The processes of restoration, collaboration, and appropriation all involve more than one person in the creation of an artwork. Still another variation on cocreation is the posthumous production of works whose nature is to be made in stages. Prints and sculptural casts are begun by artists who turn over their works to other parties for the final stage of production. What happens when that final stage extends beyond the named artist’s lifetime? Posthumous casting and printing are generally regarded as acceptable provided that certain conditions are met, although just what those conditions are has been debated, and some critics hold firmly against any works bearing an artist’s name being claimed as original if they were made after the artist’s death. Questions arise over authenticity versus inauthenticity and degrees of authenticity, based on factors including when production occurred, the legal and moral right to produce from original materials, details of the production process, and whether a new execution of an artwork is identical to the first one or bears changes (in what ways and to what degree).
One of the most celebrated controversies over authenticity in post-humous production lies with the bronze sculptures of Edgar Degas. Best known in his day for his paintings, Degas also made sculptures of wax, clay, and plastiline, with wire armatures and filler materials that included pieces of wood, cotton batting, paintbrush handles, ropes, and cork. These works were makeshift and functioned as studies or thumbnail sketches helpful for the artist in conceiving forms, rather than as finished products. They were unsigned, and the only one shown publicly during the artist’s lifetime was Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen. No bronzes were made, but evidence shows that the artist did work occasionally in plaster, both modeled and cast, and there are reports that several of his plaster statuettes were placed in a display case in his home.126 After the artist’s death in 1917, 150 sculptures, many of them in disrepair, were found in his studio, and his heirs contracted with the Hébrard Foundry to cast seventy-three of them in bronze. Twenty-two sets were made between 1919 and 1936, and the bronzes were sold to collectors and institutions. The wax figures, reported to have been destroyed, were uncovered in 1955, and then sold to Paul Mellon, who donated most of them to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. A set of master models (in bronze) made for use in casting was purchased by Norton Simon for his collection, which eventually became the Norton Simon Museum.127
Today, the Degas bronzes are among the best-known sculptures in the world, with a number of them selling at auction over the last two decades for prices ranging into the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars.128 The ballerinas, horses, and other figures are key holdings in major museums and have been featured in traveling exhibitions in many countries. And they have inspired reproductions sold in gift shops. But are they truly originals? Various scholars have weighed in against that status, while curators often avoid the issue of authenticity even when providing historical information about the production of the bronzes. One concern is over authorization for casting. Degas’s heirs were legal owners of the figures from which the bronzes were made and in a position to control their disposition. However, the process occurred against the artist’s intent. He was opposed to transferring his works to bronze, believing that it was “too great a responsibility” in a medium that “is so very indestructible” and “for eternity.”129 Instead, his purpose in sculpting was to work with a material having the plasticity to make continual changes, which he did easily in wax. In a letter to a critic he is quoted as saying,
My sculptures will never give that impression of completion that is the ultimate goal of the statue-makers trade and since, after all, no one will ever see these efforts, no one should think of speaking about them, not even you. After my death all that will fall apart by itself, and that will be better for my reputation.130
Critics have asserted that Degas’s expectation was violated.131 At issue is the moral right (different than property rights, which are covered under copyright law) of artists to a claim on their creations postmortem. In current legal terms, the answer varies by location. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (177 signatory countries)132 sets international standards stipulating that authors are protected against the creation of works prejudicial to their honor or reputation, but extension of that right after death is unclear. Under the US Visual Artists Rights Act, the right exists for the duration of an artist’s lifetime, while in Germany it extends simultaneously with copyright (seventy years after an artist’s death), and in France the right is perpetual.133 These stipulations are from late in the twentieth century, long after the Hébrard casting of the Degas bronzes, their sale, and their enshrinement in art history.
The historical inertia has carried the Degas sculptures to iconic status worldwide. This circumstance lends support to the argument that countering the moral right of the artist is justified by the benefit provided to the common good. Millions of viewers have been privy to key artworks that would have been denied to them otherwise, and art history is enriched. What the public desires and finds beneficial may outweigh the aesthetic perspective of a given artist toward posterity, particularly when the destruction of many works lies in the balance. This argument for cultural benefit, however, although pertinent to the preservation of the original wax figures and to the production of bronzes based on the waxes, does not pertain to labeling the bronzes as originals. It is the labeling that critics want changed. Recognizing that the genie has long been out of the bottle and provides an asset to history, they ask for an honest explanation of the nature of the bronzes derived from Degas.
