Genuine armor and fake armor
- What a great one, of course. But is Van Gogh?
Dialogue from the movie "How to Steal a Million"
Military museums of Europe. Finally, there was time to talk about the long-promised, namely, the definition of the authenticity of the old weapons and armor. In fact, for some reason, many people believe that ... the armor in museums in Europe is completely new, but should be rusty. And since, they say, there are no traces of rust on them, then they have been made recently. Well, say, last year. For some reason, such people completely ignore the simple fact that the armor of the knights did not fall from the sky, that they ordered the craftsmen, and they entered into commodity-money relations with them. The fulfillment of the requirements of the parties was ensured as follows: in the presence of notaries, the prescribed contracts were drawn up in detail, money was released from the treasury, and the manufactured armor, in turn, was accepted by the knight according to the inventory. Sketches of armor and patterns were drawn on them by famous artists who created entire albums of samples, which were then embodied in metal. All this has survived to the present day, though, and not all, of course, and not for every armor. But for many, that's for sure. Many armors also have the stigmas of famous masters in the past, and although the stigma itself seems to be worthless, forging the style, the “handwriting of the master”, the manufacturing technology, and finally the metal itself is very expensive and such work will not pay off absolutely.
Today, as illustrations for this article, we use frames from three films, which, probably, are best described about fakes in the field of art. And this will be our first topic. The second topic is, as always, photos of real artifacts and, for the sake of interest, we will alternate them.
However, there was a time when armor was indeed faked. It's like a fashion - in one era, paintings are faked, in another - knightly armor and items made of gold and silver.
The main helmet of the bourguignot of the Duke Alessandro Farnese (1545 — 1592), the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, approx. 1580. Manufacturer: Lucio Piccinino, Milan. Manufacturing technology: chasing on iron with polishing, burnishing, and finish with silver and gold foil and wire. (Imperial Arsenal, Vienna) The helmet belonged to the headset for the rider and horse, which did not survive. Only separate details have survived to this day. The helmet is not exposed, so in principle it is an ideal object for fake. However, well, who will undertake today to reproduce all this in the same manner?
Again, in the same Egypt, there were entire clans of people engaged in the manufacture of “warmest antiques,” but today this craft has acquired a completely different sound. But then again, there was a time immediately after the discovery of Champollion, when there was a fashion for everything Egyptian in Europe and the European public itself was pushing the Egyptians to the immoral path. It was fashionable to collect “antique”, and “antique” were faked. It was a fashion to have your own art galleries at home (it still hasn’t passed!), And paintings both steal and fake. The same goes for armor. However, discoveries in the field of science and technology made the profession of counterfeiters too dangerous and unprofitable.
In the past, this specialist in armor, an appraiser and seller of antiquities, as well as the buyer (and first of all the buyer!) Should have known that the armor of one or another year should have corresponded to its era, especially if the item was associated with a specific historical face. Decor, inscriptions and coats of arms should not cause the slightest suspicion, and again, any era had its own style in font and drawing, and its own technique for applying them. If there were inscriptions on the armor, it is obvious that each time has its own form of expression of thoughts, and in poetry there is a certain direction. The forger cannot know everything. He is a master technologist, a blacksmith and a metalworker, and in order not to be mistaken, he needs knowledge in the field of philology or the history of culture. But ... when and where to get them, when it is desirable to forge and quickly. It’s dangerous or expensive to invite a specialist. And no one wants to share evenly!
For example, you decided to fake antique plate armor, say, 1500 of the year. It should be remembered that, although they made it and were made of an iron sheet, this sheet itself was obtained not by rolling, but by crushing pieces of critical iron by a blacksmith hammer. They were forged many times, and then given it the desired shape with flat hammers. In this case, the sheet always warmed up unevenly. In some places it was hot, but somewhere only hot. Because of this, traces of a hammer should always remain on the back of the armor parts. Today, it is enough to look at such a sheet under a microscope to determine before or after rolling a metal sheet was “knocked” with a hammer. And you can do even easier: burn a piece of metal in a flame and look at its spectrum line through a special lens. This method is called spectral analysis, and it will accurately show the composition of the metal. Since there is data on the metal of armor, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt, it is enough to compare their spectra to see ... where is the old metal and where is the new. Well, the presence of radiant metals also speaks for itself. By the way, forging a sheet of iron with a thickness of 1,5 or 2-3 mm is a very laborious task, and there are many such sheets.
