Imitation
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.American trompe l’oeil painters replicated paper bills so exactly that they raised suspicions of actual forgery. Haberle’s title, Imitation, provokes on multiple levels, as do his painted representations of different forms of representation—stamps, currency, signatures, and a tintype photograph (of himself)—whose relative values depend on established conventions. Nothing is materially “real” here, though much may be “true,” such as the portrait likenesses. He signed the work twice: his name is “carved” into the wood support and appears to have been hastily cut from newsprint and affixed to the frame in a parody of the collection nameplate. The latter draws attention to his artistic “brand,” despite the association with a newspaper’s degradable paper and cheap price.
Artwork Details
- Title: Imitation
- Artist: John Haberle (1856–1933)
- Date: 1887
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 10 × 14 in. (25.4 × 35.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., New Century Fund, Gift of the Amon G. Carter Foundation (1998.96.1)
- Rights and Reproduction: Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art