Is it a fake?
Application of science-based techniques to the authentication of museum objects

Maria Filomena Guerra

Museum collections emerged from hoards and personal collections, such as cabinets of curiosities, and for this reason contain heteroclite items with unspecified archaeological context and origin and without records on their modes of acquisition.

The wish to possess rare and singular objects gave raise in all periods to an underground industry of fakes and reproductions which are more or less difficult to identify and classify. Some of the items that entered in museum collections along time are mere copies, others are inventions and pastiches, and others are higher or lower quality fakes. Others, genuine, were however submitted in the past to more or less ingenuous unspecified restorations and to more or less complex modifications.

The authentication of cultural heritage items requires knowledge on both the manufacture techniques used by ancient civilisation to fabricate their objects and the sources of raw material that were exploited in the course of time. In addition to this, ageing must also be taken into account to distinguish artificial from natural processes.

Science-based methods bring paramount information in the case of authentication as they provide data on the morphology and composition of the items. However, analytical techniques must have specific characteristics. Non-destructiveness and in-situ analysis are sometimes required; examination and analysis are often associated; and elemental, isotopic and structural characterization may be in certain cases coupled to dating.

The aim of this lecture is to give an overview of the possibilities and limitations of science-based methods for authentication of items made in different inorganic materials: metals, stones, ceramics, etc. We will show through examples how to identify techniques and raw materials employed in the fabrication of objects by combining scientifically based analysis with studies on iconography, style, date and period in order to attest whether an object is genuine, modern or an ancient invention.

Is it a fake? Application of science-based techniques to the authentication of museum objects

Is it a fake?
Application of science-based techniques to the authentication of museum objects