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# Yet while it must be greatly depricated and dispised meanly to impose a Copy for the Original, it is desireable always to show a Copy for what it is — In fact the respectable name of the Artist who has made the Copy, should be the guarantee of its authenticity and excellence.

Sir Joshua Reynolds very properly remarks that "Old Pictures deservedly celebrated for their Colouring, are often so changed by dirt & varnish, that we ought not to wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputation in the eyes of unexperienced painters, or young Students. An Artist whose judgment is matured by long observation, considers rather what the picture was, than what it is at present. He has acquire a power, by habit, of seeing the brilliancy of tints through the Cloud by which it is obscured. An exact imitation, therefore, of those pictures is likely to fill the Student's mind with false opinions; and to send him back a Colourist of his own formation, with ideas equally remote from Nature & from Art - from the genuine practice of the Masters, and the real appearances of things."