Introductory description

This module has been designed to introduce students to the critical evaluation of visual and documentary evidence through a discussion of works of art that have been revealed or are polemically considered to be fakes. It will be team-taught to introduce students to the range and presentation methods of the members of the department.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Introduction: Restoration or Replication?
Reproduction, Revival, Forgery
Technical Analysis: An Anti-Forgery?
Archives of Forgeries
The Forger as Artist?
The Architectural Simulacrum
Appropriation, Authorship, Copyright
The Real/Fake Debate
Forgery and Connoisseurship

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the term authenticity
• Demonstrate an understanding of the difference between copy, replica and forgery
• Understand the relationship between fake and mass culture
• Present an argument, initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
• Ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• Show understanding of diverse viewpoints
• Familiarity with essential ICT skills
• Ability to collaborate effectively with others
• Ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• Ability to formulate a sustained argument
• Think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context
• Demonstrate sophisticated visual analysis
• Demonstrate bibliographical skills at an appropriate level

Indicative reading list

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (London: Penguin, 2008).
Lynn Catterson, Finding, Fixing, Faking, Making: Supplying Sculpture in ‘400 Florence (Todi: Ediart, 2014).
Leah R. Clark, “Transient Possessions: Circulation, Replication, and Transmission of Gems and Jewels in Quattrocento Italy,” in Journal of Early Modern History 15 (2011):185–221.
Bruce Cole and Ulrich Middledorf: “Masaccio, Lippi, or Hugford?,” in Burlington Magazine 113 (1971):500–507.
Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann, “Antiquarianism, the History of Objects, and the History of Art before Winckelmann,” in Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001):523–41.
Jonathon Keats, Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Joris Kila and Marc Balcells, eds., Cultural Property Crime (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014).
Thierry Lenain, Art Forgery: The History of a Modern Obsession (London: Reaktion Books, 2011).
Tomas Loch, “The Changing Meaning of Copies: Citations and Use of Plaster Casts in Art from the Renaissance to the Beginning of the 20th Century,” in Copia e invención (Valladolid: Museo Nacional de Escultura, 2013):107–39.
Ken Perenyi, Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger (New York: Pegasus, 2012).
David A. Scott, Art: Authenticity, Restoration, Forgery (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archeology Press, 2016).
Walter Stephens, “When Noah Ruled the Etruscans: Annius of Viterbo and his Forged Antiquities,” in MLN 119 (2004):201–23.

Subject specific skills

• demonstrate an understanding of the term authenticity
• demonstrate and understanding of the difference between copy, replica and forgery
• understand the relationship between fake and mass culture
• demonstrate sophisticated visual analysis
• demonstrate critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context

Transferable skills

• present an argument, initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
• ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• familiarity with essential ICT skills
• ability to collaborate effectively with others
• show understanding of diverse viewpoints
• ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• ability to formulate a sustained argument
• think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate bibliographical skills at an appropriate level