Actually, they aren’t fakes – there is no intent to deceive. These are exact reproductions of famous (and some not so famous) works of art that you can find in the Cast Courts at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

At some point, almost two centuries ago, someone thought it might be a good idea for the museum to make exact replicas of artwork it couldn’t acquire. I spent a considerable amount of time in the Cast Courts last month, discovering works I had seen in photos, but never in person.

I will admit to having mixed feelings about reproductions. They don’t seem right somehow. But if you know they aren’t the original, and you can’t tell them from the real thing, then what is the harm if you aren’t trying to pass it off as the real thing?

I’ve never been to Florence, and don’t expect to be there in the future. But Michelangelo’s David is probably just as impressive in replica.

Actually, I knew that already. A new shopping mall opened in my area of Montreal back in 1965, and they too had an exact replica of the famous statue. There was quite the fuss, as I recall, over the lack of a fig leaf over the statue’s genital area.

Impressionable children could be exposed to nudity! Not that we kids didn’t already know what testicles looked like. Well, we boys did, I can’t speak for the girls. (I seem to recall another statue at the other end of the mall, but Moses had his clothes on.)

The statue was gone after a few months and much publicity. I suspect it was an effective drawing card to bring people to the new mall. Everyone in that pre-internet age would want to go and see for themselves what the fuss was about.

I thought about that replica as I looked at this one. There didn’t seem to be any difference, though admittedly it has been 60 years since I last saw the one in Montreal. (It eventually wound up on display at a local university, where it was destroyed by a student prank.)

Those who have seen the original in Florence may not notice anything different either. Maybe the marble on the real thing has a different shine – I wouldn’t know.

What I do know is that David has hijacked this post. I was going to give a broad sample of some of the things I saw in the Cast Courts, then got hijacked by memories from my childhood.

i wonder if there would be the same outcry today about a naked statue at a shopping mall? I would think not – but I have been wrong before. Art is so much in the eye of the beholder – and there is no law requiring you to like great art.

Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow to show a little more variety in the Cast Courts. Today, all you get to enjoy is David.