Art Recognition is a Swiss technology company headquartered in

Adliswil Adliswil is a town and a municipality in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. The official language of Adliswil is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the A ...

, within the

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

, Switzerland. Art Recognition specializes in the application of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

(AI) for art authentication and the detection of art forgeries.

Overview

Art Recognition was established in 2019 by Dr. Carina Popovici and Christiane Hoppe-Oehl. Art Recognition employs a combination of

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

techniques, computer vision algorithms, and

deep neural network Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural network (machine learning), neural networks to perform tasks such as Statistical classification, classification, Regression analysis, regression, and re ...

s to assess the authenticity of artworks. The company's technology undergoes a process of

data collection Data collection or data gathering is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established system, which then enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes. Data collection is a research com ...

, dataset preparation, and training.

Academic partnerships and grants

Art Recognition has established a relationship with Innosuisse, a Swiss innovation agency, to expand its research and development initiatives. It has also formed a strategic collaboration with Nils Büttner, an art historian and professor at the

State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart The State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart (, or ABK Stuttgart) is a public fine art university in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1761 and has been located on the Weissenhof since 1946. Its campus consists of three buildings: the Altbau, ...

(ABK Stuttgart).

Notable developments

In May 2024, Art Recognition played a key role in identifying counterfeit artworks, including alleged Monets and Renoirs, being sold on

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

. Germann Auction in November 2024 became the first auction house to successfully conduct a sale of artwork authenticated entirely by artificial intelligence. As of January 2025, Art Recognition has appointed art crime expert and

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

finalist Noah Charney as an advisor.

Recognition and debates

The company was featured on the front page of

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

for its involvement in the authentication case of the Flaget Madonna, believed to have been partly painted by

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...

. A broadcast by the Swiss public television SRF covered how the algorithm can be used to detect art forgeries with high

accuracy Accuracy and precision are two measures of ''observational error''. ''Accuracy'' is how close a given set of measurements (observations or readings) are to their ''true value''. ''Precision'' is how close the measurements are to each other. The ...

. The technology developed by Art Recognition has been recognized for its role in providing a technology-based art authentication solution, compared to traditional methods..

Controversial cases

Art Recognition's AI algorithm has been applied to several high-profile and controversial artworks, sparking significant interest and debate in the art world. # Samson and Delilah at the National Gallery in London: The National Gallery's "Samson and Delilah", traditionally attributed to the artist

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...

, has also been examined using Art Recognition's AI, which has assessed the painting as non-authentic. # De Brecy Tondo Madonna. A research team from

Bradford University The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

and

Nottingham University The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

initially attributed the painting to Raphael, employing an AI face recognition software, while the AI developed at Art Recognition returned a negative result. The Bradford group's AI was trained on 49 images, whereas Art Recognition employed a larger dataset of over 100 images. #

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. His early career as a painter was inf ...

Painting Controversy: Featured in

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

, a painting attributed to Lucian Freud became a subject of dispute. Art Recognition's AI analysis played a big role in examining the painting's authenticity. #

Titian Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...

Kunsthaus Zürich The Kunsthaus Zürich is an art museum in Zurich. It is the biggest art museum in Switzerland by area and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over time by the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, a nonprofit art soc ...

: A painting attributed to Titian, housed at Kunsthaus Zürich, has been a topic of debate among art experts. The application of Art Recognition's technology offered a new perspective. Following this debate,

has announced plans to initiate a comprehensive project aimed at resolving the authenticity questions surrounding the painting. # Art Recognition has contributed to the authentication debate surrounding

The Polish Rider '' The Polish Rider '' is a seventeenth-century painting by Rembrandt, usually dated to the 1650s, of a young man traveling on horseback through a murky landscape, now in The Frick Collection in New York City, New York. When the painting was sol ...

, a painting traditionally attributed to

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

but subject to scholarly debate.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/12/01/can-ai-shed-new-light-on-how-much-of-the-polish-rider-was-painted-by-rembrandt

References

External links

*
Art magazine website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Art Recognition Companies based in the canton of Zürich Swiss companies established in 2019 Art forgery Artificial intelligence companies Authentication 21st-century introductions Data science 2019 establishments in Switzerland