Facsimiles, Artworks, and Real Things

collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, largely due to developments in photomechanical print processes, and in keeping with the progressive mission assumed by museums in the United States and Europe after the First World War. At the same time, conservative criticism of that democratizing tendency in the arts fomented considerable controversy over the inclusion of facsimiles in exhibitions. In recent years, scholarly attention has been paid to the role of plaster casts in the formation of many of the museums of this period. Less examined are facsimile works on paper, which made up a significant portion of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s early collection, along with other reproductions of works that were unattainable in the Facsimiles, Artworks, and Real Things