Review of fakes Mark Jones: Fake? The Art of Deception
Attractive museworthy well-informed and well-illustrated catalogue, June 26, 2010
The career of the greatest and most pernicious of all nineteenth century forgers, John Payne Collier (1789-1883), was built on this obsession. [Mark Jones says the obsession with signatures, marks, authentication was a humanist thing. Jones hasn't considered intentional corruption: it is possible that forgers wanted to change the text of anything critical of Jews. - RW] His vast output has corrupted, perhaps permanently, the record of the texts of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. His insertions in Philip Henslovve's Diary, his invention of the Old Corrector' whose 'contemporary' improvements were written in the margins of a Second Folio (1632) of Shakespeare, the similar emendations to the 1611 Spenser which bore Michael Drayton's 'signature' - all these were products of Collier's agile hand, but still greater command of his authors' sense. The Collier controversy rumbled on throughout his long life, and is not dead. There is no exhibit here, for the watchful skill and enmity of 'the Keeper of Manuscripts', Sir Frederic Madden (1801-73), kept Collier's artefacts out of the British Museum.
From Fake?: The Art of Deception (1990, British Museum), edited by Mark Jones. — Archive.org has a full colour scan of the book (University of California Press)
1990 large-format paperback, published by the British Museum. I bought a copy when it was sold off as a remainder; the prices quoted here seem very high. Lavishly illustrated in b/w and colour. Over 330 numbered entries, some multiple. Most of the things discussed are illustrated in this book. They seem clearly happiest with the 19th century, many of their exhibits being from their own collections; very few 20 century forgers are represented (for example Eric Hebburn wasn't known of, then, though his work is here). (Since writing this, I found Thomas James Wise (1859-1937) mentioned in passing in Ellic Howe's The Black Game (pubd 1982), but I haven't checked if either is in Jones). About 100 people contributed.
It's written in direct British English and clearly aimed at the public. The contents page doesn't include all the detail; on leafing through, the top right corner has handy running titles on monkish forgeries, political forgeries, science, and the more predictable artworks—faked etchings, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, jewellery, coins, watches, furniture, carpets, antiquities from the remote past.
We soon find Beringer's fossils baked by his students, Dawson and Piltdown, the Zinoviev letter, replicas, passports, stamps, African masks, fairies at the bottom of a garden. John Logie Baird's televisual apparatus was a reconstruction and in any case not important. We have literary forgeries including of course Ossian.
Here's a bare listing; introductory essays -- WHY FAKES? Mark Jones / FORGING THE PAST David Lowenthal / TEXTUAL FORGERY Nicolas Barker
Then the catalogue...
1 WHAT IS A FAKE?
2 REWRITING HISTORY
3 THE LIMITS OF BELIEF: RELIGION, MAGIC, MYTH AND SCIENCE
4 FAKING IN THE EAST
5 FAKING IN EUROPE FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE 18TH CENTURY
6 THE 19TH CENTURY: THE GREAT AGE OF FAKING
7 FAKING IN THE 20TH CENTURY
8 THE ART AND CRAFT OF FAKING: COPYING, EMBELLISHING AND TRANSFORMING
9 THE SCIENTIFIC DETECTION OF FAKES AND FORGERIES
10 THE LIMITS OF EXPERTISE
Much material on the motives of forgers—to make money (often, or perhaps usually, to feed a demand—modern Chinese fossil fakes illustrate this), to gain fame, to push some obsession or aim. The authors estimate 5% of the current art/ artefact sales to be faked. They don't generally consider the deeper issues—forgeries at the basis of Christianity, forgeries in effect of the word of Allah, forgeries of medical notes to avoid legal action, forged TV information, faked information to start wars.