Real or Fake #21
Sunday, 1 June 2025. Newsletter 21.
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.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Although these two drawings were made over a century apart, they have always belonged together. Both are ‘signed’ by Cornelis Visscher (1628/29 - 1658), although one is in fact a later reproduction. In 1991 the drawings were acquired by Maida and George Abrams and in 2018 they were promised as a gift to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. But which is the original and which is the later version? Why might the latter have been made and what might their shared provenance imply?
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The original, of course, is the left-hand image.
Despite the meticulous fidelity of Abraham Delfos’ copy after Cornelis Visscher’s original drawing – right down to the signature – it is unlikely that the drawing was created with the intent to deceive.
Provenance records reveal that both drawings once belonged to the influential Amsterdam collector and pioneer of drawings reproductions Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798). This shared origin and an inscription on the back suggests that van Amstel may have commissioned Delfos to copy Visscher’s drawing, which was in his collection. Delfos was known to have received commissions to copy artworks in his friends’ collections, as well as those which were coming up at auction.
Delfos, an engraver, draughtsman, and art dealer from Leiden, was instrumental in founding the city’s drawing school, Ars Aemula Naturae. Though well connected and active in Leiden’s art world, his work found little commercial success in his lifetime and has since received limited critical attention. By contrast, Van Amstel played a key role in popularising reproductive images, helping to elevate their status in the 18th century. Thanks in part to his efforts, reproductive drawings came to be viewed as autonomous artworks — a legacy for which he is recognised today.
