The shadow and the light: How to buy art online without falling into the trap
The gavel falls. Three hundred thousand euros. The heart pounds, fingers still gripping the phone screen. On the image, a small ink drawing by Jean Dubuffet, scribbled on a napkin corner in 1952, has just changed hands. Or so the buyer believes. Because three weeks later, when the package arrives, it isn’t an original work hidden beneath the bubble wrap, but a copy so crude even an untrained eye could spot the deception. The certificate of authenticity enclosed? A fake, printed on paper artificially aged in a microwave. The online auction platform? It hides behind its terms and conditions: "Third-party seller not verified."
By Artedusa
••13 min readThis story isn’t fiction. It happened hundreds of times in 2023, according to Artnet’s latest report, which estimates that nearly one-third of works sold at online auctions are either counterfeits or pieces with falsified provenance. Yet the market keeps growing: $12.4 billion in 2022, with an annual increase of 7% since the pandemic. So how do you navigate this digital labyrinth where every click might hide a trap? Where the promise of an artistic discovery mingles with the threat of a sophisticated scam?
Online art auctions aren’t just about budget or taste. They’re a game of patience, knowledge, and sometimes chance, where the greatest museums and amateur collectors alike can fall into the same trap. To understand how to secure your acquisitions, you first have to dive into the secret history of this market, where con artists rub shoulders with geniuses, and where a simple signature can be worth millions—or nothing at all.
01When the digital gavel replaced sandalwood
Once upon a time, in 1744, there was a London bookseller named Samuel Baker. One day, he decided to auction off the library of a deceased aristocrat, and without realizing it, invented a ritual that would span centuries: the hammer striking the podium, sealing an artwork’s fate. For two hundred and fifty years, art auctions remained a social spectacle, where people crowded into the wood-paneled rooms of Sotheby’s or Christie’s, where collectors’ whispers mingled with the rustling of glossy catalogs.
Then came the internet.
The first attempts, in the 1990s, were timid. eBay launched its "Art" category in 1995, but sales remained marginal, limited to prints and reproductions. Everything changed in 2011, when Paddle8, a platform specializing in contemporary art, made a revolutionary discovery: collectors no longer needed to travel to acquire a work. All it took was a screen, a credit card, and a little audacity.
The 2020 pandemic brutally accelerated this shift. Overnight, auction houses closed their doors, and historic firms had to reinvent themselves. Christie’s held its first 100% online sale in March 2020, with a Banksy selling for nearly ten million dollars. By 2021, Sotheby’s recorded 70% of its transactions online, compared to barely 30% before Covid. The numbers speak for themselves: in 2022, Christie’s sold $1.5 billion worth of art online, an absolute record.
But this democratization comes at a price. In the shadows of virtual sales rooms, scammers found an ideal playground. No more need for fake stamps or hand-forged documents: a simple retouched photo, an AI-generated certificate, and the trick is done. The victims? Savvy collectors, experienced investors, and even museums. In 2018, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris nearly acquired a fake Modigliani, valued at 150 million euros, before scientific analysis revealed the canvas dated from... the 21st century.
02The lying certificate: anatomy of a forgery
Imagine for a moment you’re holding a Picasso drawing in your hands. The line is sharp, the ink still seems fresh despite the decades. The certificate of authenticity, signed by a recognized expert, attests to its genuineness. Yet something feels off. Maybe it’s the signature, too perfect, as if traced with a stencil. Or those cracks on the paper, too regular, as if artificially created.
That’s exactly what a New York collector discovered in 2011 when he bought what he thought was a Rothko at an online auction. The work, sold for $8.3 million, was part of a series of fake Impressionist and Modern pieces sold by the Knoedler Gallery, one of New York’s oldest. For fifteen years, the gallery had sold forgeries with astonishing boldness, using fake certificates signed by a phantom expert, Pei-Shen Qian, a Chinese artist with no credibility. The scandal broke when a client demanded scientific analysis: the pigments used dated from the 1980s, long after Rothko’s death.