Classifying the sculptures begins with recognizing that the wax figures Hébrard received to prepare for casting were in disrepair, with the process of deterioration Degas envisioned having already begun. They required refurbishing to be ready for conversion to bronze. What the foundry produced, then, were sculptures altered from their original images. With the waxes ready for use, a set of molds was made from them to cast duplicates in wax, allowing the original waxes to be retained while the new set was used in the lost wax process for another set of molds that was poured with bronze. The resulting sculptures were then treated as models from which molds were made and poured with bronze for the final product. With each successive cast, clarity of details was jeopardized, as explained by Degas scholar Gary Tinterow: “The virtue of saving the original sculptures extracted a cost on the manufacture of the final edition of bronzes . . . Incidental details . . . appear indistinct or blurred. Even the models lack much of the liveliness evident today in the original waxes.”134 And each time the bronzes cooled, they were subject to standard 2 percent shrinkage. The final product, then, was a copy of a copy of a copy with alterations to the image. In effect, the renowned bronzes are aftercasts (surmoulages), with this status in itself being enough in the eyes of many to rule against a claim of authenticity. As stated by the College Art Association in the United States, “In our opinion, a bronze made from a finished bronze, unless under the direct supervision of the artist, even when not prohibited by law and authorized by the artist’s heirs or executors, is inauthentic.”135 And making a potential judgment of authenticity even more difficult is that there was an unauthorized rendering of a sculpture from one material to another. Again, the College Art Association takes a forceful position that
When the artist’s heirs or executors cast the work in a new medium other than that clearly intended by the artist as the final version of the work . . . in the absence of authorization from the artist, this form of moulage should also be considered unethical. . . . those responsible for this new form of reproduction have the serious responsibility of proving without doubt that they are carrying out the explicit intentions of the artist at the time of his or her death.136
The authenticity of the Degas bronzes is problematic in several ways: they were produced against the artist’s wishes and with alterations due to repairs, casting involved multiple repetitions of models, and there was a change of medium. The iconic works have been given a pass by forces in the art establishment wanting to preserve the cachet of the famous sculptures, although there are critics who question their authenticity. The bronzes are not, however, the only Degas sculptures to draw attention over the claim to be authentic. Coming onto the scene nearly a century later was a different set of bronzes that rivals those from Hébrard and claims a status as being more original. In the 1990s Leonardo Benatov, owner of the Valsuani foundry in Paris, began producing selected Degas bronzes from a set of seventy-four plaster casts corresponding to the Hébrard casts, which he said were in the foundry’s inventory when he purchased it in 1980. In 2005, he engaged New York dealer Walter Maibaum to sell full sets of the bronzes, while art historian and dealer Gregory Hedberg provided his expertise in attesting that the plaster casts were made during Degas’s lifetime from the artist’s wax figures.137 Full sets of the Valsuani sculptures sold for prices said to be around $7 million,138 far less than the value of the Hébrard bronzes but far more than mere reproductions.
If the plasters are truly of lifetime vintage, they are the most original of all casts of Degas’s wax figures, and bronzes made from them are more original than the Hébrard bronzes, which derive from posthumously made bronze models. However, they have provoked much controversy. Generally, Degas scholars have declined to pronounce the Valsuani sculptures as authentic, while the dealers representing them have built a case in their favor and museums in several countries have featured them in exhibitions. Although there has been little movement from either side, one expert who had opposed authenticity announced a change of mind in 2016. Most opponents have been quiet out of concern they might be sued for damaging the sculptures’ marketability.139
The case for the authenticity of the Valsuani plasters notes that some of them are a better match than the corresponding Hébrard bronzes to photos taken of Degas’s waxes just after his death, which places the plasters in closest proximity to what the waxes looked like before they underwent restoration treatment in preparation for the Hébrard bronzes. Various measurements show the plasters to be slightly larger than the Hébrard works, demonstrating that they could not have been made from them because if they were there would have been shrinkage. Further, scientific tests done to determine the age of the plasters point to an early (closer to Degas’s lifetime) rather than later date. When fibers embedded in one of them were analyzed, they were determined to be pre-1955. And the components in the plaster material of one of the sculptures was determined to be similar to that of a Rodin plaster from the artist’s lifetime (both he and Degas died in 1917) and different than a modern sculpture (1990s) when they were compared. Using these factors as support for dating the plasters to Degas’s lifetime, proponents of their authenticity suggest that they were made from the Degas waxes by his friend and colleague Albert Bartholomé at a time when the artist was still making changes in them and before they took on the final form found after his death.140
