Is Restoration Forgery?

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores why in the eighteenth century the restoration of sculptures came to have the negative connotations that persist to the present day. Countering the traditional association of restoration with fraud, it argues that restorers were more transparent, professional, and aesthetically driven than is typically acknowledged. In Rome during the eighteenth century, as the scholarly understanding of ancient art grew, restorers achieved greater authenticity in terms of style and iconography. Paradoxically, many collectors and restorers would (and did) argue that restoring lost limbs or heads actually made statues more authentic, as a statue so restored came closer than a fragment to expressing the work’s true character.