Is it possible that a painting exposed to the National Gallery in London is actually a fake? It would seem so: this is the case with Sansone and Dalilapicture attributed to the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. The work, dated 1609 and preserved at the National Gallery in London. It seems to be a false, or at least this is what emerges from an analysis conducted in 2021 by the company Art Recognition thanks to a technique that uses theartificial intelligence based on neural networks. It is a cutting -edge technological system, which over the years has been making progress and could allow advancements in the world of artistic paternity investigations. In the case of the masterpiece in question, this system detected a probability more than 91% that the picture is a false.
How it was discovered that Sansone and Dalila 91% of Rubens is a fake
Art Recognitionthe company in charge of investigating the authorship of the work, has used techniques of Machine Learning And Computer Visionusing two types of artificial neural networks: one Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and a Vision Transformer with Shifted Windows (Swin). These networks analyze the characteristics of the artist’s brush stroke and manual habits. The work is then scanned, dividing it into “patch” and returning for each one percentage of likeness probabilitythus determining its reliability.
In the case of Sansone and Dalilathis probability was more than 91%as told by Caterina Popovicico -founder of Art Recognition. At the moment, however, it is not known if there is still an original of this work and, if so, where it could be.
Another example on the analysis of Rubens’ works concerns View of Het Steen early in the morningalso exposed to the National Gallery in London, which returned a percentage of falsehood of the1.24%. In all likelihood, therefore, this painting is authentic.
Rubens’ “Sansone and Dalila” and doubts about the authenticity of the masterpiece
Sansone and Dalila It is a canvas of the size of almost two meters for two that depicts the hero Samsonasleep with your head on the knees of the beloved Dalila. The work, in fact, is inspired by a biblical episode and immortalizes the crucial moment in which Sansone, abandoned to sleep, is about to be betrayed. Dalila, he is an accomplice of the enemy and has learned that his extraordinary strength lies in the long hair. Corrupted by the Philistines – her own people -, the woman lends themselves to their deception, making sure that her hair is cut, thus depriving him of his power and making him vulnerable to capture.
For decades, the expert critics of Rubens have claimed that the large canvas acquired by the London museum is actually a falsea copy of the original – commissioned to the painter with a Belgian patron Nicolaas Rockox – that the Flemish painted after a long trip to Italy during which he studied the technique of Caravaggio. From some sources it seems that the original picture disappeared after the death of Rockox in 1640, which is why, when the picture then acquired by the National Gallery appeared in Paris in 1929, it was first analyzed and then attributed to Rubens by the scholar Ludwig Burchard.
Even then there were some suspicions: i colors are unusual For the painter’s habits, and the version of the National Gallery differs from two other “official” copies – an incision of Jacob Matham and a painting by Frans Francken the young man – for some detailslike the fingers of Sansone’s foot, which in the one exposed to London come out of the canvas and are not depicted, while in the other two yes. So much so that, initially, someone suggested that it was a picture of Gerrit van Honthorst – Also known as Gherardo from the nights – about Dutch painter about contemporary of Rubens.
The case continued when, in 1960documents were found from which it emerged that Ludwig Burchard was well aware of the fact that several works authenticated by him were not authentic. However, no certainty has emerged regarding Sansone and Dalilawhich ended up among the works managed by Christie’sthe largest auction house in the world, and then arrives at the National Gallery. The suspicions continued to hover around the painting, leading in 2021 to the decision to analyze it with a system based on artificial intelligence, designed to evaluate the authenticity of the works of art. The result that emerged, as explained, proved to be surprising.
