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Authenticity: Overview

Resources about the concept of authenticity and the process of authentication.

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Summon

 


Conservation work in burial chamber in Church at Suceviţa
Monastery, Romania, 2006. Source: CERECS ART S.R.L.
via Wikipedia (edited). Licence.

 

This guide lists resources for studying the following areas:

  • authentication by connoisseurship
  • authentication by provenance
  • authentication by technical analysis
  • concepts of authenticity
  • conservation and authenticity
  • forgery

 

Summon is usually the best starting point for finding articles, books and dissertations. 

 

You may also want to run supplementary searches in two other databases:

 

Sales catalogues may contain much relevant material, as auction houses are eager to make the case for attributions as credibly as possible.  They may include provenance information, summaries of connoisseurs' conclusions, and reports of technical analyses: though of course they be selective with regard to the latter two. 

Oxford University Press offers these useful resources: