The articles presented in this issue of met objectives illustrate the role of the Museum's conservation departments in the process of evaluating proposed acquisitions, and so it seems appropriate here to consider the nature of authenticity, as this concept carries such powerful effect within the art world. Authenticity has always been an issue of high profile, not only for museums and private collections, but also for the public at large. Obvious interest in accurate historical presentation aside, this visibility seems to derive from our fascination with crime, and the amusement and reassurance we gain from knowing that even the most learned professionals can sometimes be deceived. Some forgers have become celebrities themselves, if only posthumously, and can occasionally hold claims to being artists in their own right. Indeed, in this context it has been said that there are no fakes, only misattributed objects, whereby, ironically, a truly fine forgery remains a work of art.

Although many fakes may be rather obvious to the experienced and well-educated observer, there is that small but dangerous group of fraudulent works so carefully executed as to have proven deceptive to even the most sensitive eyes. The Fonthill Ewer (Figure 1) entered the Museum as a masterpiece of Renaissance goldsmithing, but on the basis of technical and historical evidence we now recognize that it was made after 1799, with the intention of catering to a specific taste among collectors of the time. It is nonetheless an artistic masterpiece, but of quite a different kind than we once supposed.

Other works, such as the Rospigliosi Cup (Figure 2), which was previously attributed to Benvenuto Cellini and now also known to be of nineteenth-century manufacture, may be copies of lost originals if not outright forgeries, and are currently exhibited with appropriately altered labels. While these examples illustrate that some fakes are revealed over time, the more skillful ones may survive to quite a respectable age, and the best are presumably immortal. As a consequence, the fakes least likely to damage our historical perceptions are those most likely to reveal themselves, while fakes that have shaped or perverted our vision of the past most profoundly may, unfortunately, never be detected at all.

Attribution in the traditional sense is entirely within the province of the art historian using the tools of stylistic analysis and historical documentation. Conservators provide evidence of entirely independent origins that lends arguments previously based on stylistic insights alone a new dimension otherwise unobtainable, sometimes helping to avoid the possible danger of circularity in stylistic attribution.

On occasion the most compelling art historical evidence and the most acute technical data do not agree. Modern conservators are trained in the modern scientific tradition, wherein the notion of truth is inseparable from its probability, and not just a simple right or wrong. To use a familiar parallel, a criminal court instructs a jury to decide the truth "beyond all reasonable doubt," while a civil court is satisfied with a "preponderance of evidence." The humanities have usually opted for the more rigorous standard, while science maintains that there is no better truth available than what the present preponderance of evidence suggests.

Once opened, cases of questioned authenticity are seldom closed. Conservators and curators alike must be willing to reevaluate their positions and, furthermore, must remain open to new intuitions or previously unavailable data—based either on art historical or technical investigations—even when they elicit discussion about the integrity of works thought to be well above suspicion.

Richard E. Stone has been a conservator in the Sherman Fairchild Center for over twenty-five years. He specializes in the examination of metal objects and supervises the department's technical vetting of objects for acquisition by the Museum. His major research interest has been the technology of Renaissance bronze statues, especially as related to connoisseurship, and he has written on the casting technique of Donatello and the Mantuan sculptor Antico, among other topics. He regularly teaches a course on technical considerations for the art historian at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.