Copies of Artworks the Case of Paintings and Prints* Françoise

Copies of Artworks The Case of Paintings and Prints* Françoise Benhamou Université de Rouen and MATISSE, Université de Paris I and Victor Ginsburgh ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles and CORE, Université catholique de Louvain January 2005 Abstract * The paper freely draws on our previous (2001) paper. We are grateful to M. Aarts, Me Cornette de St. Cyr, M. Cornu, D. Delamarre, M. Fouado-Otsuka, Me Lelorier, T. Lenain, M. Melot, O. Meslay, D. Schulmann, B. Steyaert, G. Touzenis, H. Verschuur and S. Weyers for very useful conversations and comments. Neil De Marchi's very careful comments on a preliminary version of the paper at the Princeton Conference led to several changes. We also thank Alvin Huisman (2001) who collected data on auctions 1976-1999. The second author acknowledges financial support from Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique. 1 "We use copies to certify originals, originals to certify copies, then we stand bewildered." Hillel Schwartz Research on copies is essentially focused on industrial activities (books, records, fashion, protection of patents) and on the incentives or disincentives to creativity resulting from copyright.1 But copies are also linked to questions concerned with value, the allocation of property rights, and regulation, three central questions in economics. In his essay on imitation in the arts, Adam Smith (1795) considers that the exact copy of an artwork always deserves less merit than the original.2 But the hierarchy between copies and originals has changed over time. So has the perception of copies by lawyers, philosophers, art historians and curators. The observation of these changes can be used to analyze art tastes and practices. The development of a market for copies is part of a wider contemporary questioning of the boundaries between originality and copy. In this paper, we analyze whether and how the various actors in the art market (artists, collectors, lawyers, museums, art historians and philosophers) contribute to valuing and creating or, at times, to killing copies. Artists and collectors have never belittled copies. Art historians think that copies have an important role in preserving the memory of lost artworks, and in educating young artists, but nevertheless consider copies better left to the reserves of museums. Lawyers are ambivalent and judicial precedents bear testimony to the ambiguous legal status of copies. Though there always was a price difference between copies and originals, the real large drop occurred sometime in the early twentieth century. Contemporary art historians and art philosophers have influenced curators and museums to organize exhibitions that make use of copies, giving them a new life. In Section 1 we define copies, contrasting them with forgeries, and reproductions. Section 2 deals with the permanent role of copies over time. Sections 3 and 4 give some insights into the price of copies (relative to originals). Sections 5 and 6 are devoted to the changing views held by art historians, philosophers and law-makers. Section 7 concludes. 1 See for example Johnson (1985), Grossman and Shapiro (1988a, 1988b). 2 Smith is just stating a view that was common in his time (and even before). 2 1. Forgeries, Copies, and Reproductions. Definitions and Boundaries Copies and Fakes Copies or reproductions differ from fakes since only the latter are produced to deceive,3 but it is often difficult to detect whether a work was made with the intention to deceive. Hoving (1996, p. 32) considers fakes those thousands of Roman sculptures of the archaizing style, produced between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D., which are copies of Greek marbles from the sixth century B.C. The fact that even Greek sculptors produced copies long before the first century B.C. makes it highly doubtful that these were intentional forgeries.4 Arnheim (1983) holds the view that we should be "grateful to get an idea of the lost Greek sculpture through Roman copies."5 After all, the celebrated Venus of Milo is also a Roman copy.6 Copies pay tribute to the original, recognize its value and draw their own value from it. Forgeries deny the aesthetic superiority of the original. Acknowledged copies are cheaper than originals. As long as they are not detected as such, fakes are as expensive as originals, and their number usually increases with the fame of the artist. Good forgers often have an extraordinary knowledge of the work of an artist and of what art history has to say about him, as was the case with Van Meegeren, the forger of Vermeer. According to Werness (1983, pp. 33-34), "the excitement with which [Van Meegeren's] Emmaus was received was partly due to this very practice [of sifting] through the art historical literature. Again, the resemblance to Caravaggio's painting of the same subject 'proved' Vermeer at least knew the painting and had possibly traveled to Italy." In short, Van Meegeren "proved" what Vermeer experts wanted to hear. Forgers exploit assumed "holes" in the work of an artist and fill them.7 Catalogues raisonnés are a tool for limiting the production of fakes. They began to appear during the nineteenth century, to "close" the oeuvre of an artist, at the very moment when the standard practice of copying in the same medium started to compete with other means such as photography (Castelnuovo, 1987). 