Opponents of the claim that the plasters were made from early versions of Degas’s waxes find the scientific testing to show only roughly that they were made before 1955, and not that they were made during the artist’s lifetime. Provenance is lacking, so the explanation by proponents of who made the plasters is merely conjecture. And measurements showing that they are not made from the Hébrard bronzes do not determine their origin. Further, since the seventy-four Valsuani figures correspond to the same seventy-four wax figures that were preserved and cast by Hébrard, and many more figures would have been available to choose from in Degas’s lifetime, it follows logically that the Valsuani works derived from the Hébrard list. Proponents, however, contend that Bartholomé, having made the plasters, would have advised Degas’s heirs about which waxes to preserve and would have followed the same list for selecting the plasters. Regarding the visual differences between various Valsuani plasters and the Hébrard bronzes to which they correspond, opponents do not accept that this circumstance occurred through changes Degas made in the waxes over time. Little Dancer is cited as an example, noting that drawings Degas made (c. 1880) of the girl who modeled for the sculpture show her to be of the same build as the girl in the iconic bronzes and unlike the one in the Valsuani plasters, and that difficult and dramatic changes would have to have been made to result in the body and pose of the Valsuani figure.141
Dispute over the plasters is ongoing. Perhaps in the future science will be able to provide accurate dating for them. With or without that evidence, where will the weight of opinion by Degas experts lie? Will it shift to accumulate support for authenticity? Another factor involves the decisions museums make that collectively produce inertia in determinations of authenticity. Various museums have exhibited the Valsuani Degas sculptures, but it would be a significant step for them to spend large sums (which original Degas artworks command) to purchase the works for their collections. On the other hand, will they spend smaller sums for works with disputed authenticity or accept them as donations, and if so, how will those works be designated when put on display?
For the Valsuani bronzes, the matter at issue is a clear-cut one of authenticity versus inauthenticity: the sculptures derive from the hand of Degas or else from another source. The Hébrard bronzes, on the other hand, unequivocally trace to the named artist. Still, their authenticity has been assessed more liberally than has been the case with bronzes bearing the names of comparably great artists. Regarding Frederic Remington’s works, numerous lifetime casts were produced, and after his death, his widow, Eva Caten Remington, continued his legacy with estate casts until she died in 1918, at which point the molds were destroyed. Those originals stand in contrast to the thousands of aftercasts made from the 1960s onward after the copyright for the artist’s works, held by the Frederic Remington Art Museum, expired. The reproductions have sometimes been sold as originals, including some bearing the marking “Copyright by Frederic Remington,” but that occurrence unequivocally constitutes forgery.142
Classification of Rodin’s sculptures, too, has been carefully monitored. Before his death in 1917, he donated all of his works and artistic rights attached to them to the nation of France, which created the Musée Rodin to exhibit and oversee originals as well as to produce more. Sculptures coming from other producers are considered to be reproductions. Questions have arisen about the degree of control the museum has exercised. Late in the twentieth century Gruppo Mondiale, a company incorporated in Lichtenstein and headed by American businessman and art dealer Gary Snell, was challenged for the Rodin bronzes it had sold. The company claimed ownership of a number of original plaster casts that did not go to the Musée Rodin on the artist’s death but instead passed through other hands to itself. Over time, many bronzes were cast from the plasters. Six hundred sold at prices averaging $45,000, according to Snell; more than seventeen hundred works totaling $76 million according to French legal sources. In 2001, the Musée Rodin took legal action charging forgery, noting the sculptures sold were not labeled as reproductions. Complicated proceedings lasted until 2014, when a Paris criminal court issued a decision that no French law had been violated because Gruppo Mondiale did not produce, exhibit, or sell its works in France. However, on appeal to a higher court and with the company having been liquidated, in 2019 Snell was found guilty, along with his associate, French art dealer Robert Crouzet. The prosecution asserted that the sculptures were accessible for sale in France via the Internet, other plasters and molds connected to Snell’s operation were found in a studio in France, and some of the reproductions were so poorly made that they betrayed Rodin’s moral right to his reputation.143
