COPYING THE MASTERS

Paintings have always been copied by other artists and reproduced by printmakers for study or commercial gain. Although, if unauthorised, artists usually condemned the sale of such facsimiles as fraudulent, they have often encouraged printmakers to replicate their work – thereby raising the profile of the original.
This display explores the reasons for the popularity of printed and drawn copies by bringing together works by Dürer, Hogarth and Ingres, and prints after Rubens, Poussin and Reynolds.