Forgery
Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful mis-attributions. In the 16th century imitators of Albrecht DÃÂürer's style of printmaking improved the market for their own prints by signing them "AD", making them forgeries.In the 20th century the art market made forgeries highly profitable. There are widespread forgeries of especially valued artists, such as drawings meant to be by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse.
This usage of 'forgery' does not derive from metalwork done at a 'forge', but it has a parallel history. A sense of "to counterfeit" is already in the Anglo-French verb forger "falsify."
Forgery is one of the techniques of fraud, including identity theft. Forgery is one of the threats that have to be addressed by security engineering.
A forgery is essentially concerned with a produced or altered object. Where the prime concern of a forgery is less focused on the object itself— what it is worth or what it "proves"— than on a tacit statement of criticism that is revealed by the reactions the object provokes in others, then the larger process is a hoax. In a hoax, a cultural meme, such as a rumor, or a genuine object "planted" in a concocted situation, may substitute for a forged physical object.
Topics in forgery:
- Art forgery
- Tom Keating
- Michelangelo's 'Cupid'
- Dürer's imitators
- 'Etruscan' warriors, Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The 'Cellini Cup'
- Samson ceramic forgeries
- Furniture faking
- Camille Corot's imitators
- Han van Meegeren's Vermeerss
- Eric Hebborn
- Literary forgery - these literary forgeries all had some affect on the course of cultural history. Other literary forgeries, such as the Hitler diaries, briefly achieve wide notoriety, without affecting subsequent history; they are brought together as literary hoaxes.
- Epistle to the Laodiceans
- Theology of Aristotle
- Ademar of Chabannes' forged Life of St. Martial
- Ossianic poems
- The Salamander Letter, which offered an alternative account of Joseph Smith's revelation of the Book of Mormon.
- Relic forgery - It is not the efficacy of a relic that is in question, but only its provenance.
- cf True Cross
- cf Shroud of Turin
- cf Book of Mormon
- Archeological forgery
- Discoveries of Shinichi Fujimura
- James Ossuary
- Piltdown Man
- Moses Shapira
- Tiara of Saitapharnes, Louvre
- Lady of Elche
- See also Kensington runestone controversy
External link
References: Robert Cohon, Discovery & Deceit: archaeology & the forger's craft Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum, 1996 Oscar Muscarella, The Lie Became Great: the forgery of Ancient Near Eastern cultures, 2000
- Counterfeiting: coins, currency and postage stamps
- False documents
- Donation of Constantine
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- see also Vinland map controversy
External links