Christy. “The Prolific Forger Whose Fake Old Masters Fooled the Art World.” Artsy. 10 October 2019. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-prolific-forger-fake-masters-fooled-art