Gary Arseneau - Deception: Are These Really Rodins?

WHAT IS A "SIGNATURE?"

This is answered in the J. Paul Getty Trust’s "www.getty.edu" website. Under their Getty Vocabulary Program the term "signature" is defined as: 

 "Persons' names written in their own hand." 

Also in Henry Campbell Black’s Black’s Law Dictionary the term "signature" is defined: 

"The act of putting one’s name at the end of an instrument to attest its validity; the name thus written. A signature may be written by hand, printed, stamped, typewritten, engraved, photographed, or cut from one instrument and attached to another, and a signature lithographed on an instrument by a party is sufficient for the purpose of signing it; it being immaterial with what kind of instrument a signature is made." 

WHAT ARE FORGERIES? 

In Ralph Mayer’s Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques it defines "forgery" as:

 "In the fine arts, the creation of a spurious work with intention of deceiving and/or defrauding; also, the spurious work itself. "

A forgery is rarely a copy of an original. In J. Paul Getty Trust’s "www.getty.edu" website under their Getty Vocabulary Program the term "forgeries" is defined as: 

"Use for valued objects or documents that are made or altered with intent to deceive; may range in falsehood from counterfeiting of whole works to altering of signatures or other deliberate misrepresentations. Distinguished from "copies (derivative objects)" by the
intention of deception."

If the Musee Rodin’s authorized "Rodins" are: "made or altered with intent to deceive; they may range in falsehood from counterfeiting of whole works to altering of signatures", would they be considered "forgeries?"