It is very difficult to make a breastplate of armor, that is, a cuirass, this is, firstly, and secondly, it is also very difficult to make a helmet, especially a helmet of the 16th century. The same morion masters of that time forged from one whole sheet. Accurate manufacture of such a helmet using old technology will minimize all profits from the sale. Therefore, morions are made of two halves, carefully weld them along the ridge, and the seam is cleaned. But it is impossible to clean it from a microscope.
They give out a fake, or rather, they gave it to specialists of the 19th century ordinary rivets. The fact is that medieval craftsmen made them by hand, and already at that time they were made on machines. And it was worth comparing the two armors, as the difference became visible even with a simple eye.
Another ceremonial bourguignot helmet and a ceremonial round shield to it. Very beautiful products, one might even say too much. And it’s quite obvious that faking them by hand, which will make it possible to get all the necessary marks and traces on the metal, will require such enormous work and skill that ... it’s easier to make ten galvanic copies of this masterpiece and sell them as copies, rather than just working on one his fake!
However, from the 1580's you can really see helmets of this type, which were made of two halves; for example, the famous lions morion, which always consist of two parts. And then blacksmithing is always very different from electric arc welding! But even if you made metal armor, you need someone who takes care of the skin and ancient velvet that trimmed the armor from the inside. Yes, and silk would also not hurt, but where can I get silk of the same 1580 of the year today? When our Russian historian V. Gorelik, for example, needed a harness to reconstruct the equipment of an eastern warrior, he went to Istanbul and bought the leather parts he needed, including a saddle. But both he and the museum, for which he did all this, knew that it was a reconstruction, and no one gave it out for true antiquity. And the skin from the new equipment smelled more than one month ... And on the skin there were no cracks or signs of use. So the reconstruction, including the museum, is one thing, but the fake of an old artifact is something completely different.
Patina appears on bronze from time to time and modern chemistry allows it to be imitated. So, rust on iron also seems to some to be a sign of antiquity, but this is not so. This is the opinion of green amateurs who do not really know that this is not proof of antiquity at all, that there are iron products that do not have a single spot of rust, which are four hundred years old or more. But rust can be created artificially by treating metal with sulfuric and hydrochloric acids. Previously, someone hung products in a chimney, someone buried them in the ground; and rust appeared on them. But at the same time, rust appears, which has a bright red color, and it is easily erased with a finger, and it is not in the recesses, but on flat and open surfaces. It is clear that something needs to be done with her. But removing it, you will not be able to change the metallographic and spectral analysis of the metal, that is, all your efforts will eventually go to dust and it’s simply impossible to sell your armor expensive. Why then fake it if it’s not very expensive? It’s easier to tell the truth that this is a remake, an exact copy of the armor from such and such a museum. In any case, this will give earnings to its manufacturer, that's just not so big.
There is another interesting way to determine a fake in the metal directly on the eye. Look for signs of wear, which in any case are obtained only in certain places. You can take the genuine part of the old armor and supplement it with the missing parts and decorations to make the whole armor more valuable. But ... the question is where to get it and how to get the appraisers to look only at it. Again, many people who faked armor in the past were ignorant. Not all of them, for example, knew that medieval engravers, drawing a drawing on an object, scratched it on it with either bone tools or wood. Iron was rarely used. It was ... not accepted. But then they forgot about it, so that late work can always be distinguished from the old one in too thin lines. And then counterfeiters do not like to mess with acids. But even when they used it, genuine etching always turned out to be deeper than fake. Fake gilding is also defined in the same way. In the past, gilding with mercury amalgam was used. Therefore, traces of mercury are retained in gold. Even after hundreds of years! In modern gilding with an electrolyte, mercury does not smell!
