Scattering transform and sparse linear classifiers for art authentication

Abstract Recently, a novel signal-processing tool was proposed, the scattering transform, which uses a cascade of wavelet filters and nonlinear (modulus) operations to build translation-invariant and deformation-stable representations. Despite being aimed at providing a theoretical understanding of deep neural networks, it also shows state-of-the-art performance in image classification. In this paper, we explore its performance for art authentication purposes. We analyze two databases of art objects (postimpressionist paintings and Renaissance drawings) with the goal of determining those authored by van Gogh and Raphael, respectively. To that end, we combine scattering coefficients with several linear classifiers, in particular sparse l1-regularized classifiers. Results show that these tools provide excellent performance, superior to state-of-the-art results. Further, they suggest the benefits of using sparse classifiers in combination with deep networks.