**Featured in The Guardian**Caravaggio lived a violent fist of a life, but man could he paint. He is one of a handful of true revolutionaries, creating a style that was unlike anything that had come before, and was hugely influential. But he only made some 60 paintings, depending on which scholar you ask, so each is incredibly valuable. And not one has come up for auction in the last century or so. Today’s episode reveals some big surprises regarding three known versions of a painting called The Lute Player. But are all three by Caravaggio? Let’s find out in this special episode where I’m joined by British gallerist Clovis Whitfield and Art Recognition co-founder, Carina Popovici.This episode was featured in The Guardian newspaper on 27 September 2025To learn more about Clovis Whitfield, visit: http://www.whitfieldfineart.com/
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Interview with AI Expert Carina Popovici
Most episodes of this podcast will feature a special guest art expert who chooses a painting that they’d like to have analyzed—a painting with uncertain or debated authorship. We are joined by, an AI specialist who reveals the test results and we discuss them together. But here and there we’ll include an interview that is relevant to the topic of art authentication, art historical mysteries, and technologies like AI, but which steps outside of the usual format. This is one such episode. In it, I’ll be interviewing one of the founders of Art Recognition, the firm that sponsors this podcast and runs the AI image analysis tests—Carina Popovici.I wrote a feature in The Art Newspaper in December 2024 about how its analysis of The Polish Rider had solved the longstanding mystery. That was the subject of our previous episode, where my guest was Blake Gopnik. I was intrigued to learn more about AI and art analysis, and about Art Recognition in particular, which was the firm that most impressed me within this relatively young field. Many months and much research later, I was sufficiently impressed that I agreed to join Art Recognition as an advisor. This podcast series grew out of that relationship and the many mysteries it was solving. Because we’re not only going to reveal a very big, breaking news story that came from a combination of traditional research and AI analysis in the next episode. But we’ve got quite a few big news reveals planned for this season and next, so stay tuned. But first, let’s get to know the woman behind Art Recognition.To learn more about Art Recognition, click here: https://art-recognition.com/
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Is It a Rembrandt? with Blake Gopnik
This episode of Is It? dives deeply into one of art history's enduring mysteries: The Polish Rider. A star attraction at the Frick in New York, it has long confused scholars. Is it entirely by Rembrandt? Mostly? Is it derivative or even a forgery? The brilliant art historian and critic Blake Gopnik is my guest to dive into this fascinating topic and much more, including Blake's new book, "The Maverick's Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream."Blake Gopnik is not just an art critic. He is one of the most electrifying minds writing about art and artists today. You might know his name from the New York Times, The Washington Post, Artforum, The Daily Beast—the kind of publications that don’t just review art, but shape the conversation around it. Blake is also the author of the monumental biography Warhol—a 900-page deep dive into the life, myth, and mechanics of America’s most enigmatic artist. It’s a book that doesn’t just profile Warhol—it reframes him, challenges the clichés, and makes you see the man behind the silver wig with totally fresh eyes.This painting is what first brought Art Recognition to my attention: I wrote a feature in The Art Newspaper in December 2024 about how its analysis of The Polish Rider had solved the longstanding mystery. Even better, the AI analysis perfectly synced with what most scholars had already thought, providing a level of certainty that this art historical mystery was finally solved. Many months and much research later, I agreed to join Art Recognition as an advisor.In most episodes of Is It? the result of the AI analysis will only be revealed live, during the podcast, by an Art Recognition specialist...and then I discuss it with them and with my special guest expert. This episode is an outlier in that we already knew the result and therefore do not have an AI specialist appearing. My guest, Blake Gopnik, was interested in exploring this painting together, and so this is one of the only episodes without the traditional "reveal."Blake is one of my favorite authors and thinkers on art, and our discussion is wide-ranging. I highly recommend his new book, which you can order here.To see the painting featured in this episode, The Polish Rider, click here.
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Is It a Van Dyck? with Professor Nils Büttner
Is it a Van Dyck? That’s the question we seek to answer in this episode. The painting in question is one of several versions of a Portrait of Don Diego Messia Felipe de Guzman, some of which are by Anthony van Dyck. But is this one? To answer this question, my guests for this episode include Prof. Dr. Nils Büttner, a distinguished art historian specializing in the visual culture of Germany and the Netherlands from the 15th to the 17th centuries; and Alita de Feudis, an art historian affiliated with Art Recognition, a Swiss technology company specializing in AI-driven art authentication. To learn more about the picture in question, go to this website: https://art-recognition.com/case-studies/anthony-van-dyck-the-portrait-of-don-felipe-de-guzman/ To read a scholarly article by Dr. Büttner and the Art Recognition team on this picture, go to this website: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.kunstgeschichte-ejournal.net/622/3/Buettner%2C%20de%20feudis%2C%20popovici2.pdf We hope you enjoy this episode. Please subscribe if you'd like to always get the newest episodes straight away!
Is It? is a brand new podcast on art history’s mysteries. In each episode, we ask the question of whether a certain painting is by a certain famous artist. These are puzzle paintings, works that have divided and confounded scholars, sometimes for centuries. To answer this question, we bring in a guest expert, a specialist in the artist in question. And we also bring in an expert in AI authentication from Art Recognition. While our guest expert is the star of the show, we’ve also conducted a cutting edge, brand new AI analysis of the painting in question—and we’ll reveal what it says in the final part of this episode. The podcast is hosted by award-winning presenter and best-selling art historian, Professor Noah Charney. We cover suspected works by Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Van Eyck and many more. So subscribe and listen for free wherever you get podcasts to find out: Is it?
This series is sponsored by Art Recognition, a Zurich-based AI art analysis firm that tests the works featured in each episode. It is produced by Urska Charney.
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