Surprisingly, the most acceptable for falsification today are ... children's armor. They need less metal, fewer documents have been preserved on them, that is, this is not such a rarity "that everyone is talking about." Here, for example, is one of two similar armor made around 1635-1638. for the two sons of Archduke Leopold V Sigmund Franz and Ferdinand Karl, commissioned by their mother Claudia Medici. Master: Hans Frick from Innsbruck. Materials: blued iron, leather, blue and dark cherry satin. However, there will be just a lot of work on them (Imperial Arsenal, Vienna)
Many people think that if a product is inlaid with gold or silver, then it cannot be fake. Maybe, of course, but there is one subtlety. Medieval inlaid craftsmen inserted pieces of gold into the contours of the picture, which they forged with a hammer, because of which they turned into a polygonal section and ... short. At a later time, the gold wire was choked into the drawing, so its pieces were longer. And under the magnifying glass it is clearly visible that in one case the wire segments are short, and in the other - long. It’s hard to drop objects. The easiest way is to heat the metal in hot ash, but ... ash needs a lot, it must be well heated, and this requires a lot of ... charcoal. And modern charcoal is saturated ... with radioactive elements that were absorbed by a living tree during nuclear tests. Today there is even a dendrochronological table of such tests, the time and place of which is determined by the annual rings of wood saw cuts and the percentage of certain isotopes in them. Blackening transfers some of them to the surface layer, as indicated by the same spectral analysis.
Chasing for metal requires considerable work and great skill. Today, minted armor can be produced on stream, you can easily make their galvanoplastic copies and even ... print them in 3D technology. The only question is that all this is so expensive that "the sheepskin is not worth the candle." What will be manufactured can be sold as a remake, but for ... "modern price." Every Antika customer will require supporting documents, and if they are not, the results of two or three independent examinations. And at this stage everything will end!
Even today, enamel jewelry can be faked a whole problem since the old enamel is not very clean and quite dull in some places. Today, opaque white enamels are not difficult to make, but in the old ones there are tiny bubbles, which are not found in the latest ones. Even antique Japanese porcelain is easier to fake than armor. It is enough to cook the product, cover it with watering and burn it not in the gas stove, but in the wood-burning stove and at the moment when the watering starts to melt, do not knock on its walls. Tiny coals will surely fall into the molten watering and the fact that they burned the product in a wood-burning stove will not cause anyone the slightest doubt. And it is unlikely that anyone will allow to crack a piece of clay from his fragile cup in order to conduct its spectral analysis. But with metal, you can easily do this.
By the way, if the details of the armor were painted with oil paints, and this was also practiced, then those who would like to keep its traces in the recesses should remember that the old oil paint is very different from the modern one: in terms of color and composition, it resembles clean linseed oil. A thick layer of varnish with the addition of resinous substances began to be used only in the XVIII century. Of course, and this is antiquity, but not so big.
In general, with the accumulation of our knowledge of the past and the widespread availability of the Internet, it becomes unprofitable to engage in fakes in all respects. Without even turning to experts, you can, for example, learn from information on the Web that art, for example, cutting precious stones is not so ancient. Although it is also known that diamond polishers in Nuremberg were mentioned in documents already in the 1385 of the year, and in the 1456, Ludwig von Berkan learned to grind diamonds with diamond powder. Nevertheless, only in the 1650's, by order of Cardinal Mazarin, were the first diamonds cut in the shape of diamonds, and wide distribution began only at the end of the 17th century. So even if someone finds a document, well, let's say that knightly armor decorated with pearls and diamonds was ordered in 1410 - and this is a true fact that a certain knight John de Fiarles gave 1410 to Burgundy gunsmiths in 1727 pounds for armor, a sword and a dagger, decorated with pearls, and even with diamonds, then in fact we can not talk about diamonds in our understanding of the word. Diamonds were not faceted; they were only turned and polished. And if you don’t know this, but try to make armor ... on the basis of this document and modern faceted diamonds, even Wikipedia will help to determine that this fake!
