Here's a satirical IKEA-style instruction guide for assembling a false provenance for a forged artwork. It’s entirely fictional and intended to educate through humor—exposing how shady art dealings might look if they came with assembly instructions. (author: ChatGPT4o)
🖼️ FAKEVÄRDE
False Provenance Kit – Discreetly elevate your garage painting to gallery prestige!
📦 Contents:
1x Faded Auction Catalogue (pre-yellowed)
3x Invented Collectors (with vaguely European surnames)
1x Retired Art Historian (missing credentials)
2x “Private Collection, Switzerland” Labels
1x Forged Gallery Sticker
1x Typewriter (w/ misaligned keys for “authenticity”)
1x Bottle of Coffee (for artificial aging)
🛠️ Tools required (not included):
Straight face
Fancy pen
Shredder (for inconvenient facts)
Wine for fake donor dinners
📖 Step-by-step Assembly Instructions:
STEP 1: IDENTITÉ
Create your fictional chain of custody.
🧩 Pick 3 plausible but unverifiable past owners. Examples:
Baron Otto von Shadowhausen
Mrs. E. G. (last name conveniently smudged)
“Important New York Collector (Deceased)”
📝 Write this list on a fake invoice. Smudge it with “age spots” (use coffee).
STEP 2: STICKUM
Apply provenance stickers randomly to the back of the artwork.
🎨 Use fake gallery stickers like:
“Salon des Refusés, Paris, 1923”
“Galerie du Prestige, Zurich (Private Loan)”
“Not for Sale” (makes it sound desirable)
Use a blow dryer to "age" them. Apply unevenly. Pretend it's charming.
STEP 3: CATALOGÖ
Insert into obscure exhibition catalogues.
🧻 Find a forgotten show with vague themes (“European Masters 1900–1950”)
✏️ Add the artwork by hand into a surviving catalog copy.
📸 Use a low-res image of the forgery—preferably slightly blurry. Say: “Only known photo.”
Optional: Bribe your cousin at the local print shop to rebind the catalog with your addition.
STEP 4: EXPERTÖR
Get a retired curator to mumble vague approval.
🧓 “It resembles the hand of…”
🧑🎓 If no one agrees, create your own art historian:
Dr. Henri LeFaux, author of Lost Works of the Lesser Masters (unpublished)
Cite him in footnotes. Use MLA. Add “forthcoming” if questioned.
STEP 5: FILE & FORGET
“Archive” your proof and let the myth take root.
📁 Store the documents in a nice leather folder.
📤 Leak the story to an arts blog (“source wishes to remain anonymous”)
🛒 Wait two years, then consign to auction with:
“Provenance: Private Collection, Switzerland; by descent”
Boom. Now it’s “established.”
⚠️ WARNING
Do not let real scholars examine it.
Avoid digital archives—they remember everything.
Keep your handwriting consistent… unless it’s a faded assistant’s note.
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