As was noted regarding Degas, confusion may arise over the perspective of French law and customs as it compares with the perspectives of other countries. Coming from the French Intellectual Property Code along with decrees issued in 1981 and 1993,144 several provisions are in place that affect Rodin bronzes. Artists control the copyright for their own works during their own lifetime and seventy years after their death. And by virtue of moral rights, the rights to their works may be passed along to their heirs, or other designees, perpetually. First editions of Rodin bronzes must come from plasters and molds held by the Musée Rodin, and no more than twelve may be produced of each sculpture. Reproductions may be made legitimately, but they must be designated as such. Critics ask whether and for how long French law should apply in other countries. The seventy-year period of protection after an artist’s death is standard in the copyright laws of many countries, but extending beyond that time by virtue of moral rights is not a legal stipulation in such places as the United States and the United Kingdom. In the view of those who see Rodin’s works to have been in the public domain since 1987, the plasters in question (presuming they are in fact originals) are fair game to be used in producing bronzes equal in authenticity to those produced by the Musée Rodin during that time. Both are reproductions, or if the Musée Rodin’s are originals, so, too, are sculptures cast from original plasters held by other parties. A writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail pondered a collection of original plasters held by a Canadian museum:
But who knows, maybe the MacLaren Arts Centre . . . will someday make its own reproduction casts . . . there’s pretty much nothing to stop the MacLaren from doing so. Since Rodin died in 1917, there are no copyright concerns and, despite all the bleatings of the Musée Rodin, no impediments in terms of legal or moral rights. Rodins, rain down.145
Philosopher Darren Hick, an expert on the philosophical aspects of copyright, explains as follows:
It also seems a generally accepted matter that the copies produced by Gruppo Mondiale are inauthentic copies: reproductions. But what, we might ask, about post-1987 copies produced by the Musée Rodin itself? . . . With the copyright since expired, what claim does the Musée Rodin have to any exclusive power to produce authentic Rodin copies? . . . with copyright removed as setting the authority in the matter, authenticity becomes an open question left to the art world to sort out.146
Both Remington and Rodin cast in bronze during their lifetime and left no provision against continued casting postmortem, whereas Degas chose not to work in bronze and expected there would be no postmortem activity in his name. By the standards of authenticity applied for Remington and Rodin, the Degas sculptures would not be acceptable as originals. Yet their status today as iconic remains. As explained by Judd Tully, an art writer and former editor for Art and Auction magazine, “Most scholars and aficionados don’t quibble about their existence since the ‘scandal’ has been sanitized over time and people and institutions are keen on maintaining their investments.”147 Tully also quotes Kirk Varnedoe, who was Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, for his opinion on posthumous bronze casting as “the messiest subject alive. . . . If you decide once the heart (of an artist) beats for the last time, that’s it, nothing ever produced after that is authentic, it makes your life much simpler.”148
If determining the authenticity of posthumous casts is confusing, posthumous prints can be at least as problematic. Determinations are often couched in degrees of authenticity depending on how close or removed a print is from the hand of the artist. Factors such as overriding a deceased artist’s wishes and alteration of a model could be troubling but not necessarily disqualifying, although a change of medium would not be acceptable. Consider a hypothetical case similar to that of the Degas bronzes but in the medium of lithography. The will of an artist who made engraved prints designates that none of the plates should ever be printed from again. The artist’s heirs have some recutting done on the plates and print a new edition, after which they have the images from the worn-down plates transferred to lithographic plates from which lithographs are made. The lithographs would not be recognized as “authentic” or “original” works by the artist. The greatest difficulty lies in the change of medium that involves the creation of new plates. The acceptability of using the old plates against the artist’s instructions could be debated, yet if prints were made directly from them, those works clearly derived from the hand of the artist. Recutting the plates would not render them inauthentic per se, although it could be perceived that because of the degree of alteration, authenticity was partially lost. With these factors in mind, consider the prints made from Rembrandt’s original plates during his lifetime and then periodically into the twenty-first century.
In his own era, Rembrandt’s prints were more widely known than the oil paintings that eventually secured his fame in art history. The multiplicity of the medium made prints available to many people, and the artist followed his business sense as well as his creative impulse in producing nearly three hundred images of landscapes, biblical scenes, self-portraits, genre scenes, and a few nudes and erotica. Many of these works carried affordable prices, although a few sold for more than his oils, including the “100 Guilder Print” of Christ healing the sick, with that amount being about one-tenth of the price of a large house in Amsterdam.149 Some prints were given small modifications to create a new state that was reissued in a way that attracted collectors who wanted to have not only the first version of an image but also the latest. In some cases, a single image appeared in several states. Generally the prints are classified as etchings, although Rembrandt often added the engraving technique of drypoint for enhancement. The resulting detailed patterns of lines produced finely wrought shapes and sophisticated tonalities of light to dark that could become muddied in later editions as plates deteriorated from the printing process.
