Forgery: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Videos

Hear about William Henry Ireland's fake manuscripts of William Shakespeare including a letter written to his wife

How chemistry helps to reveal fake artworks

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Topics

pastiche The Time a Law Clerk Successfully Forged a New Shakespeare Play to Impress His Dad The arts Art fraud plagiarism Decadence South Asian arts Romanticism Islamic arts Southeast Asian arts Interior design Architecture Philosophy of art

Key People

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Wolfgang Beltracchi

German art forger

Han van Meegeren: Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery

Han van Meegeren

Dutch painter

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William Lauder

Scottish literary forger

Ireland, William-Henry

William-Henry Ireland

British forger