‘Almost a clone’: How 3D-printing can reproduce multi-million-dollar masterpieces, stroke by stroke

Offering customers the chance to “live with a masterpiece,” an Austrian firm is using advanced laser scanning to recreate some of art history’s best-known paintings.

Advances in laser scanning have transformed how museums research and conserve paintings by mapping the textures, colors and dimensions of their surfaces in minute detail. Now, an innovative Austrian printmaking company is using the technology — and the rich data it produces — to offer art enthusiasts the chance to “live with a masterpiece.” Founded in 2022, Lito Masters has partnered with several major museums to carry out detailed scans of paintings by artists including Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky. It then uses 3D-printing technology to create textured, stroke-for-stroke reproductions on canvas or paper, complete with the originals’ cracks, ridges and imperfections. “It’s almost a clone,” the company’s co-founder, John Dodelande, told CNN on a video call. “So you observe the relief, the brushstrokes — everything.” Billed as a new take on lithography, the limited-edition collectibles are designed to be practically indistinguishable from the masterpieces they are based on. But even to the untrained eye, there is at least one major difference: the price. A canvas facsimile of “Bedroom in Arles” by Van Gogh, whose works have been known to fetch nine-figure sums at auction, is available for under $4,000. Elsewhere, the reproductions range in price from 450 euros ($493) for a small work on paper to 6,650 euros ($7,281) for a near-life-size canvas version of a painting from René Magritte’s “The Empire of Light” series, standing more than 4-foot-9-inches tall. Created in batches of between 150 and 999 editions per artwork, each reproduction is accompanied with a certificate of authenticity endorsed by the museum that owns the original.