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      copied an Oa and presents it as his or her own work is asserting something blatantly false? Autographic works being their own type, to imitate them perfectly provides the imitation with a proper aesthetic quality. The same happens with Ex-Nihilo Forgery, for instance, when an Author B produces a painting à la maniere de . . . . The Disciples at Emmaus painted by van Meegerenand falsely attributed to Vermeerwas undoubtedly a forgery, from the ethical and legal point of view (at least once van Meegeren claimed that it was made by Vermeer). But as a work of art, it was a genuine "good" painting. If van Meegeren had presented it as an homage, it would have been praised as a splendid postmodern endeavor. On such a web of contrasting criteria, see Haywood, ch. 5, and this quotation from Frank Arnau (Three Thousand Tears of Deception in Art and Antiques [London: Cape, 1961], p. 45): "The boundaries between permissible and impermissible, imitation, stylistic plagiarism, copy, replica and forgery remain nebulous."

 
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