ABSTRACT
Making distinctions between originals and copies, especially since the late nineteenth century, art history has privileged authenticity and originality over copies, which are a priori perceived to be merely derivative and inferior. The market is equally invested in giving higher economic value to original artworks. This imbalance prevails despite the growing interest of art historians in the history of copies and an appreciation of copies and copying by the public and by contemporary artists. This chapter adds nuance to this question. It examines in depth a gilded bronze, made by nineteenth-century sculptor Medardo Rosso, called The Emperor Vitellius, housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, a creatively adapted copy made by an artist of a much-reproduced but lost eponymous antique sculpture. The author contends that by studying an artist’s copy, one can gain a deep appreciation of its complex history, its creator’s intentions and processes of making, and its relation to other copies and to the original. The chapter further suggests that in such cases, viewers might not regard the copy as inferior to or referring back to an original. The viewer and the art historian can enjoy and learn more about the artist’s copy, so that it gains a status that makes it in some ways equivalent to an original.
