The Guardian view on the ‘twin’ Vermeers: how to spot a masterpiece | Editorial

<p>Two versions of the Guitar Player raise important questions of attribution. In our age of fake images, authenticity in art is more vital than ever</p><p>“How do you know how much to pay if you don’t know what it is worth?” So ends <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/may/27/hayfestival2006.hayfestival#:~:text=For%20let%20me%20be%20entirely,belligerently%20profane%20work%20of%20art">Theft: A Love Story</a> by the Australian novelist Peter Carey. This scabrous riff on the slipperiness of cultural value in the international art scene asks: is a copy so good that even experts mistake it for the original painting still a fake?</p><p>Questions of authenticity and attribution are behind <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/search-news/250901-double-vision-vermeer-at-kenwood/">a new display by English Heritage at Kenwood House</a> in London to mark the 350th anniversary of the death of Johannes Vermeer. For the first time in 300 years, two nearly identical paintings of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/sep/01/vermeer-or-not-new-display-lets-visitors-decide-who-painted-almost-identical-artworks">the Guitar Player</a>, one signed by the Dutch master, the other on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and until recently believed to be a 17th- or 18th-century copy, will hang side by side. Experts have puzzled over the relationship between the two paintings for 100 years. Now visitors are being&nbsp;invited take part in a game of spot the difference&nbsp;(there are five, apparently), comparing a&nbsp;recognised masterpiece and its “twin”.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/07/the-guardian-view-on-the-twin-vermeers-how-to-spot-a-masterpiece">Continue reading...</a>