Masterpiece or cheap copy? Art historians and AI may not agree

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To the untrained eye, there is very little difference between the three known versions of “The Lute Player.” Almost identical in composition, the paintings all depict a young, doe-eyed subject in white robes, instrument in hand and turned slightly away from the viewer. Each appears to carry Italian painter Caravaggio’s signature mastery of light and shadow.

To art historians, however, there has long been broad agreement: The versions held by Russia’s Hermitage Museum and France’s Wildenstein Collection were created by the Baroque artist, while the one at Britain’s Badminton House is merely a copy.

Artificial intelligence begged to differ. In September, Swiss AI firm Art Recognition claimed there is an almost 86% chance that Badminton House’s version is, in fact, authentic. The company’s model, which was trained to recognize markers of Caravaggio’s style, including shapes, color palettes and compositional structures, also declared (albeit with less statistical certainty) that Wildenstein’s version is likely a copy. Its analysis found a “significant divergence” between the latter painting’s “visual characteristics” and those of Caravaggio’s other works.

This is one of several bold claims made by Art Recognition since it launched seven years ago. In 2021, the company calculated a 91% chance that a painting at London’s National Gallery attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, “Samson and Delilah,” was not produced by the Baroque painter. A long-disputed painting of Vincent van Gogh at the The National Museum in Oslo, meanwhile, had a 97% chance of being genuine. The firm’s other analyses have presented more complex results: Rembrandt’s “The Polish Rider,” for instance, was partly produced by someone else, though some sections carry evidence of the Dutch painter’s hand, ranging…

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