Abstract

The topic of art forgery draws attention in many quarters: major art fraud schemes make big news, books are written that bring forgers fame, the buyers and sellers of art look for assurance they are getting the genuine article, authentication specialists strain to spot phony items, museums present special exhibitions of forgeries, and theorists tackle the topic on occasion ranging from a postmodern perspective extolling the virtues of forgery to more traditional concerns about its ontological status. The dark side of the art world is often brought into the light. Forgery is a commonly, if uncomfortably, recognized force. It might be assumed, then, that the meaning of the term “forgery” is uniformly established:...