A colleague alerts me to a new publication edited by the Academic Director of Sotheby’s. It’s called Art and Authenticity, from Ashgate Press. In a climate in which connoisseurship is a dirty word, the editors of the book still see the validity of the practice, though they are wary of placing too much trust in scientific testing.
“Historically, the idea of scientific verification has arisen as a reaction against the perceived excesses of the connoisseurial tradition, a tradition which has fallen from favour over the last 50 years. The idea of individual 'expert knowledge' rests uneasily in the current climate. However, recent attempts by experts to develop definitive scientific methods for authenticating artworks are also proving to be problematic. Connoisseurship, it will be argued, still has its role to play within these debates. “
Hopefully, I should be able to check this out sometime- as it sounds timely.