Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850)
Trois Crayons Newsletter, December 2023
Can we fool you? The term “fake” may be slightly sensationalist when it comes to old drawings. Copying originals and prints has formed a key part of an artist’s education since the Renaissance and with the passing of time the distinction between the two can be innocently mistaken.
In this example we have a curious case of a master and his apprentice. Both men were sculptors: one highly celebrated and popular in his lifetime; the other less-so and now perhaps of greatest interest for his activity as a forger of 19th century sculptural and Old Master drawings. The drawings in question depict the master’s most renowned sculptural monument, now housed in the Pitti Palace in Florence. One drawing is simply a copy of the other, but which is which?
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The original, of course, is on the right (the lower image if you are viewing on mobile). The drawing is by Lorenzo Bartolini, and it relates to his masterwork, the Demidoff Monument. The drawing is held in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. no.: 19219 F).
On the left is the copy by Egisto Rossi, also in the Uffizi, bearing an inscription that links the work to Bartolini. A forged signature or an attempt to denote the maker of the drawing’s subject? Rossi’s activities as a forger had long been suspected, although not fully explored until Roberta Olson’s article in Master Drawings in the Summer of 1982. Olson was as unimpressed with his draughtsmanship as his attempted deceit.
“Whatever the medium, all Rossi drawings share a common denominator: they are inherently weak and, when analyzed, lack structure and definition. Even when Rossi directly copies known works, the articulation is insipid and there is a disturbingly even quality to the draughtsmanship. In short, because they are the work of a copyist, they lack the spark of life that animates original drawings." (R. Olson, “"Caveat Emptor": Egisto Rossi's Activity as a Forger of Drawings”, in Master Drawings, Summer, 1982, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Summer, 1982), p. 150).
