Real or Fake #25
Wednesday, 1 October 2025. Newsletter 25.
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.
Honoré Daumier was one of the most original and brilliant artists of the 19th century. He was an astute observer of human nature who, having worked as a messenger in the law courts as a youth, regularly satirised the legal system and other elements of French society through his drawings.
Daumier was also one of the most regularly copied and plagiarised artists of the 19th century. The Daumier Register, a website and digital catalogue raisonné of the artist, claims that Daumier created a total of 1340 drawings. This compares with 1562 copies, forgeries and unconfirmed works that are listed on the website.
One of the two drawings shown here is an original, while the other is a deceptive copy. But which is which?
Scroll for the answer.
The original is, of course, the first image.
First Image: Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), Fatherly Discipline, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Arthur Hen Fund, 52-1108
Second Image: Imitator of Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), A Family Scene, Bonhams, San Francisco
The brilliance of Daumier's technical excellence completely overshadows what, alone in a junk shop, might otherwise be a more deceptive copy. The intention to deceive is evident in the inclusion of the signature which is moved from the open left side of the original to the shadowed right side of the forgery.
Fortunately the forger lacked the talent to pull it off. The forgery lacks Daumier's quickness and sureness with the pen. He has also misunderstood Daumier’s humour, and misrepresented the expressions of the father and son, making the copy look even stiffer and more vapid than it would alone.
For another example of a forgery after the drawing in Chicago, see: Fakes and Forgeries, exhib. cat., Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1973, pp. 185–186.