A well-known specialist in the field of weapons, in fact, even the person who laid the foundations for it is Wendelin Beheim, the keeper of the imperial arms collection in Vienna, at the end of the 19th century in his Encyclopedia of Weapons / Transl. with him. A. A. Devell et al. Ed. A. N. Kirpichnikova. SPb .: Orchestra, 1995 ”, wrote, for example, that at that time fake dagger hilt and saber trimmed with engraved jade spread in Europe. At the same time, counterfeiters were the victim of a widespread misconception that untreated pieces of jade in Europe did not go on sale. Meanwhile, this semi-precious stone, already known in antiquity and often used in the Middle Ages in the East to decorate weapons, came to Europe at the beginning of the 18th century. And to make a copy of a popular product from it was then masters quite capable. Yes, but that was then, that is, while he was writing his book. Now, various types of stone-on-stone analyzes will not leave any, even the most high-quality fake.
When evaluating the antiquity and authenticity of any work, the product features due to the tastes of the time are primarily important. For example, I got into the hands of a wedding ring in the late XIX century. He was branded: "92ЧЗ". ChZ is pure gold, and 92 is its test. But the most amazing thing was that a white metal strip was visible on it, that is, it was ... soldered with silver! The landlord told me that he had handed it over to a pawnshop more than once and ... the appraisers there, they only had to get into this soldering, they immediately accused him of fraud, but ... having tried the metal with an acid nearby, they immediately agreed to its high price . But very surprised by his "antiquity." And the fact that it was more like copper than our modern gold. And hardly anyone today could forge such a ring for real money. And whoever could, would demand such a fee for him that it would devalue any sense of selling it.
It is equally difficult to fake an old tree, which sometimes falls into the weapons of past centuries. The fact is that an old tree is usually damaged by a carpenter. Such a tree is sought, bought and resold at high prices for just such fraudsters-forgers. But it has been noticed, and for a long time, that the dreamer never gnaws wood along the thread, but makes long transverse passages in it. So to remake one "piece of wood" in another is very difficult. You can still write a picture on an antique walnut board. But how to make a shaft of a knightly spear or a sheath for a sword from an old chest of drawers? And in which shed of which grandmother can such a fake be found?
Even more trouble remains to be taken by those who plan to carry out fake antique firearms. The fact is that in the XVI century it was possible to decorate a tree of a box and a stock with bone and mother of pearl inlays. In those distant years, this was done manually. But today you can embed a pattern on a CNC machine. But ... it will be too smooth and accurate. Meanwhile, as with manual cutting, minor defects have always occurred. Mother of pearl plates, so that the picture does not have the slightest gap, had a long and difficult to customize. Forgers of the XIX century, the arising gaps were filled with mastic of different composition "under the tree." Today you can do without it, but then you will need laborious work on artificial aging of the product itself. Nevertheless, here it is easy to make a mistake. It is enough to take the “wrong chemistry”, as it immediately leaves its traces and makes the fake object vulnerable to analysis.
As a result, we have the following conclusion for today: the modern fake of ancient armor and weapons at a level that guarantees their sale to museums and very wealthy collectors is simply unprofitable. She will not pay off. Copying armor from museums - but as many as you like, and the more precisely this copying is done, the more expensive, naturally, these armor will be. Some fakes of the period of the XVIII - XIX centuries. it is possible that they still exist today, but the offices and apartments of wealthy citizens adorn. Today, this is its own category of "antique" and they are valuable already because they were made at the indicated time. As for well-known museums, the possibilities for examining their artifacts are so great that ... you can consider this topic in relation to their expositions closed forever! You can steal a famous painting or even knightly armor today, of course. It will be very difficult to sell them. To fake ... it will be technically very difficult and simply speaking unprofitable!
That's about the same thing you can do today and a copy of any knightly armor. That's just replacing them will not be easy. After all, many of them weigh 28-30 kg, and if with horse armor, then all 50 and more!
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