Our Expertise

There are two areas in which we are particularly strong. One is forensics and the other is research.

Forensics allow us to check everything that can be studied, analyzed or researched, in the artwork itself including of course signatures, monograms, inscriptions, numbers and dates.

Forensics also provide the technology, the tools and the approach when it comes to everything material that can be examined, questioned and identified and where information can be obtained. When was it made and used? Where was it produced? Was it used by Renoir? Did it exist in his day? Was it available to him in Paris, in France? Is it something he used? Are there recorded works by Renoir that contain the same materials? That are made the same way? That are of the same dimensions? That were used the same way?

Most of the research we perform we do in Paris, France, because this is where the Renoir archives are located. Where a mass of reference material about him is located. Where the archives and records of his dealer Ambroise Vollard are located too. This is also were the records of all the exhibitions in which he participated or where his works were exhibited are located. This is where the manufacturers and sellers of the art supplies he used were located and where their archives are. Paris is where his lithographs were printed. Where his bronzes were cast. Finally, a large number of his paintings and drawings are exhibited in Paris museums. The place to research if a Renoir is a Renoir, is Paris.

The combination of research and forensics covers everything about the artwork that exists in writing; and within the painting itself.

When the two are put together, the result is the authentication of a new Renoir artwork.