Description
Book SynopsisThe nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented increase in art forgery, caused both by the advent of national museums and by a rapidly growing bourgeois interest in collecting objects from the past. This rise had profound repercussions on notions...
Trade ReviewBriefel's concise and elegant study is... about the 'rich rhetoric of forgery' that arose in the literature of that period in England, France, and the United States. Briefel sets out to identify the various identities created by this literature and to show how they reflected biases relating to 'categories of gender, class, race, and nationality.'... The Deceivers presents many original ideas on the complexities of fakery and identity, as well as an authoritative overview of previous scholarship. The text is enriched with a number of black and white illustrations from contemporaneous publications. Briefel's writing is as lively and humorous as that from Punch, making this book a pleasure to read.
* Journal of British Studies *
The book reads like a fascinating collection of obscure items, yet it is deceptively relevant. It tells a coherent story of the allure and impenetrability of artworks that are neither true nor false.
* Times Literary Supplement *