This case reveals a disturbing truth: in the world of online auctions, certificates of authenticity are often not worth the paper they’re printed on. So how do you tell the real from the fake?
The answer lies in three words: provenance, science, and instinct.
A solid provenance is the first line of defense. A work that suddenly appears on the market without a documented history should immediately raise suspicions. Catalogue raisonnés—those exhaustive volumes listing all known works by an artist—are essential tools. For a Monet, you’d refer to Daniel Wildenstein’s catalogue; for a Picasso, to Christian Zervos’s. Databases like Artnet or Artprice allow you to trace previous sales and verify if the work has been exhibited in reputable museums or galleries.
Science, then, offers irrefutable answers. X-ray analyses reveal hidden layers of paint, while infrared spectroscopy identifies the pigments used. A 17th-century canvas can’t contain phthalocyanine blue, a pigment invented in 1935. Similarly, natural cracks, which form over time, have an irregular appearance, unlike the artificial fissures created by drying paint in an oven.
Finally, instinct plays a crucial role. A work that’s too perfect, a signature too neat, colors too vivid—these are all warning signs. As the great expert in ancient art Federico Zeri once said: "A forgery is like a woman who’s too made-up: you always end up seeing the flaws."
03Online platforms: guardian angels or wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Not all online auction houses are equal. Some, like Christie’s or Sotheby’s, have implemented strict protocols to secure transactions. Others, like eBay or certain specialized marketplaces, function like digital souks where vigilance is key.
Christie’s, for example, launched its Christie’s Verify tool in 2021, an artificial intelligence capable of analyzing artwork images to detect anomalies. Sotheby’s, for its part, offers virtual reality tours, allowing buyers to "see" the work in their home before purchasing. These platforms also provide money-back guarantees in case of proven forgery—a rare safety net in the auction world.
At the opposite end, sites like online art platforms or 1stDibs operate on a marketplace model, where partner galleries sell directly to collectors. While these platforms offer a wider selection, they also carry greater risks. In 2019, a fake Chagall was sold on 1stDibs for $45,000, with a certificate of authenticity signed by an unknown "expert." When the buyer had the work analyzed, it turned out the pigments dated from the 1990s.
The choice of platform therefore depends on your profile. If you’re a beginner collector, prioritize historic houses where works are pre-verified. If you have experience and a network of experts, marketplaces can offer interesting opportunities—provided you remain extra cautious.
04The auction game: when emotion overrides reason
It’s 10:47 p.m. You’re sitting in front of your screen, a glass of wine in hand, eyes fixed on the countdown. The work you covet—a lithograph by Miró—is at 1,200 euros. Your maximum budget was 1,500. Yet when another bidder raises it to 1,300, something inside you stirs. A voice whispers: "What if it’s the last one?" You click. 1,400. Then 1,500. Then 1,600. The gavel falls. You’ve won. Or rather, you’ve lost: 100 euros over your budget, for a work you’re not even sure is authentic.
Thousands of buyers have lived this scenario. Online auctions play on a well-known psychological mechanism: the scarcity effect. By limiting thinking time and displaying ticking counters, platforms create a sense of urgency that pushes people to overbid. That’s how, in 2021, a Beeple NFT sold for $69 million, when no one really knew what it represented.
To avoid this trap, set yourself an absolute limit before starting the auction, and stick to it. Use the "proxy bidding" tools offered by some platforms, which automatically bid for you up to your ceiling. And above all, remember this golden rule: "If a work seems too good to be true, it probably is."
05Provenance: the art of telling a story
In 2007, a painting attributed to Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (nothing to do with the MoMA masterpiece), was sold at auction for $1.5 million. The work came with a certificate of authenticity signed by a recognized expert, and its provenance seemed solid: it had allegedly belonged to a Swiss collector before being acquired by a Parisian dealer.
