A method for determining the authorship of a picture, wherein the method comprises at least the following steps: —transferring the picture to be examined or parts of the picture to be examined with the aid of a digitizing means, in particular a scanner, into at least one data set, —analyzing the data set(s) and determining characteristic features or parts of characteristic features, in particular dots or lines or dot or line groups or patterns, contained in the data set in digitized form, wherein the characteristic features to be determined are stored in a database, —and wherein the database includes an additional associated data set for each of the stored characteristic features.