Adaptation: The act or process of adapting or being adapted.
Appropriation: The action of taking something for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission.
Authentic: An object of undisputed origin; made or done the same way as an original.
Catalogue raisonné: A comprehensive, annotated listing of all known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media.
Carbon dating: A process of determining the age or date of organic matter from relative proportions of the carbon isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-14 that it contains.
Connoisseur: A person who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge.
Copy: An object made to be similar or identical to another.
Counterfeit: A fraudulent imitation of something else.
Fabrication: The action or process of manufacturing or inventing something.
Fake: An object that is not genuine; an object that is a counterfeit. “The alternation of, or addition to, an authentic work of art in order to suggest a different authorship or subject matter that results in greater sale value of the object” (Charney, The Art of Forgery 17).
Forensic Testing: The gathering of data for analysis and for use in authentication processes.
Forgery: The action of forging or producing a copy of a document, signature, banknotes, or work of art with intent to deceive.
Fraud: The wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. “The wholesale creation of fraudulent work. This is the manufacture of a new work of art that professes to have been made by someone whose authorship would result in a great value of the object” (Charney, The Art of Forgery 17).
Imitation: A process intended to simulate or copy an object.
Knock-off: A copy or imitation, especially of an expensive or designer product.
Legitimate: An object that is exactly as intended or presented, neither spurious nor false; an actual example of something specified.
Original: An unique object composed firsthand; a work from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made.
Provenance: The history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or literature.
Relic: A part of a holy person’s body or belongings kept as an object of reverence and believed to be miracle working.
Reproduction: An object made by the act or process of making a copy of something.
Transformation: A thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.
Translation: The process of translating words or text from one language into another.