Cathy's Art Diary

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 ...

Fascinating exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery discussing fakes in their collection. The narrative discussed the nature of copies, some being part of artistic practice but other produced to deceive. It talked about the motivation of forgers for money and a desire to fool the experts. It also looked at how owners often faked signatures to increase the value of work as well as dealers who added false collectors marks for the same reason. The show was over two floors with drawings on one and painting and sculpture on the other. The explanations of the work were clear and told some wonderful stories however there was no signage to the show and minimal indication that it was on two floors. I only found one section as I popped to see if there were any displays in the project space. I was intrigued to see Han Van Meegeren’s fake of “The Procuress” which appears in the background of a few Vermeer paintings. Meergeren was famous for selling fakes to the Nazis. I also loved the story of ...