Art forgery is a complex subject; it has as much to do with the personality of the faker or the salesman who markets the spurious work as it has to do with the recapturing of some past technique or mood. And it is a subject that is still highly active today, despite the unquestionably improved art historical scholarship of recent decades: the controversy over the gold from Ziwiye, the stir caused by the forgery of Fragonard and Samuel Palmer, and the impact of the Beirut school's pressure-cast counterfeits of early English coinage—all headline-makers over the past five years—affirm that clearly enough.