Bad fakes and the concept of success

This article explores the concept of a successful, or convincing, forgery. What makes a forgery successful and why? Drawing from a range of high-profile and lesser-known cases of forgery from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, this article examines the dominant notions of success in forgery and challenges the assumptions that uphold them. It demonstrates that although the conditions that enable the creation of a successful forgery are multifaceted and vary considerably, what exactly constitutes a successful forgery is inextricably linked with its capacity to deceive. However, by decentring the importance of deception in the makings of a successful forgery, this article makes space for thinking about the bad, childish fakes that occupy the lower ends of the antiquities market in particular as successful and in what capacity. It concludes by arguing that bad fakes, much like bad art or bad movies, can simultaneously embody multiple and at times radically divergent notions of success unrelated to their ability (or inability) to deceive.