Real or Fake

Sunday, 1 October 2023. Newsletter 1.

Can we fool you? The term “fake” may be slightly sensationalist when it comes to old drawings. Copying originals and prints has formed a key part of an artist’s education since the Renaissance and with the passing of time the distinction between the two can be innocently mistaken.

Less innocent however are the owners who have bought copies and miraculously sold them as originals. Equally culpable are the artists whose intention it has always been to deceive. Famous examples include the 18th Dutch artist Karel la Fargue, whose copies after Old Masters contained counterfeit signatures, and the 20th century British forger Eric Hebborn, who claimed to have made over 1,000 drawings in the style of Old Masters, many of which are still in circulation today. Caveat emptor!

So, can you tell which is the original here and which is the copy? For a bonus point: name the artist and the sitter.

Scroll for more information.

The original, of course, is on the right (the lower image if you are viewing on mobile). It is held in the Staedel Museum, Frankfurt (inv. no.: 789 Z).

Bonus Point: The artist is Sir Anthony van Dyck and the sitter, his fellow artist, Adam de Coster.

On the left ‘an early copy after the original in Frankfurt which is a study for the portrait engraved by Pieter de Jode’, British Museum, London (inv. no.: 1895,0915.1071)