Which is Which?
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Chalfant pasted a U.S. stamp onto canvas and placed next to it a hand-painted double, with identical sawtooth edges and paper-thin relief. The hastily cut-and-pasted newspaper account of the artist’s sleight of hand challenges the viewer to discern the real four-cent proxy from the impostor. Though one stamp appears abraded—evidence, perhaps, of attempts to verify “which is which” by touch—the real rub lies with the press clipping, a fictitious piece of paper and reporting. The insertion of actual printed matter, the stamp, was a one-off until the advent of Cubism, but the American proffered two other conceits as well: faux collage and fake news. Though well publicized in the United States, the works of the American trompe l’oeil artists were likely unknown to the Cubists.
Artwork Details
- Title: Which is Which?
- Artist: Jefferson D. Chalfant (American, 1856–1931)
- Date: ca. 1890
- Medium: Oil and cut-and-pasted printed paper on wood panel
- Dimensions: 3 5/8 × 5 3/8 in. (9.2 × 13.7 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Scaife and the Allegheny Foundation, 1997
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art