Real client case
Real client case reviewed by ConfirmArt for Botero Dibujos, attributed or related to Fernando Botero. The public page presents selected visual evidence and a rendered report viewer without exposing the private commissioned PDF.
Selected evidence
Report structure
The drawing presents a combination of graphite and red pastel (or red pencil) applied over a textured paper support with a pronounced weave. Close-up examination of the rider, horse, and reins reveals a consistent pencil technique characterized by soft, controlled shading and evenly pressed contour lines. The graphite is applied in short, layered strokes that build volume gradually rather than through broad tonal fields.
According to the current custodian, the artwork was acquired from a local gallery in the United States, specifically through Reeves Gallery in Houston, Texas. Reeves Gallery typically sources artworks through estate sales, private liquidations, and miscellaneous secondary-market channels. At the time of sale, the gallery was unable to confirm the work's authenticity and provided no additional provenance beyond the documentation that already accompanied the piece.
Botero's equestrian imagery is one of the most persistent threads in his oeuvre from the late 1970s through the 1990s, a period in which he refined the iconic pairing of a massively volumetric horse and a compact, self-possessed rider. These works distill the artist's pursuit of "amplified" form—roundness as a vehicle for serenity and monumentality—while drawing on equestrian traditions familiar in Colombia (parades, paso fino horses, charro attire) and on European statuary that Botero studied closely in his Italia
A comparative visual and technical assessment between the presented drawing (mirrored for accurate orientation) and the authenticated Hombre a caballo (detalle) , 1997 (fig. ), reveals multiple inconsistencies in execution, draftsmanship, and material logic that strongly indicate the work is not autograph by Fernando Botero. Compositional correspondence and inversion.
The inscription " Bótero 82 " shows multiple departures from the morphology, stroke order (ductus), and rhythmic flow found in authenticated signatures from the 1980s–1990s. ), the inscription presents structural and kinetic irregularities incompatible with Botero's autograph hand. These departures are visible even without magnification and persist under side-by-side comparison with admitted signatures (Table ).
During the preparation of this report, two further works with the same Hombre a caballo motif were located in the secondary market (fig. Both are offered as works "after" or "attributed to" Botero, and both appear to repeat the identical equestrian composition seen in the authenticated drawing cited in Section . As with the present work, these examples are best understood as direct copies of Botero's design, with small additions and reinterpretations introduced by the forger.
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