Last week, a Swiss auction house made an unprecedented sale of a work of art authenticated solely by artificial intelligence (AI).
Zurich’s Germann auction house has partnered with Swiss artificial intelligence authentication company Art Recognition to confirm the provenance of a watercolor by Russian artist Marianne von Werefkin. It sold on Nov. 23 for just under $17,000, nearly double its high estimate of $9,000.
Two other works from the same auction were authenticated by art identification agencies, but their provenance was also confirmed by human experts. They were an untitled 1945 painting by Louise Bourgeois and a mixed-media work by Mimmi Paladino, which sold for $31,500 and $21,500 respectively.
Auctioneer Fabio Sidler of the German auction house said art news The “effectiveness and accuracy of Art Recognition’s algorithm” convinced him to partner with the AI company. “We have many reasons to believe that our partnership will encourage other art dealers to incorporate AI certification into their expertise,” he said.
He added that the certificates of authenticity issued by art authentication agencies for works by Bourgeois and Palladino “are an additional layer supporting the authenticity of these works.”
said Carina Popovici, CEO and Co-Founder of Art Recognition art news Her company uses “independent artificial intelligence” with humans selecting and curating datasets, but “does not perform any human judgment in the actual authenticity assessment.”
The company offers two tiers of AI authentication; the most expensive option gives a percentage probability of authenticity, while the cheaper option simply confirms or denies the authenticity of the work. When the probability is greater than 95 percent, it may not be necessary to consult other experts, Popovich explained. When it falls below 80 percent, she said she often recommends material analysis or evaluation by other experts.
Art Recognition charges about $2,200 to authenticate a work, but Popovici said it’s cheaper if a collector brings “say 10 or 20 pieces.”
Because Art Recognition is providing its services free of charge to German Auction House as part of a pilot, it does not provide percentage probabilities. However, Popovich told art news All three were “very tall.”
during interview art news This summer, Popovich said that “AI alone should not be relied upon” to authenticate art, and that “I firmly believe that the future of art authentication lies in collaboration between AI and experts.” When asked to elaborate, Popovich Veitch said she was “clearly referring to very difficult cases, such as the one involving Amadeo Modigliani, who had five different catalog reasons.” She explained that art recognition is done using what the art market accepts. A single catalog catalog serves as a data set for authenticating artworks.
She added that she believed German auction houses’ trust in AI authentication could mark a shift in the art market. “Previously, only human connoisseurs could confirm the provenance of an artwork before it was sold, so we are now very excited about the potential of AI to impact real market transactions.”
The winning bidder for Von Werefkin’s untitled watercolor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told us art news The artist said in an email that the work was not typical of the artist, so he was impressed that the AI recognized it as authentic.
“It’s good to be skeptical, but it’s also good to be open-minded and interested in new approaches,” he said. “As I understand it, AI is applicable to other industries, especially when the task is to recognize patterns. I [therefore] There’s no reason to think it can’t work when the task is to identify artistic patterns. Ultimately, the question is not what you personally think about using artificial intelligence for art authentication, but whether this approach is accepted by the ‘relevant community’. “
Siedler said he would not be surprised if there were “critical voices” criticizing German auction houses for relying solely on artificial intelligence to authenticate works of art. “However, I expect the news that we are taking a ground-breaking approach to art identification will be received generally positively,” he added.
Renowned British art historian Bendor Grosvenor, who has discovered several lost Old Master paintings, is among those who have expressed concerns about using artificial intelligence alone to authenticate art.
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He said that while “AI will play an increasingly important role in helping us identify who drew what and when… the record for AI attribution is patchy, to say the least.”
Grosvenor added: “Perhaps equally important, markets to some extent do not accept what computers say, preferring the judgment of academic research, the human eye and technical analysis.”
