YOU ARE HERE:>>REAL or FAKE>>Fake Indian terracottas, page 2.

 

Compare this one with two similar ones ; one in a museum in Calcutta and the other in that wonderful museum, The Guimet in Paris.

You will see that the  two figures, left and right are from the same die; there are some small differences in the floral design especially on the left hand side.

 

 



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Now as we cannot do a TL test on this piece we need to consider it from a stylistic point of view.

Even if we decide it's stylistcally correct we still do not know if it is an ancient example or a modern  "copy" as  mentioned by Prof Bautze on the previous page.

 

Some published terracottas to compare with.

 










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Look at something as "basic" as the length of the legs; the proportion beween the  legs and the upper body.

 



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These, placed here side by side are not exactly the same size so one needs to look at the proportions between legs and upper body.

Is it my imagination or are the legs too long for the upper body?

 



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We will come back to this later.

But what of this pair?

 




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Yes, definitely from moulds made from the same master die.

 




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In fact, get the photos to the same size and then copy and paste....



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They match exactly.

Unfortunately on one the surrounding area of floral decoration is missing. This is where we might have expected to see differences between the two different  moulds which derive from the same master die.

But the style is good. There even appear to be some calcite accretions on the surface.



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Surely couldn't be that someone has made a pair of exactly the same terracottas, deliberately in two slightly different clay types and then deliberately broken off the surroundong floral design area on one to prevent us from seeing that the two come from the same mould?

 

No, surely not!?