Snake Goddess... the Breast aren't the only thing that look fake on some of them

After Arther Evans' discover the of snake goddess figures at Knossos it suddenly became all the rage to own one. As a result forgers of the time met the demand with their supply. At least 14 unprovenienced goddess statues made their way into museums and private collections a like. While the goddess statues all match the stylistic attributes of the originals the material undoubtedly gives them away as modern copies.

What caught my attention about these fakes is that I have heard about the goddess figurines in several of my classes but never heard about the fakes. Although, in today's world it would be hard to not find something exceedingly popular and expensive in the art world and not have at least a couple forgeries floating around. In the novel that I read for my book report I believe I read a statistic claiming that approximately 10% of all known paintings by major artists are fake. While it is impossible to know anything for sure in the art world the 10% figure, I thought, was a bit optimistic. There are so many people out there with decidedly loose morals who are willing to rip people off to make a buck.

While on the topic of fakes, another thing in the book that I read which surprised me was that some artists encouraged forgeries. I believe it was Picasso that once had a dealer come up to him and ask Picasso to sign a piece of work, claiming it had been unsigned by the artist and that the painting was for a client. Picasso noticed that the painting wasn't his but because it was such a good copy he signed it anyway. While this admittedly has little to do with the sculptures in the original article, I thought it funny and some artists actually supposed forgers of their work instead of reprimanding them. How does the saying go?... imitation is the most sincere form of flattery?