Some time ago, a website naïvely attributed the work of an unknown copyist as being studies by the hand of J.C. Leyendecker. Unfortunately the images spread like wildfire across the web, and though the claim has since been retracted (I believe), the embers continue to find dry brush.
For lack of a better word FAKES ~ http://www.americanartarchives.com/leyendeceker,jc_studies.htm
Without going on at length regarding the merits of drawing or brush handling, let me state this~ The method employed by the copyist: grisaille underpainting with colour glazes (akin to tinting b&w photos) was never a technique practised by either of the Leyendeckers.
Now lets identify some of the non-Leyendecker copies.
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| Alma-Tadema copy |
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| Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, A Silent Greeting |
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| Dagnan-Bouveret etude |
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Dagnan-Bouveret, Manon Lescaut |
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Meissonier y Dagnan-Bouveret copies |
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Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier |
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Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier |
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| Meissonier copy |
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Augustus John, Portrait of Bernard Shaw |
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| assorted copies - Post cover by J.C. Leyendecker |
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| Sir William Orpen, Portrait of Roland Knoedler |
Your visual memory is such that you should be doing ART! You know, that indefinable thing that isn't itself, in contrajuxtaposition to everything else that doesn't claim to be art.
ReplyDeleteI had emailed this guy a few years back when I first saw this weak stuff. And he wrote me back to say that an "expert" had told him they were authentic. I wrote back again and told him his expert was an idiot and that I had seen many Leyendecker studies in person at Illustration House and these weren't close. No second reply came.
Here's me busting the leyendecker studies in '07: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=84561
I don't mean to knock any "expert", (quality and technique aside) common sense regarding the time span should be proof enough. Studies for paintings 3, 5, 7 years apart on the same canvas!?!? You would be hard pressed to find a canvas with a study for more than a single illustration.
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