3 It is well known and documented that even masters seem to have produced forgeries. Lucky he who, today, is the owner of the “Roman” sleeping cupid carved by Michelangelo. See Hoving (1996, p. 55). 4 Chamoux et al. (1973) give the example of the Thessalian prince Daochos who, in 335-330 B.C., preferred to order marble copies of existing bronze sculptures, rather than original marbles. 5 See the Exhibition Catalogue La fascination de l’Antique, Rome 1700-1770, Lyon: Musée de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine, 1999. 6 See Hol (2004). 7 Recall also the enormous influence the Ossianic epics, attributed to the third-century Celtic bard Ossian, had on late eighteenth-century European literature. The poems were later found to be a forgery due to Macpherson, an eighteenth-century poet. This does not prevent the Encyclopedia Britannica to sum up Macpherson’s work as follows: “The varied sources of his work and its worthlessness as a transcript of actual Celtic poems do not alter the fact that he produced a work of art which did more than any single work to bring about the romantic movement in European, and especially in German literature. Herder and Goethe were among its profound admirers.” See Koestler (1989, pp. 402-403). 3 Copies and Originals There is an imperceptible transition from "original" to "copy", and copies of paintings may be considered as satisfying substitutes for originals. Multiples cause even greater confusion than V G ! 1/2/05 11:52 AM paintings. Man Ray photographs shot, developed, and printed by him in one or several copies Comment: Remis page 20 avec Egon Schiele are considered "vintage" photographs. Such works cease to be called "vintage" if Man Ray did not print the photographs himself. The case is much more ambiguous if the photographs are printed by another photographer, under Man Ray's supervision, or without such supervision, but with his permission, or by Man Ray himself, but twenty years after the picture was shot. A print of a negative by Man Ray, that the artist did not find interesting enough to print, is not original. A photograph printed in 1990 by a collector who happened to possess a genuine negative by Man Ray is not a Man Ray. The one printed by the Centre Pompidou for an exhibition devoted to the artist is not an original either.8 Therefore, for photographs, the definition of originals and copies is rather arbitrary. The same applies to engravings and lithographs. These are obviously copies9 because, like photographs, they are not unique.10 Such prints are obviously "right" if the artist did the original engraving on the copper plate or the drawing on the stone, produced each copy in his atelier or on his own printing machine, and signed each copy. If all of these characteristics apply, but the print is not signed,11 or if the artist had the prints done by someone else but verified and signed each one, the definition of originality becomes as ambiguous as in the case of photographs.12 When the artist only did the drawing and had it copied on a copper plate by a good professional engraver, the engraving is no longer an original. The market considers that when the artist does nothing at all, but just signs the copies, as Salvador Dali did, the engraving is not an original.13 The Rodin museum in Paris is authorized to produce up to eight copies of every piece of plaster that was left by Rodin in his atelier after his death but that he did not wish to be cast in bronze. The museum sells them as genuine Rodins. The same is true for works by Arp that 8 It is even questionable whether the Centre Pompidou is allowed to produce such copies. 9 This vocabulary is not unanimously accepted. Griffiths, the keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, suggests that “the word [copy] is dangerously ambiguous... [and that] the term impression should be used of a print. The term copy in prints should be strictly reserved for a redrawing of an original by another hand. If done by the original designer, such a copy is referred to as a replica.” See Griffiths (1996, p. 139). 10 For multiples, the definition of original and copy is complex, leading Melot (1985) to formulate “the curious theorem that for objects of art, multiples can also be unique.” 11 Note that signing of prints was occasional during the eighteenth century and became more systematic after 1850 only.

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