 The Fake Monet © 1991 Ginger Henry Geyer glazed porcelain with gold 1 ½" x 8 ½" x 11" Adaptation of Monet's The Seine at Lavacourt, 1880 No, that wonderful big Monet in the Dallas Museum of Art collection is not a fake. This inexact copy is. Not that it would fool anybody--it's made of porcelain and underglaze chalk, with a built in frame. The edgy humor seen in the "labels" on the verso is due to many years of working in museum collection management. The gilded ornate frame, a Louis XV knock-off , is irregular, and its warpage calls attention to the function of frames: to protect the surface of the painting and to give a decorative boundary between it and the viewer. Frames define reality by distinguishing it from the illusionary. Fake or not, they call us to look within the edges. The labels: Use a mitred-end cross stretcher with corner keys to support the canvas or it will sag and the paint layer may develop a bad sort of cleavage. Blessed are they which detect forgery, for they shall seek the truth. always insist upon a Proper Frame Installation or the painting might slip out and run away. Who could blame it? |