Until very recently, official technical reports on works of art have been provided exclusively by art historians and were based on the criteria of style criticism. The method that has been introduced by the Hungarian National Gallery is illustrated by the report on the investigations concerning a painting that showed features resembling those of a 19th century genre picture. The problem was whether the former was a sketch by the artist himself, a copy, a forgery, or a chromolithograph. The analyses established that it was a preliminary study of the artist for his well-known painting. See also 22-399 for reference to book. -- AATA