This year's extended connoisseurship course at the Royal Academy of Arts emphasizes practical learning through field trips and hands-on experience with art, including cleaning tests.
I stress on the course that learning connoisseurship is not just about studying 'good' works of art, as understanding copies and fakes is essential for discernment.
Connoisseurship has been viewed as old-fashioned post-1980s, associated with elitism, yet it remains crucial to understanding art history beyond market values.
I'm introducing a potentially unknown Zoffany portrait this year, asking whether cleaning will reveal authenticity or merely confirm optimistic attribution.
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