The 1960 purchase of The Fortune Teller was subject to political complications in the world of international trade which have never fully been explained; the attribution of the painting to Georges de la Tour has resulted in even greater controversy. The author describes his research with Benedict Nicolson into the life and works of Georges de la Tour, beginning with a comparative study of the artist's signatures on documents and on paintings. Diana de Marly, a specialist in 17th-century costume, studied the de la Tour oeuvre from the perspective of anachronisms of dress and inaccuracies in the rendering of textiles; these are reported in brief. X-radiography of several of the paintings suggests that old canvases were used for rendering 20th-century forgeries. The presence of tin lead yellow has not substantiated an old date for The Fortune Teller, but indicates the lengths to which forgers went to recreate a painting of the time. The painting has been done well, but the poor drawing is seen as a stylistic give-away. An entire group of forgeries including numerous Dutch paintings has thus been identified by the hand of one artist specializing in Old Masters. -- AATA