Folk or Fake?

This may be one of the most interesting and instructive pieces in the Fenimore Art Museum’s folk art collection. As such, it has a special status in relation to all of the other paintings in the collection.


That’s because it is a fake. A rare fake by a famous forger.

In 1990 Robert Lawrence Trotter was sentenced to 10 months in Federal prison for the forgery and sale of American folk paintings. Trotter was a talented artist in his own right, but was unable to sell his works. So he started forging the works of other historical painters whose works did have a ready market. One FBI agent explained: “He’d go into antiques shops, buy old frames, use square nails and ultraviolet light to cause certain cracks to occur. He wouldn’t copy, but he’d paint in the famous artist’s style. Sometimes he would sign their name, sometimes he wouldn’t.”

When Trotter was sentence to federal prison, he was ordered to give four of his fake paintings to Yale University so that they could be studied for future use in identifying forgeries.

There are 55 known Trotter fakes, only 16 of which have ever been recovered. That’s what makes our example so rare.

Looking at the piece, you can see right away why Trotter was successful, at least for a while. It is beautifully painted in a style consistent with what one might expect for 19th-century New England portraiture.

To my eye, however, there are some red flags. The baby here is too stylized and awkwardly proportioned in relation to the mother. The mother herself bears too much resemblance to the works of known folk artists like Noah North and Milton Hopkins. Overall, the work strikes me as a pastiche of different styles rather than one uniform manner of painting. I'm sure there are other technical ways in which a conservator could determine that this work is not authentic as well, but in the field one has to rely on a practiced eye.

The real clue, for me, is the reverse, which most people don’t inspect when they buy a painting. You can see quite clearly here that although the stretcher is clearly old, the canvas is not. Dead giveaway, in my opinion.

There are 55 known Trotter fakes, only 16 of which have ever been recovered. Ours and the four at Yale are the only ones I know of in public collections. Ours was donated by a private individual who wanted a public record of Trotter's fakes so that others would not be fooled. So like those at Yale, our Trotter is available for study by any qualified individual interested in learning more about the technical process of creating a work of art that isn’t what it appears to be.

A Folk Art Deception

I have written often in this blog about pieces in our collection that were overlooked until a knowledgeable outsider recognized them as singularly important. It is really great when that happens (our scrimshaw cane is just one example) but sometimes, just like on the Antiques Road Show, you have to face bad news. Such was the case a few years ago with our Revolutionary War Soldier Whirligig.

This piece is one of two major whirligigs from the 19th century in the Fenimore Art Museum collection, the other being a figure of a Quaker. It stands 38”high, and is a well carved figure of soldier with a tricorne hat (hence the title) and the requisite paddles extending from his arms. These sculptures were fairly common in the 1800s, and were generally meant for amusement. A strong wind would make the figure paddle madly as it pivoted in the breeze.

I always admired this whirligig for its realistic carving in the face and costume details, and we have exhibited it on numerous occasions with our folk art collection. That is, until an expert on early American Sculpture from the collectors’ group The American Folk Art Society took a closer look at the piece. Of particular interest to him was the area where the paddles joined the hands. Something about that just didn’t seem right.

Take a look at the photographs here. The paddles extend straight down from the arms, while the hands are clearly shaped to hold something at more of an angle. His conclusion? The expert felt pretty strongly that the figure was meant to hold (no drumroll – the pun would be too obvious) drumsticks!

Our Revolutionary War veteran was actually most likely a band organ figure carved in Europe, possibly France. We do not know how or when he acquired his paddles and entered the market as an American folk sculpture, but I would guess that the change coincided with the emergence of a folk art market in the 1940s.

At any rate, our figure is now officially demoted from Important Folk Sculpture to Interesting Study Piece. I think that now, as a piece documenting the popularity of folk art in mid-20th-century America, it might be an even rarer example of its kind. But for now it will have to get used to life behind the scenes, rather than in our galleries.