No one who has any knowledge of Ganesh Pyne's work would have entertained any doubt about the work being a fake, and indeed, the owner of the gallery he exhibits at, questioned its authenticity immediately. But in spite of that, it is alleged that a well-known professional authenticator signed a statement at the back of the work authenticating it. But when the artist was contacted by the buyer, he confirmed the work was a fake.

Recently, a similar case cropped up in Delhi. There was an auction in Delhi with a particular Souza being priced at Rs 85,000, when an exact copy of the work was selling at another show for Rs 40,000. It is not surprising that the Mumbai collector whose work was up for sale twice the price was upset. But the seller of the otherwork produced a document from F N Souza's son to say it was authentic and sold the work.

I remember how a source I could not have doubted brought me a Husain. Without giving the matter much thought, although I felt the hand that had done the work was too unsure, I pressed it on to a gallery owner, who luckily, showed it to the artist who confirmed it to be a fake.

What should one learn from this experience? First, one should steer clear of a work by a living artist whose authenticity is assured by someone else. After all, if an artist is alive, where is the necessity of getting it authenticated by another person?

The situation is worse where the artist is dead or in the case of antique art. Recently, when I was in Jaipur for a seminar, Kirpal Singh Shekhawat, the eminent artist, told me how a particular copyist had duped even Karl Khandalawala and Kapila Vatsayana. And when the news broke that the work was a fake, they wrote a strong letter saying it was authentic. The fact is that collectorsshould insist on the words ``attributed to'' before the name of the artist if there is no irrefutable proof that the work is of a particular artist. Neither provenance nor an authentication by a third party should be regarded as the proof of the authenticity of a work. For that objective, evidence is required. And the buyer must be convinced of it beyond a doubt.

Also, the collector must do his homework. He must study the brush-strokes, the drawing technique, the particular choice of colour and an approach to competition. Many of these things are as fool-proof as fingerprints in the work of an artist. And any collector who masters these details will be well-served.

For those who do not have the time to do this, the best bet is to concentrate on living artists. There are a considerable number of them today. And many of them will survive in history, like M F Husain or V S Gaitonde; others like Vivan Sundaram, Arpana Caur, Anupam Sud, or Arpita Singh will be remembered for their radical expression,while the lyrical works of artists like Ganesh Pyne, Neeraj Goswami, Paresh Maity and Neeraj Bakshi are bound to grow in popularity with time.

Also, works of living artists , even well-known ones, are relatively inexpensive. An exhibition worth noting in this respect is that of Latika which was being held at the British Council recently. At that exhibition, one of her outstanding works Fields, a large bronze casting , is priced at Rs 3 lakh. This work is definitely of the quality one hopes will be seen in some state collection one day. But for the average buyer , ceramic sculptures like Landscape(Rs 10,000), Ladakh Landscape II (Rs 15,000) and Growth (Rs 20,000) are neither over-priced nor beyond one's pocket. For the discerning collector, there is Tree III, a fusion of bronze and ceramics. This work is both technical and a complex organic form which would embellish art collection.