A Question of Attribution

A Question of Attribution tells the story of a remarkable cultural journey involving some of the world’s greatest paintings. 


By the early nineteenth century, Britain had become a treasure house of art. But many of these paintings were not, as their owners believed, by the great artists of the Italian Renaissance - some were copies, some were outright forgeries, and many more were wrongly attributed. 


Because art scholarship was in its relative infancy, questions of attribution, authenticity, and quality were rarely asked and, if they were, would be unlikely to receive an authoritative answer.  


The stage was set for the emergence of professional art connoisseurs with the knowledge, application, and skills to begin answering these questions. 


Christopher Hodkinson is a free-lance writer. He holds a doctorate from Lancaster University where he is also a Tutor in Italian culture.