Real or Fake #9

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.

In part due to the fertility of the artist’s imagination and the extensive preparatory process undertaken for the large-scale fresco works for which he is best known, this artist has proven popular with forgers over the years. Whilst the more cunning forgers might invent a stage in the preparatory process and introduce subtle deviations in composition from the finished work, this is a straight copy with an apocryphal signature. But which drawing is the original and which the copy?

Scroll to reveal the answer.

The original, of course, is the upper image. It is held in Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Domenico Tiepolo, Centaur and Faun in a Landscape, 184 x 267 mm, New York, The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Lore Heinemann, in memory of her husband, Dr. Rudolf J. Heinemann, 1997.62

Anonymous faker of Domenico Tiepolo, attributed, Centaur and Faun in a Landscape, location unknown, photograph: Luca Baroni

For an interesting overview of Tiepolo fakes from which this example was drawn, see L. Baroni, ‘Tiepolo falsificato: da Bernard Berenson a Eric Hebborn’, in M. P. Frattolin, ed., Tiepolo: I disegni, Udine, 2024, pp. 138-163.