Forging Forgeries: Material Imitations in Eighteenth-century Visual Culture
This panel invites papers that examine visual technologies of material mimesis. There has been recent scholarly attention on “fakes” or imitation materials in Early Modern Europe, such as Pamela Smith’s Making and Knowing Project’s recreation of a recipe for imitation coral, as well as studies on the roles of artists, collectors, and amateurs and how their intentional forgeries advanced the development of connoisseurship. The eighteenth century continued the Renaissance interest in material substitutions, sometimes in order to meet market demands and to cut production costs—this in turn gave rise to original materials or methods of production. The panel hopes to unearth understudied examples of imitation and how these technologies contributed to the evolving discourse on connoisseurship, metamorphosis, and artisanal intelligence in this period. Examples include James Tassie's glass paste that imitated antique cameos, Piet Sauvage’s paintings that imitated marble bas-reliefs (which he frequently exhibited in the Salon), manuals on how to forge gemstones by coloring glass and crystals, the vogue for “Japanning” which imitated east Asian lacquer work, wooden furniture and architectural interiors painted to resemble porcelain or marble, as well as various printmaking technologies that not only reproduced different drawing media but also modes of printmaking. Submissions may thus consider specific case studies of artworks, manuals, objects, or sites, and the panel invites papers on all geographies across the long eighteenth-century, particularly submissions outside of the Eurocentric context.
Please submit an abstract of 250 words and a short bio or CV by October 8 to cabelle.ahn@gmail.com or via the form below.