After Rembrandt’s death in 1669, about 150 of his plates were in circulation, some of which were said to have been sold during his lifetime when he needed money.150 Clement de Jonghe, a print dealer and friend of the artist, held a large collection of the plates in the late seventeenth century, followed by a number of others who owned it in succession (perhaps adding or subtracting certain pieces) until the existing assemblage of seventy-eight plates was auctioned piecemeal in London in 1993. Over the centuries, at least some of the plates were printed from several times, with well-known editions by Watelet, Basan, Bernard, and Beaumont.151 The most recent printings were done from a set of eight plates in the late 1990s and 2000s. They were owned by Howard Berger, who used them to issue the “Millennium Impressions” and then sold them to the Park West Gallery (Michigan), which used them for further Millennium prints that were sold through cruise ships, among other outlets.
What can be said about the authenticity of the prints produced from Rembrandt’s plates at different times over several hundred years? To use another term, are they true “originals”? Simply put, although all of them possess the originality of the master, some are stronger examples than others. Impressions made by the artist during his lifetime are originals in the fullest sense, and subsequent printings (restrikes) decline in status. By this distinction, which is made regularly by dealers, collectors, and curators, posthumous production automatically diminishes the authenticity of works produced from existing models but without sacrificing it entirely. In theory, a second lifetime impression from a plate is next in status to an initial impression, a third is a lesser creation yet, and so on, with posthumous production even further removed. While the quality of a set of prints at the hands of a poorly skilled technician occasionally determines otherwise, market prices generally reflect this profile, which is supported by a detailed study of the value of Rembrandt’s lifetime versus posthumous prints. Controlling for rarity and condition, the finding was that first impressions are the most desirable—defined as most “original”—when compared with subsequent impressions and in particular with posthumous impressions.152
Part of the explanation for a decrease in value as a print undergoes successive impressions lies with the perception that newness is overshadowed by the cachet bestowed by history. But another important factor is that the markings artists apply to their plates wear down from use and become less distinct. The visual quality of the prints suffers. This happened with Rembrandt’s plates as a series of owners made restrikes from them. Prints made by Pierre François Basan in the latter eighteenth century are of high quality, whereas late restrikes by his son Henri Louis Basan compare poorly. Early examples of Faust indicate the plate was in good condition, while later examples drawn from a reworked plate show noticeable change to the image. The plate for The Death of the Virgin was worn to the extent that its page in an album of Rembrandt prints (popular with collectors of the day) was given over to a reproduction.153 In the nineteenth century, the advent of photography allowed for the creation of new plates that produced facsimile prints simulating first impressions, which encouraged some Rembrandt followers to consider his well-worn plates as relics. Continuing into the early twentieth century, this attitude was expressed by expert E. W. Moes when he was consulted about the prospect of Rembrandt’s plates being printed from once again: “I prefer a photogravure of a good impression of an early state to an impression, however carefully done, from such a ruined original copper.”154
Both enthusiasm for facsimile first impressions and the trend of devaluing original prints over successive impressions have been challenged in recent decades by the Millennium editions. The Millennium Impressions, issued as twenty-five hundred each of eight titles, sold for less than Millennium etchings that were printed later without a number designating how many were made. The Millennium works in general have sold for several thousand dollars apiece (sometimes more),155 while critics have expressed concern about their long-term value, especially when compared with impressions from previous centuries. Some Millennium works have shown up for resale at auctions for prices in the hundreds of dollars compared with the thousands that were paid for them initially.156
On the other hand, dealers selling Millennium prints point out that they are satisfying the public by making the works of a great artist available to them. More people than who could do so otherwise can enjoy the pleasure and pride of “owning a Rembrandt.” Those people seem to prefer collecting works that possess originality over more aesthetically pleasing photomechanical reproductions. And they may not have the time or inclination to study the complicated market in Rembrandt prints to find works from earlier editions that rival Millennium prices. The degree to which Millennium prints will continue to hold their appeal in a mass market, and how their prices fare relative to those for prior editions, remains to be seen.