Authentic v fake: A critique of the law’s approach to authenticity

This chapter analyses the concept of authenticity and assesses its significance. In carrying out this examination, it explores the two aspects of authenticity: materiality (material used, shape, function) and non-materiality (the relationship of the object with people) that John Merryman called ‘cultural truth’. It explores the importance of cultural truth and how it has been recognised in different disciplines and how it lies at the heart of our understanding of authenticity. It will then contrast this approach with the legal discipline. Law balances different interests in its assessment of authenticity; often claims will be unsuccessful because they are ruled by general principles of contract law, evidence or criminal law that do not take into consideration the cultural truth of an object.