| Image and Style
Thus, the copies were as authentic images as their prototype because – as we now know from digital images – there was no such thing as ‘an original’ and ‘a copy’; the copyability being an intrinsic property of the image, which the legend of the Mandylion clearly illustrates.2
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2) See Thierry Lenain, “Perfect Fakes and the Modern Religion of Authenticity,” in Victor I. Stoichita, ed., Das Double, (Wolfenbüttel: Harrassowitz, 2007). Thierry Lenain, Art Forgery. The History of a Modern Obsession (London: Reaktion Books, 2011), pp. 74–76. Hans Belting, Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (München: C.H. Beck, 1990), pp. 349–82.