Jehane Ragai Quotes

Egyptian chemist

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Jehane Noureldin Ragai (Arabic: جيهان نور الدين رجائي) (born in Cairo, Egypt) is an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the American University in Cairo (AUC). She is the author of the two editions of The Scientist and the Forger. The first edition, published in 2015 by Imperial College Press, was translated into Korean. The second edition, published in 2018 by World Scientific Publishing, was translated into Chinese.

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Alternative Names: Jehane Noureldin Ragai

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Authenticity is important on many fronts. Forged works in the arts provide a distorted art-historical understanding of the artist’s oeuvre.

For a robust profile of an artwork (I am concentrating here on paintings), there needs to be an input from the expert connoisseur, the art historian, as well as the scientist.

The connoisseur will describe the style and the technique of the artwork attributed to a given artist. If asked to judge the authenticity of the work, the brushwork, style, and composition have to be consistent with those of the purported artist. Furthermore, there needs to be an examination as to whether or not the chronology of the painter’s own artistic development is followed.

If it is revealed as a forgery, it loses its hold on the viewer. Societal pressures, as well as snobbery, also play a role with regard to the importance of authenticity.

The profile of the painting is completed by the scientist who, using appropriate tools, will examine the surface craquelure (the network of cracks in the paint or varnish) as well as its fluorescence properties, analyze the underdrawings, determine the nature of the pigments and binding materials, date the canvas, and also date the frame.