Painted copies and views on authenticity in seventeenth-century Sweden

The research on forgeries, fakes, copies, replicas, facsimiles, substitutions, appropriations and imitations in pre-modern times is now a growing field of research in art history, and as shown the difference between these concepts is anything but clear (Heisterberg, Müller-Bechtel & Putzger eds. 2018; Cupperi ed. 2014; Wood 2008). The aim of this paper is to look at the artistic production of painted portrait copies in sventeenth-century Stockholm and the Svealand area during the seventeenth-century, a period when Sweden was an economic and political empire, but it lacked a strong artistic centre. This made it an art historical periphery even if the inflow of money generated a growing demand for paintings – including copies and replicas. Copies and replicas were chiefly commissioned from painters who worked within the inherited guild system, where copying was considered manual labour. Previous art historical research has tended to focus on court painters considered original or as responsible for importing new stylistic impulses and artistic skills from the cultural centre in Europe at the time. This paper, however, will look at the increasing number of less successful, “second-rate” painters in the seventeenth-century who earned their living by painting copies. The paper will also take into consideration questions regarding changing ideas about authenticity and questions artistic centres and art as imitation in the peripheries. The paper will present preliminary results from the ongoing post-doc project “Copies and Replicas in Seventeenth-century Northern Europe: Image, Medium, and Practice”, combining theoretical perspectives from media studies and visual studies.