A group of scientists at the Polytechnic University of Hauts-de-France in Valenciennes have published a study introducing a newly developed method that they say will help authenticate artworks—and identify potential forgeries. The report was published in the June 2026 issue of Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties, a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on cross-disciplinary research involving physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering research.
The research, conducted by Francois Berkmans, Ludovic Nys, and Maxence Bigerelle, focuses on how surface metrology—essentially, the texture and topography of a painting’s brushstrokes—can be used like a fingerprint to zero in on the authorship of a particular artwork. Surface metrology, Berkmans explained to Artnet News, “has historically been developed mainly for industrial applications and mechanical engineering” and has not typically be applied in an art authentication context.
Berkmans and his co-authors are hoping to change that. Their study used artworks by Vincent van Gogh to demonstrate how this noninvasive technique can compare fractal dimensions via very high-resolution scans of the objects’ surfaces. Anyone with a good enough eye can see how artists handle paint or deploy brushstrokes differently, but the kinds of variation detected by Berkmans’s approach would not be noticeable with the naked eye.
The team of researchers analyzed scans of nine van Gogh paintings and used surface data to evaluate two debated artworks: one a known fake (which the method identified as a “strong outlier”) and the other a newly authenticated artwork titled Sunset at Montmajour, which was confirmed to be an authentic van Gogh in 2013 by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Berkmans told the science website Phys.org that he doesn’t expect this type of analysis to replace traditional connoisseurship; rather this new technique “gives us a measurable fingerprint of an artist’s brushwork without needing to sample or disturb the painting.”
