Identifying the authors of literary works or unsigned paintings is a thorny business. Authorship might be considered important for various reasons. Firstly, it can help to understand a work, shedding light on the context in which it was created and its relation to other works. Secondly, fa­mous writers or painters may have a popu­lar cult following, or a body of scholarship – that is, a general audience as well as experts who are interested in everything to do with this famous dead person.

Thirdly, authorship and authenticity determine the financial value of a work. For obvious reasons, this affects paintings more than works of literature. The same interests apply to the attribution of works of architecture, sculpture or music.

Two controversies linked to authorship were in the news last week – one on Shakespeare, and the other involving a painting by the Italian 17th-century artist Mattia Preti, known as ‘il Cavaliere Calabrese’, who lived and worked in Malta for many years.

It has long been accepted that Shakespeare may have collaborated with other playwrights or actors when writing his plays. This has resulted in endless conjecture and theories about the authorship of his work. A new edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays, to be published by Oxford University Press this November, takes the position that Christopher Marlowe, another famous Elizabethan playwright, co-authored three of Shakespeare’s history plays.

The editors of this collection base their claim on what they call new ‘Big Data’ and analytic methods. This involves statistical, quantitative analysis of writing styles, looking at words or word combinations, drawing upon literary knowledge as well as mathematical skills.

Stylometrics, as it is known, attempts to identify and compute patterns in the vocabulary and syntax used by an author, measuring and counting stylistic traits. As more texts are digitised and software becomes more sophisticated, new modes of investigation are developed which try to solve authorship disputes.

But these statistical methods have their flaws and limitations, and are frequently challenged. Traditional scholarship based on historical research, and at times instinctively recognising the hand of an author through experience and expertise, remains the conventional method. Stylometric evidence is an additional tool that might shed some light but is not necessarily definitive.

What is important is that authorship disputes remain robust and objective, and do not descend into ad hominem attacks, focusing more on undermining a case or individual rather than engaging with the arguments themselves

Leading scholars have already disputed the claims of the forthcoming Oxford edition, saying it is unlikely that Marlowe collaborated with Shakespeare. One professor told the BBC that it is more probable that Shakespeare “started his career working for a company where he was already an actor, and collaborated not with another playwright but with the actors – who will have had Marlowe very much in their heads, on the stage, in their voices. They were the ones putting Marlowe’s influence into the plays.”

The complexity of theatre production and playwriting in the Elizabethan period holds many mysteries. Statistics or no statistics, it will continue to offer endless hours of puzzles and debate. What is important is that authorship disputes remain robust and objective, and do not descend into ad hominem attacks, focusing more on undermining a case or individual rather than engaging with the arguments themselves.

Tracing the authorship of a painting is different to a literary work, but also has many pitfalls and problems. The history of a painting’s ownership or provenance is one element. Another is scientific, forensic analysis of the artwork itself, as well as historical research. But the eye of the connoisseur is often the deciding factor when little evidence of authorship is available.

Collaboration was a perfectly normal and accepted method of production for artistic works in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the end, what should really matter is the quality of the painting. But the weight placed on authorship dictates otherwise.

Scholarly disputes can turn into a battleground. Shakespeare is possibly more famous than any pope, king or queen in history, and the works of great baroque painters are a serious business involving substantial amounts of money.

In the case of the Preti painting recently bought by Heritage Malta, the issue partly revolves around whether this a painting by the master himself, or by less accomplished artists working in his bottega or workshop. It could be a combination of both. The principal implications for the painting are whether a fair price was paid when it was recently bought at auction in Paris, and how it will be attributed when it is finally displayed.

I have no idea whether the painting was created by the sole hand of Preti or not. Un­less reasonably clear, documented evidence is available, it is difficult to determine with absolute, final certainty how a picture, sculpture or building originated – just as we are unlikely to ever know whether Shakespeare himself wrote every word of his plays or not.

There may never be any definite, entirely satisfactory resolution or evidence. When in doubt, leave it out, goes the saying. Texts and paintings are complex. The best decisions and opinions on authorship rely on more than one type of information – scientific analysis and historical research are both central, but so are the experience and insight of experts in the field. None of this is infallible.

petracdingli@gmail.com

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