Telling an ‘old master’ from a ‘young pretender’

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Rosalind Ormiston reports on an interesting experiment at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery: can you detect the lookalike painting?

It was seeing a group of near-identical oil paintings of a vase of flowers, painted in China and advertised as 'Real Oil Paintings', in a 99-cent store in New York that got conceptual artist Doug Fishbone thinking about the difference between handmade 'real' art and mass production. His curiosity has resulted in an exhibition at London's Dulwich Picture Gallery 'Made in China: A Doug Fishbone Project'. It encourages visitors to come and view the permanent collection to see if they can spot a replica painting – made in China – that has replaced one original work from the 270 artworks on display.

Two years ago Doug Fishbone approached Dr Xavier Bray, the Arturo and Holly Melosi chief curator of Dulwich Picture Gallery, with this idea. Bray points out that painting replicas of famous paintings is not unusual. Peter Paul Rubens had a large studio of painters replicating his works for the art market. What is new in this show is the focus on the globalization of that market. In China, masterful replicas are desirable objects, and not just replicas of paintings. Cotswold-style villages, such as Thames Town near Shanghai, are complete with red telephone boxes and a village pub.

Chinese art studios replicate 'Old Masters' for a global audience.  Any work can be replicated. One just needs to send a good-quality jpeg image with a request for 'museum quality', or standard quality. The cost depends on the quality and measurements of the replica, and it can be any size, not necessarily that of the original work.

For this project Bray and Fishbone chose one work from the gallery's permanent collection and sent a digital image by email to a workshop in Dafen, a centre for handmade art works reproduction in China. Not long after, the replica arrived by post at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

This painting, in the frame of the original work, is now on display, and 'Made in China' engages visitors’ attention to study the collection closely, surveying brushstrokes, highlights and varnishes, in order to spot the replica and enjoy the collection in a new way. Xavier Bray points out that visitors often go to an art gallery or museum only to see a special temporary exhibition, ignoring the wealth of the permanent collection always on display. Here, in this exhibition, it is the stunning permanent collection, including works by Poussin,  Rembrandt,   Constable,   Canaletto, Annibale Carracci  and Claude Lorrain,   that is the focus.

Spotting the replica (it is not a fake as it is not made with the intention of defrauding anyone), is not as easy as it sounds. Visitors can be seen closely studying canvases, peering at the brushwork, catching the canvas in a light to explore any changes and spending much time with each work. For those who think they know which one is the replica, iPads are strategically placed with illustrations of each art work. It is easy to click on one and enter an email address. You will find out on 28 April if your choice was right. On that date the replica will be revealed and placed alongside the original, to be displayed until 26 July.

The exhibition raises questions, for instance about our trust in curators to display original works, and why we value an original above a replica painting. How do we tell the difference between a replica and the original if the paintings are not shown together? Xavier Bray has worked with Doug Fishbone to make the concept of replication a real adventure in Dulwich Picture Gallery, it makes one study each art work in the permanent collection, and enjoy the works more than ever before.