Rather than a forger in the modern sense, Bastianini was a craftsman, working in the traditional style in which he had been trained since his youth. The arti­ficial ageing is not per se an evidence of for­gery, as it often was an expressed wish from the commis­sioners to have their – typically – wives and daughters dressed in historicizing costumes and the sculpture artificially aged, so that they could be placed in the same company as the beauties of the past.7