Yet something felt off. The painting didn’t appear in any Picasso catalogue raisonné, and its provenance had a twenty-year "gap" between 1970 and 1990. When an art historian requested to consult the Swiss collector’s archives, he discovered the collector had never owned the work. The painting was a fake, and the certificate, a forgery.
This case illustrates the crucial importance of provenance. A work without a documented history is like a book without a cover: you don’t know where it came from or who read it before you.
To verify provenance, start with official sources: Catalogue raisonnés, which list all known works by an artist., Auction house archives, like those of Christie’s or Sotheby’s. et Specialized databases, like The Getty Provenance Index for ancient art, or the Lost Art Database for works stolen during World War II.
Be wary of vague provenances ("Private European collection") or unexplained time gaps. A 19th-century work that only appears on the market in 2020 should immediately raise suspicions.
06When science unmasks forgers
In 2015, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam made a troubling discovery. A painting attributed to Rembrandt, The Old Man in Military Costume, had cracks that were too regular to be natural. An X-ray analysis revealed the canvas had been artificially dried in an oven—a technique used by forgers to age paintings. Worse still: beneath the paint layer, experts discovered a hidden self-portrait painted by one of Rembrandt’s students. The work was downgraded, and its valuation dropped from 20 million to... zero.
This story shows just how much science has become the enemy of counterfeiters. Today, museums and auction houses use a range of tools to authenticate works: Carbon-14 dating: to verify the age of canvases and papers., Infrared spectroscopy: to analyze pigment composition., X-rays: to reveal hidden paint layers. et Crack analysis: natural fissures have an irregular appearance, unlike artificial cracks.
These techniques have exposed famous fakes, like the Reclining Nude attributed to Modigliani in 2018, painted on a 21st-century canvas, or the Knoedler Gallery’s fake Rothkos, whose pigments dated from the 1980s.
If you’re considering buying an expensive work, don’t hesitate to consult a specialized laboratory. Companies like Art Analysis & Research in London or IFAR in New York offer scientific analyses for a few hundred euros—a negligible investment compared to the price of a forgery.
07The future of auctions: between blockchain and deepfakes
In 2021, a collector bought a Beeple NFT for $69 million. In 2022, another acquired a fake Bored Ape for $2.2 million. Between these two extremes lies the future of online auctions: a world where technology can both secure transactions... and create new forms of fraud.
Blockchain, often presented as the miracle solution, allows for the infallible tracing of an artwork’s history. Platforms like Verisart or Codex use this technology to certify works’ authenticity. Yet even blockchain has its limits: it can’t guarantee a work is original, only that it was recorded at a given time.
Conversely, artificial intelligence opens the door to new forms of forgery. In 2023, artists began using tools like MidJourney to generate "original" works in the style of deceased masters. How do you distinguish a real Van Gogh from an AI-generated fake? The question remains open.
One thing is certain: the online art market will continue to evolve, and with it, scammers’ techniques. To stay safe, you’ll need to combine vigilance, knowledge, and technology. As the great art dealer Ambroise Vollard once said: "Buying art is like falling in love: it takes time, patience, and sometimes a little luck."
08Epilogue: the work that chooses you
A few years ago, a Parisian collector fell in love with a small Jean Dubuffet ink drawing offered on an online platform. The work, estimated at 5,000 euros, seemed authentic: solid provenance, certificate signed by a recognized expert, scientific analysis to back it up. Yet something held him back. Maybe it was the price, too low for a work from that period. Or that strange sensation, as if the drawing itself was whispering a warning.
He decided to do one last check. Digging through the Fondation Dubuffet’s archives, he discovered the work had been stolen in the 1980s, and its certificate was a fake. The seller? A notorious con artist, already convicted of forgery.
This story has a moral: in the world of online auctions, caution is a virtue, but instinct is a weapon. Sometimes, a work chooses you as much as you choose it. And when that happens, you have to listen to that little voice whispering: "Be careful."
Because at its core, buying art isn’t just about acquiring an object. It’s entering a story woven from light and shadow, truth and lies. And in this game, the greatest victory isn’t winning the auction... but not getting scammed.