Forgers and ForgeriesConstable, W. G. (William George)
History
Forgers and Forgeries
Constable, W. G. (William George)
Art -- Forgeries
Nor does the forger confine his attentions to the art of the past, but
extends them to contemporary work. Constable and Corot were imitated
while they were still living; forgeries of Renoir, Degas, Picasso,
Matisse, and others are common today; while, among Americans, Winslow
Homer and Ryder fabrications circulate freely. Artists are apt to be
forgetful as to what they have produced, especially in the case of
sketches, and have been known to deny authorship of perfectly genuine
work; so that risks of confrontation are not too great. With a
contemporary artist recently dead, his work not yet fully known or
catalogued, a vogue for collecting him fanned by a skillful
entrepreneur, prices not so high as to provoke critical examination, and
with not too many genuine examples accessible for comparison, the forger
is in velvet.
The two main methods of making forgeries, manufacture and
misrepresentation, are in practice often combined; but it is convenient
to discuss them separately. The simplest type of manufactured forgery is
the straight copy, although this has considerable disadvantages. In
addition to the necessity of choosing the right materials, imitating the
right technique, and giving a proper appearance of age, the risks of
confrontation with the original are great in these days of systematic
combing of collections, aided by swift and easy travel, by photography
and widespread publication. Sometimes, the forger attempts to meet this
risk of confrontation by introducing variations into a design, so that
the forgery may pass as a version of the original. But even so,
comparison of the two is almost inevitable, with the almost equally
inevitable exposure of any defects in the copy. It is this risk that
makes forgers prefer to copy objects that are types rather than those
stamped with the individuality of some particular master. The strictly
controlled design and iconography of much Byzantine painting, and its
standardized technique, encourages modern repetition; and the putting of
one more copy on the market is not in itself likely to arouse suspicion.
Similarly, the fact that eighteenth-century Chinese potters paid homage
to those of earlier dynasties by making most admirable copies of their
work, confuses the situation in favor of the forger. Another advantage
(to the forger) of such objects is that many of them can be reproduced
by casting. With some knowledge of the materials used for the originals
and some skill in giving an appearance of age, such things as Chinese
grave figures, Greek or Near Eastern bronzes, and coins can be produced
in quantity. Sometimes, indeed, variation in the material of the cast is
an aid to deception; as in the case of Renaissance bas-reliefs, when a
cast in wax or stucco may, after some manipulation, be passed off as a
sketch for a marble original.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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