The Art of Imitation

Intriguing online lecture from the British Museum introducing a travelling exhibition on ‘inauthentic objects’.

Tom Cummins led us through the themes of the show telling us some of the fascinating stories of the objects included. He outlining all the different reasons objects are inauthentic from the obvious one of fakes, through copies made for study, positive uses of copies to replace or enhance original pieces and overly restored pieces.

I knew some of the stories but my favourite, which I hadn’t known before, was that of the Risley Park Lanx, which had been known via a drawing from the 18th century but which reappeared in an auction in 1991 however it was proved to be a fake made by Shaun Greenhalgh based on the drawing.

I was also interested to hear how 3D printing had been used at the Hieroglyphic Stairway at Palenque in Mexico to basically produce a cover for it based on an 1891 photograph to both protect it and to show its condition over 100 years ago as it has already corroded more.

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