This seminar explored the replication and distribution of portrait imagery from the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries. What was the demand for replication, and who satisfied it? What media were chosen, and why? What differentiates a copy, replica, and version? What was (and is) the implication for the ‘primary’ image, its maker, and the sitter? How have value judgements been made about such replicated imagery?

Speakers explored elite studio copies, popular prints, propaganda imagery, and the impact of digital and online replication. As usual, the seminar combined museum practice and theory-led presentations.

Copy, Version and Multiple Seminar – programme

Read Dr Patrizia Di Bello’s presentation, Carte-de-visite: the photographic portrait as ‘social media’

Dr Patrizia Di Bello’s presentation

Information about the venue: M Shed