The Gentle Art of Faking: A history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times up to the present dayNobili, Riccardo
History
The Gentle Art of Faking: A history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times up to the present day
Nobili, Riccardo
Art -- Forgeries; Collectors and collecting; Forgery of antiquities
It is, however, not unusual to see a faked piece of Sèvres imitating
the work of the end of the eighteenth century wrongly marked as to
date, the faker having evidently copied the mark from an original,
unaware that it represented a date as well. This incredible ignorance
can only be explained by the fact that many of these clever imitators,
are artists altogether unacquainted with any information outside their
imitative art. There are also other difficulties in the imitation of
Sèvres and its marks, more especially the pieces of the above series,
of which the faker appears to be unaware. Beside the factory mark, in
the alphabet series particularly, there is always the special mark of
the artist who did the decoration. These marks are generally not very
conspicuous, initials, dots, lines, etc., and belong to specialists,
miniature portrait painters, landscapists or simple decorators. By
copying the old marks mechanically without knowing the information
carried by the artist’s initials or marks, the faker is liable to
attribute a piece of faked landscape painting to a portraitist and vice
versa. Errors of this kind are more common than is generally supposed.
In faked china there is no question of patina or devices by which to
confer an appearance of age to the piece, nor of artificial breakages
for, by a freak of connoisseurship and contrary to faience, repaired
china has lost in a great many cases all artistic and monetary value.
We now turn to glassware and enamels as bearing a certain affinity in
the domain of faked art and antiquities with the glazed pottery already
illustrated.
The museum of Saint-Germain contains specimens of faked Roman glass
with iridescent effect produced by the queer scheme of sticking fish
scales to one side, which as every one knows are iridescent. A most
naïve form of faking to which later progress in the grand and artistic
profession of duping unwise collectors hardly renders it necessary for
imitators to have recourse.
Phœnician glass, the little scent bottles, the so-called lachrymatories
or tear-bottles, furnish a large source of profit to the faker. They
do not command high prices, and appeal to the less fastidious class of
collectors, tourists, and are sure of finding purchasers. Interment in
earth or manure gives the desired iridescent quality to the glass in
time.
From these antique types we will proceed to others of more recent times
which demand more care and skill to imitate, not so much on account
of the art as the peculiar defects of certain kinds. While Cologne
distinguishes herself with imitations of specimens of old glass, the
so-called product of excavation, and other cities of Germany reproduce
old national types, Italy has revived old Murano with a certain amount
of success, as well as various kinds of Quattrocento and later samples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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