Fakes matter – as a matter of fakes

This special issue of the Konsthistorisk Tidskrift/Journal of Art History is dedicated to research on fakes and forgeries in the early modern period. However, this topic does not only apply to what is considered true or fake, real or unreal, original or copy, but goes hand in hand with a more complex discussion on perception, history and visual identity. The definition of fake is according to The Concise Dictionary of Art Terms, “a work of art or artefact that is not genuine and is intended to deceive”. However, as the words ‘fakes and forgeries’ are often associated with crime, deceit, theft and so forth, it may come as a surprise how widely these terms are applied in the selected articles for this special issue. But why pay attention to artefacts that are not authentic and that may even have been produced for the sole purpose of deceiving an art market based on art historic expertise dealing with hugely profitable bona fide works? In , the art historian Mark Jones curated the acclaimed exhibition “FAKE?” at the British Museum. Jones edited and wrote the introduction to the groundbreaking anthology of research that was presented at the associated symposium in June , and put into words at that time why fakes do matter. The key work published within the field Why fakes matter: essays on problems of authenticity published in , discussed in a convincing way why fakes and forgeries should be of significance to art historians amongst others. The exhibition and subsequent publication created a new field of research where fakes were considered as objects that were legitimate to be studied in their own right and important for science and research. As art historians of our time, we are well aware that changes in appreciation occur, and that perspectives on originality and authenticity can change over the course of time: today’s fakes can be tomorrow’s authentic pieces. A simple example for these kinds of shifts are artefacts like coins or medals that originally were commodities for their owners which, even in a faked form, eventually would increase in value by mere aging, while they lose or at least change their original function. A more complex phenomenon that was adduced by Jones are the changes in attitude toward qualities such as authenticity and originality: while the portrait market of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was based on the main quality of a portrait being close to its subject, this quality lost relevance during the nineteenth century, when the portrait market’s prime demand implied original pieces expressing a custommade creation that could be ascribed to an individual artist. With our current understanding of changes like these, we can again appreciate the value